Cheif of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, on Tuesday issued a veiled warning to Pakistan, saying the Operation Sindoor, India’s military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack, “is still on”.
Addressing “Ran Samvad-2025″ conclave at the Army War College in Mhow, General Chauhan said, “Operation Sindoor was a model conflict from which we learnt a number of lessons, and most of them are under implementation. Some have been implemented. The operation is still on.”
Chouhan further stated that while India is a peace-loving nation, its enemies should not be under any misconception as it can’t be pacifist.
“India has always stood on the side of peace. We are a peace-loving nation, but don’t get mistaken, we cannot be pacifists. I think peace without power is utopian. I like to state a Latin quote which translates, ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’,” he said at the conclave.
The Cheif of Defence Staff also stressed the need to be ‘Shashastra’ (well-armed), ‘Suraksit’ (secure) and ‘Aatmanirbhar’ (self-reliant).
“As a Viksit Bharat, we also need to be ‘Shashastra’, ‘Suraksit’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar’. Not only in technology, but also in ideas and in practice. Hence, there is a need to increase awareness on all fragments of our society on doctrinal and conceptual aspects, that’s the academic pursuits of how war is fought and practical and actual war fighting techniques and tactics,” he said.
General also listed four essential trends in the future warfare apart from technology – 1.) increased propensity amongst nations and governments to use force to achieve political objectives; 2.) lack of distinction between war and peace; 3.) Importance of people and 4.) matrices of victory and how we perceive victory.
“In the past, matrices of victory were probably defined by losses inflicted in terms of men and equipment. In 1971, we had 95,000 Pakistanis captured. But in today’s warfare, probably the new matrices of warfare or victory are the speed and tempo of operations, effects of long-range precision strikes,” he added.