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Earlier this year, after the Pahalgam terror attack in April and during the run-up to Operation Sindoor, audiences of our electronic media would have been struck by one thing in particular – the frequency with which commentators on every channel were using the word ‘kinetic’. And after our deputy chief of army staff Lt Gen Rahul Singh’s comments at a televised Ficci event, on China’s role in the Pak military strikes against India in the wake of Operation Sindoor, it would be fair to predict that our experts will be pairing ‘vector/s’ with ‘kinetic’ whenever military operations happen again. Interestingly, the art of warfare and the vocabulary that goes with it stayed quite static for close to four decades after WW II. It was only in the late 1980s that a realisation began to take root in both Soviet Union and US that warfare was on the cusp of major changes.Marshall Nikolai Ogarkov of Soviet Union was the one who first talked of the
Military Technological Revolution
. And the Americans soon followed up with Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA).
What were the technological triggers that suggested warfare transformation? Essentially three: Satellites (America’s GPS and Soviet Union’s GLONASS), chips/ computers, and software.We may recall the buzz of ‘sensor and shooters’ (in addition to kinetic and vectors) and the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide and act, coined and developed by Col John Boyd of US air force) around the time of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.Thereafter Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan paved the way for American military/ academia to define their learning from these wars as the second RMA. Except this time, it was with emphasis on ‘information technology’, network centric warfare, battle space awareness, precision engagement, and related concepts like hybrid wars, grey zones (blurring the lines between cooperation and conflict), and
asymmetric warfare
.It is to the credit of Indian military to have studied and absorbed both the new technologies and the new concepts of warfare: ironically not indigenous.These imported terms now dominate our official military discourse. They appear in strategic documents, media briefings, doctrinal papers, and policy speeches. But behind this modern language lies a disquieting reality: we continue to borrow concepts rather than define our own, even as we fight wars uniquely shaped by our geography and our adversaries.Some recapitulation will be of help to understand this point. Within a few months of our Independence (in Oct 1947) the Indian armed forces went to war in Kashmir. Since then, our army has been ceaselessly in combat somewhere or the other, in India or outside, without respite.This includes action on the Line of control to Line of actual control, Cease fire line to insurgencies in Nagaland and elsewhere in the Northeast, Operation Blue Star, the militancy in Kashmir, Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka, and our intervention in the Maldives. Added to these are the wars of 1962, 1965, 1971, Kargil, and the operations of the last decade: Uri, Doklam, Galwan (these could be categorised as grey zone operations), Balakot, and now Operation Sindoor.Despite this enormous and unmatched experience of our armed forces, their rigorous training, and an inherently bright and curious officer leadership, if there is an absence of indigenous ideation it requires reflection.Over the last 75 plus years the only concept that we ourselves have promulgated was the Cold Start Doctrine. It did initially create a few ripples in our neighborhood, besides triggering some debate in a handful of think tanks. But soon and silently, the doctrine went into cold storage. The only purpose it ended up serving was to give a handle to the British and US think tanks to justify the development of tactical nuclear weapons by Pakistan. Admittedly, they would have lent this support even if there had been no Cold Start Doctrine.In comparison, China has shown a very different trajectory. Seventy five years ago, there was parity in our poverty, underdevelopment and defence capability. Yet in 1962, they overwhelmed us militarily. Today, not only is China self-sufficient in contemporary military hardware but it has also created its own homegrown strategic and war fighting concepts. There’s much we could learn from our neighbour.Just think of how it has developed Assassin’s Mace, ‘Eating the small before the big’, Salami slicing, Weiki Encirclement, and Three Warfares – to name a few of its homegrown concepts.On the Indian front, good news is that the GOI drive to achieve
Atmanirbharta
in defence has gathered considerable traction and we seem to be on the verge of significant and critical breakthroughs. What’s hugely satisfying is the spread of involvement and commitment. The big Daddies of our industries, mid level players, a large bunch of startups, our IITs and even regional engineering institutes are all biting at the leash to design and engineer the military hardware that we need. And all this is no longer confined to reverse engineering. In many areas, we are at the frontiers – the cutting edge end of critical systems. Atmanirbharta in contemporary state of the art weaponry and support systems is finally on track.What we now need to do is to superimpose on our military capability the Atmanirbharta of ideas. This includes concepts derived both from our heritage – of the Mahabharat and of Chanakya and other great warrior kings – and from contemporary visionaries like Dr Homi Bhabha. Let the world begin to learn from us. The author is a Former Director General of Artillery