New Delhi: Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane said on Thursday that India is witnessing "trailers of future conflicts" while addressing national security challenges emanating from China and Pakistan. He said that India’s adversaries will continue with efforts to achieve their strategic aims, news agency PTI reported.
“We are witnessing trailers of future conflicts. These are being enacted daily on the information battlefield, in the networks, and in cyberspace. They are also being played along unsettled and active borders,” PTI quoted the Army Chief General as saying.
“Our adversary shall continue with efforts to achieve its strategic aims,” he further said.
He said in an address at an online seminar that India is facing ''unique, substantial and multi-domain'' security challenges. He added that developments on the northern borders have adequately underscored the requirement of ready and capable forces.
The Chief of Army Staff, without naming China and Pakistan, said that the disputed borders with nuclear-capable neighbours coupled with state-sponsored proxy war were stretching the security apparatus and the resources.
''It is for us now to visualise the battlefield contours of tomorrow based on these trailers. If you look around, you will realise the reality of today,'' he said.
The Army Chief General also said that the developments on the northern borders have adequately underscored the requirement of ready and capable forces with an optimal component of boots on the ground backed by modern technology to preserve the country's sovereignty and integrity, according to the PTI report.
He said that India’s adversary shall continue with their efforts to achieve their strategic aims and sort of conflict by use of grey zone activities in the political, military, and economic domains, and do so in a collusive manner.
Referring to the eastern Ladakh face-off, the Army Chief General said: ''The events of 2020 have been testimony to the diversity of security threats in all domains and this has brought the spotlight towards non-contact and grey zone warfare. We need to augment capabilities in both non-contact and contact modes of warfare.''
General Naravane, in an oblique reference to China, said that some nations are challenging the globally accepted norms and the rules-based order. He said that this has manifested in various forms that included aggression and opportunistic actions to change the ''status quo'' keeping the threshold below all-out war.
The Army Chief General said that the developments in Afghanistan have again brought to focus the use of proxies and non-state actors to decisive effect. ''These actors thrive on local conditions, innovatively exploit low-cost options to devastating impact and create conditions that limit the full use of sophisticated capabilities which are available to state,'' the Army Chief General said.
General Naravane added that the process of integration of three services through theaterisation is already moving ahead under a time-bound plan and the Indian Army is totally committed to this transformation.
The Army Chief General said that the Indian Army is focusing on restructuring, rebalancing, and reorienting its forces and the process has already been initiated. ''We are further consolidating our operational experiences to these changes and this shall remain a work in progress,'' he said.
(With PTI Inputs)