Need capabilities in both non-contact and contact warfare: Army Chief

India is witnessing trailers of future conflicts and its adversaries will continue with efforts to achieve their strategic aims Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said on Thursday delving into national security challenges emanating from China and PakistanIn an address at an online seminar he said India is facing unique substantial and multidomain security challenges and that developments on the northern borders have adequately underscored the requirement of ready and capable forcesWithout naming China and Pakistan the Chief of Army Staff said that the disputed borders with nuclearcapable neighbours coupled with statesponsored proxy war were stretching the security apparatus and the resourcesWe are witnessing trailers of future conflicts These are being enacted daily on the information battlefield in the networks and cyberspace They are also being played along unsettled and active borders he saidIt is for us now to visualise the battlefield contours of tomorrow based on these trailers If you look around you will realise the reality of today he saidThe Army Chief said the developments on the northern borders have adequately underscored the requirement of ready and capable forces with an optimal component of boots on the ground backed by modern technology to preserve the countrys sovereignty and integrityOur adversary shall continue with their efforts to achieve their strategic aimssort of conflict by use of grey zone activities in the political military and economic domains and do so in a collusive manner he saidThe events of 2020 have been testimony to the diversity of security threats in all domains and this has brought the spotlight towards noncontact and grey zone warfare We need to augment capabilities in both noncontact and contact modes of warfare he said referring to the eastern Ladakh faceoffIn an oblique reference to China he also said that some nations are challenging the globally accepted norms and the rulesbased orderThis he said has manifested in various forms that included aggression and opportunistic actions to change the status quo keeping the threshold below allout warGen Naravane said the developments in Afghanistan have again brought to focus the use of proxies and nonstate actors to decisive effectThese actors thrive on local conditions innovatively exploit lowcost options to devastating impact and create conditions that limit the full use of sophisticated capabilities which are available to state he saidHe also said that the process of integration of three services through theaterisation is already moving ahead under a timebound plan and the Indian Army is totally committed to this transformationGen Naravane said the Army is focusing on restructuring rebalancing and reorienting its forces and the process has already been initiatedWe are further consolidating our operational experiences to these changes and this shall remain a work in progress he addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever