New Delhi: Indian armed forces had superior situational awareness and better battlefield transparency during Operation Sindoor, and they “dominated the escalation matrix on all four days” of the conflict, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said on Thursday.
His remarks, made during an interactive session at the ‘Kalam & Kavach’ defence conclave at the Manekshaw Centre here, came days after the country and the armed forces marked the first anniversary of the military action last year.
During the event, he spoke about the ‘JAI’ (jointness, atmanirbharta and innovation) triad — also the theme of the conclave — and said that as far as the planned theaterisation is concerned, efforts have been made in this direction with enhanced “scale and speed” as India is lagging behind other countries by 10-15 years, which have already implemented such structures.
“These joint structures, which we are trying to create, would be one of the most transformative reforms that India would be undertaking. We are not the first nation doing it, and we won’t be the last nation that will be doing it… many countries have attempted this. And without fail, in all countries, there have been differences between the three services, turf battles, protectionism, etc. So that’s natural. It will come in our case also,” the CDS said.
“Our model was slightly different. Some people had to introduce legislation, it was a top-down kind of approach. I tried to work through consensus. And, consensus was taking everyone along,” he said.
Earlier, during a fireside chat at the conclave, the top military officer said Indian forces had better situational awareness and battlefield transparency vis-a-vis the adversary during Operation Sindoor and “we were better off on the escalation ladder”.
Later, in response to a query on the remark, he added, “We dominated the escalation matrix on all four days, because we had a superior situational awareness. We did a mission, we knew what we had hit, what was happening.”
The CDS asserted that Indian forces had situational awareness not only on their own side but also across the border, and that “we were able to dominate every ladder of escalation”.
“And that happened because we had systems which are integrated, we are trying to fight a cohesive battle.. (with synergy) among the three services,” he said.
Asked how he foresaw future battlefields, given the evolving nature of warfare, dominated by drones and advanced weapons as demonstrated in multiple ongoing conflicts, he warned against getting drawn into prolonged conflicts.
“You have seen Operation Sindoor as kind of a non-contact warfare, along with some kind of non-kinetic thing. You must also remember one important thing that India has disputed land borders. So, warfare in older domains will always be a challenge for us. We’ve got to be prepared for this. Yet, if we are given an option, we should fight a war in newer domains in which it is easier to create asymmetries and easier to win.
“And, we should not fall into this trap of long-duration warfare. There is an increased propensity among nations to use force nowadays. But, after you use force to walk out of that… that is a major challenge,” the CDS said.
The CDS asserted that “your objectives should be very clear, your politico-military objectives. Once you have achieved them, you should be able to withdraw… there is no point lingering on. You should have a clearly earmarked exit strategy”.
Operation Sindoor was launched early on May 7 last year to avenge the deadly Pahalgam terror attack, with Indian forces conducting precision strikes on multiple terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Pakistan later also launched offensives against India, and all subsequent counter-offensives by India were also carried out under Operation Sindoor.
The military conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, lasting nearly 88 hours, halted after they reached an understanding on the evening of May 10.
Gen Chauhan also fielded queries on his tenure as the CDS, as the government recently named Lt Gen NS Raja Subramani (retd) as India’s next Chief of Defence Staff, and his primary mandate will be to implement the ambitious military theaterisation plan and bolster tri-services synergy.
Gen Chauhan, a former Eastern Army Commander, took charge as the country’s senior-most military commander in September 2022, over nine months after the first CDS Gen Bipin Rawat died in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu.
On jointness and integration, he said, “When we talk about jointness, we are actually talking about creating structures for multi-domain operations, theatre commands essentially. That’s the end state of this jointness, integration at the theatre commands. And, this is slightly different from when we say ‘atmanirbharta’.”
Creating theatre commands will differentiate force application and force generation, and essentially, it’s going to affect the security of the nation directly because it “will intervene with how we fight, how we defend ourselves, ” he added.
“Whereas, the scope of ‘aatmanirbharta’ is entirely different. It’s for a whole-of-the-nation approach. And, ‘aatmanirbharta’ will also provide some kind of long-term security to the country, through a route which is slightly different, “through economics, creating what we say, strategic autonomy for ourselves,” the CDS said.
For ‘atmanirbharta’ also, ultimately there has to be a “change” in mindset, he said.
“Where does innovation fit in all this? Innovation is the glue, actually. Between all this stuff. If you are innovative, then you create structures that are innovative for all this. Innovation is the binding glue between the first two parts, J (jointness) and A (atmanirbharta). And then it becomes ‘JAI’,” the CDS said.
