Sino-Pak-Turk alliance turning battlefields into live labs: Army Deputy Chief

Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Capability Development and Sustenance) Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh has revealed that India was fighting three adversaries at the same time during Operation Sindoor.

Speaking for the first time since the launch of Operation Sindoor, the Deputy Chief of Army Staff said that India had one border and two adversaries, actually three.

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“Pakistan was in the front. China was providing all possible support. Turkey also played an important role in providing the type of support it did. When DGMO-level talks were on, Pakistan was actually mentioning that your such and such important vectors are ready for action and requested us to pull it back. They were getting real time updates from China,” said the Lieutenant General during his keynote address at a FICCI defence seminar, ‘New Age Military Technologies’ here on Friday.

India launched Operation Sindoor on the intervening night of May 6-7 against terrorists and terror hubs located in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) to avenge the killings of 26 civilians during Pahalgam terror attack in April.

Speaking about the close ties shared between China and Pakistan, Singh said that the red dragon was using Pakistan as a proxy to test its military hardware. “It’s no surprise that 81% of the military equipment Pakistan has acquired in the past five years is Chinese. China would rather inflict pain through its neighbours than directly engage,” he said while dubbing the conflicts as “live lab” which Beijing is using to evaluate its weapon systems against other weapons.

“This must be taken very seriously,” he added.

“Operation Sindoor, India’s retaliatory action, exposed both vulnerabilities and strengths—but more importantly, it showed the growing depth of Sino-Pak-Turkish defence cooperation,” he added.

Stating that “war is easy to initiate, but it’s very difficult to control”, the DCOAS said there were a few lessons from Operation Sindoor.

“The planning and selection of targets was based on a lot of data that was collected using technology and human intelligence. So, a total of 21 targets were identified, out of which nine targets we thought would be prudent to engage. It was only the final day or the final hour that the decision was taken that these nine targets would be engaged,” he said.

Highlighting the evolving nature of modern warfare, Lt Gen Singh has stressed the critical need for a robust and layered air defence system to protect India’s vast geography and densely populated areas.

Speaking in the backdrop of Operation Sindoor, he acknowledged that while some indigenous air defence systems had delivered commendable performance, others had exposed significant operational shortcomings.

“We don’t have the luxury of systems like Israel’s Iron Dome because of our vast geography and limited resources. Still, our population centres must be protected with layered air defence,” he asserted.

Lt Gen Singh also emphasised the increasing prominence of drones, counter-drone technologies, and long-range artillery on the battlefield. “We need to move very fast. It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” he remarked, underscoring the dynamic and rapidly changing nature of current military engagements.