New Delhi: Apart from strengthening its conventional prowess, India is focusing on a dynamic response along its western and northern borders that is below the threshold of an all-out war, Army chief, General MM Naravane said on Wednesday. India’s northern border is aligned with China and the western border with Pakistan.
Addressing a seminar on land warfare here, the Army chief said the airstrikes on Balakot demonstrated that if one was skilful, escalation does not always lead to war. Moreover, he noted that the Indian Army was looking to tap block-chain technologies, lasers and directed energy weapons for possible military use.
“On our part, that of the Indian Army, we have analysed carefully the changing character of war within the overall framework of conflict, as relevant to the Indian context,” General Naravane said. “The ‘grey zone’ and its varied nuances are receiving our concerted attention. Apart from strengthening our conventional prowess, we are also focusing on dynamic response – actions below the threshold of an all-out war and are refining our plans and capacities in this regard both, along the western and northern borders,” the Army chief added.
Naravane also said kinetic and non-kinetic responses were being developed to address the threat.
The Army chief pointed out that Chinese dominance in the South China Sea showed small incremental steps – none of them of them serious enough to warrant any action or reaction – cumulatively achieved the aim without firing a single shot or inviting retaliatory action.
The Chinese way of war, epitomised by thinkers such as Sun Tzu, has given a new lease and life to the concept of ‘non-contact or grey zone warfare’, where one shed the binary approach to conflict, Naravane pointed out. He also asserted that the rise of non-state actors such as terrorists demands that victory in war is formulated in a nuanced manner.
“The rise of non-state actors, such as insurgents, terrorists, transnational criminal networks combined with greater focus on individual’s status consequently demands that victory needs to be formulated and achieved in a more nuanced way,” the Army chief said.
PTI
