New Delhi: Indian Army chief General Dhiraj Seth on Sunday called a land victory the only “tangible factor” of success in a war, despite increasing technological innovations in the defence sector.
In his address at the NDTV Defence Summit 2016, General Seth said: “We see salvo after salvo in today’s social media covering warfare across the globe, where information narratives and warfare are being fired to fog the real battle picture, creating uncertainty and confusion…However, I strongly feel, through all this clutter, one reality that does not change: land will always be the one and only tangible and useful factor of success.”
“Victory was, is, and will always be measured in territorial terms and that territory will be occupied, secured, and defended only by the force,” he asserted.
“Every capability must address one question: how does it help that soldier who puts his boots or tracks on the ground? That is why I would place him at the heart of the capability development that you’re looking at…”
Recalling a photograph taken on December 16, 1971 that depicted Pakistan surrendering at the end of the Bangladesh Liberation War, the army chief said: “The reason I allude to this today is that that photo gave us a very defining moment, because that was the precise moment when the war came to an end. But there is no demarcating moment; there is no termination point which indicates an end to the hostilities.”
He noted that conflict timelines are becoming “increasingly indefinite”, with intermittent spikes of intense fighting.
“Technology is certainly shortening the battles, but it is not necessarily shortening the war. These millennium wars can best be described as wars with pause. Pause, in fact, is becoming a part of military strategy, with the pause representing not the domination of conflict but merely a change in its intensity and manifestation,” General Seth added.
Underlining that there is no substitute for self-reliance, he said when crisis becomes prolonged, being ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) will mark the winning factor between the victor and the vanquished.
“Atmanirbharta must be about ensuring that we have the capability to endure without being constrained by what others can or cannot provide. That gives us a good reason to take a hard look at the very pathways of our indigenous capability,” he said.
However, the Army chief advised caution regarding “indigenous obsolescence”.
“The challenge is not just to reduce dependencies on others but also to ensure that what we develop indigenously does not become outdated by the time it is dumped. I would like to term it as indigenous obsolescence or that kind of a trap that can get created,” he said.
According to the government, the value of India’s indigenous defence production increased from Rs 46,429 crore in 2014-15 to a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26.
(IANS)
