New Delhi, Nov 11 (PTI) Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan on Tuesday emphasised that the country must possess “technology expertise and superiority” to protect as well as to prevail on its enemies in a conflict, as there are no “runners-up” in war.
“The fundamental truth remains unchanged; warfare will remain about winning, whether you use geography, or whether you use technology. Our responsibility is to ensure that when conflict comes, as it inevitably will, we possess a technology expertise and superiority to protect our nation and also prevail,” he said while speaking at the Delhi Defence Dialogue Conference 2025.
The CDS termed Operation Sindoor as kind of a first non-contact warfare, where precision and long-range strikes were carried out, and it was a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic warfare, networked and digitised, with one fused picture.
“It was multi-domain in true sense, it was a convergence of tactical and operational and strategic warfare together… and everything was happening in a truncated time frame at a very fast pace,” he added.
He began his address by citing the case of the Battle of Marathon that took place in 490 BC, the Battle of Waterloo and the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War.
“War is all about winning; there are no runners-up in war, there are no silver medallists for valiant efforts or consolation prizes for very brave attempts. This harsh reality has been driving military commanders throughout ages to seek every possible advantage over their adversaries,” Gen Chauhan asserted.
He underlined that geography has played an important role in deciding the outcomes of battles, adding that warfare originated on land, and it remains the “final arbiter” of assessing victory.
In some cases, the “tyranny of distance” itself was a factor of geography which prevented an assault on someone, he said.
The stakes in any kind of conflict are always high, and the very fate of a nation, the survival of a nation, depends upon that, the CDS added.
The conference was hosted by Delhi-based defence think-tank Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (MP-IDSA).
The CDS said warfare and winning in warfare are basically dependent on strategy, and this has been used in the past to win wars.
“Largely, if you see in past, strategy was largely derived from geography, an element of geography was into it, but gradually the element of technology is taking over, and overshadowing geography,” he highlighted.
The CDS also underlined that space has transformed from a support domain to a “decisive battlefield”.
“It can today be contested, defended and denied, thanks to the maturing of technologies that allow persistence, presence, offensive capabilities, and cross-domain impact,” he said.
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