Relevance of ‘hard power’ reaffirmed with Ukraine war: Pande

NEW DELHI: The Russia-Ukraine conflict has proved false the assumption of future wars being short and swift, and the relevance of “hard power” stands reaffirmed, Chief of Army Staff Gen Manoj Pande said and stressed on indigenisation of defence production and technological development.

In his address at the ‘PHDCCI DEF X TECH INDIA 2023’ on Wednesday, he warned about the “legacy of unsettled borders” that India has and highlighted the “grey-zone aggression” concept, saying it is increasingly becoming a preferred strategy for conflict resolution.

“The current Russia-Ukraine conflict provides some very valuable pointers. The relevance of hard power stands reaffirmed with land continuing to be the decisive domain of warfare and notion of victory still being land centric,” he said while talking about the lessons learnt from the conflict. “The suppositions on duration of war I think needs to be reevaluated. Short, swift war which we have been talking of for some time now may prove to be a false assumption and we need to be prepared for a full spectrum conflict even for a prolonged duration,” the Army Chief said.

He said one of the major takeaways is that India needs to wean away from import dependency. “The pursuit to infuse technology in our war fighting system indeed remains an enduring one,” Gen Pande said.

Long-range precision fires have proved that distances need not necessarily grant or guarantee safety, and air is no longer dominated just by manned aircraft, he said. “Drones, loiter ammunition, shoulder fired air defence missiles, manned, unmanned systems have democratised the air littoral,” the Army Chief said.

He said India’s legacy challenge of unsettled borders continues and it is important to recognise that infirmities in border management can lead to a wider conflict.

The Chief of Army Staff said that it’s important to recognise the infirmities in border management that can lead to a wider conflict