Militarisation of space new threat, says CDS Gen Bipin Rawat

Militarisation of space, cyber warfare and manipulation of social media pose new security threats to nations, Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat, said in New Delhi.

“The pervasiveness of information and pace of technological change is transforming the very character of warfare and providing innovative ways to execute new forms of warfare in non-contact domain in particular,” Gen Rawat said at the 5th IETE Innovators-Industry meet in Delhi.

He said that the new threats included information operations, stealing of intellectual property rights, economic inducements, backed up by clever propaganda and at times even fake news to justify their actions.

“The militarisation of space, cyber-warfare, quantum communications, along with the manipulation of social media are all leading to new threats, further complicating the security environment in which we live in today,” said the Chief of Defence Staff.

He said that enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing were being used to produce sophisticated autonomous weapons which will accelerate the pace of combat, potentially with destabilising consequences.