With the security environment in India’s neighbourhood far from ideal, the country has to complement its economic progress with a mirroring trajectory of homegrown military capabilities, IAF Chief V R Chaudhari said here on Tuesday.
Stressing upon this point, he said the country is faced with a wide variety of threats and the distinct challenge lies in the convergence into hybrid wars and the country must prepare for such a warfare.
Making these assertions at the Indian Defence Conclave, the IAF chief said the “impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is being felt the world over. The world is staring at an economic recession, with many smaller countries already facing the brunt of political and economic instability caused by hyperinflation. In this environment, India continues to be an outlier as our economy has shown a robust recovery."
He also noted rapid economic growth has allowed countries to invest heavily into military technology and associated research and development.
Chaudhari said there have been attempts by various power centres to enhance their outreach in vulnerable and vacated spaces in economic, technological, and military domains.
"India, as a responsible power, is committed to enhancing cooperation and collaboration with the objectives of sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth and security," he said.
Chaudhari stressed that given the political scenario prevalent today, it is important for the Indian Air Force to enhance its capabilities across the conventional, sub-conventional and non-conventional domains.
Underlining the fast changing nature of warfare, he said new technologies, platforms, weapons, systems, and forms of warfare are being conceptualised, which have the potential of making the existing inventory less relevant or even redundant.
The IAF Chief said the adversaries have developed full spectrum capabilities across multiple domains, “which can be brought to bear upon us in case of any escalation, or even in a no war no peace situation.”
Faced with this challenge, the country has to build and maintain a technological edge over adversaries and prepare for hybrid warfare. This makes indigenous research and development and production of platforms, sensors, weapons or networking very critical for future capability building, he said.