Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande on Tuesday said attempt would be across all domains to avoid a two-front war situation, but the force still needs to be prepared, should that situation arise.
He also said that in the context of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, there are “profound lessons for us”, both in the strategic domain and the operational level, as also at the tactical level.
Asked about the “two-front war situation” during an interactive session at an event organised by the Republic TV here, Gen Pande said, “While the attempt would be across all domains to avoid a two-front situation, but I believe, we still need to be prepared, should that situation arise, then, how do you employ and utilise your resources.”
“And, that is what we are currently looking at, and we have plans in place, depending on which is the primary front and the secondary front,” he said.
“And that is a function of various factors, and yes, in terms of our preparedness level, we will continue to be prepared, to fight a two-front war,” he added.
Many experts use the term two-front in the context of India’s northern and westerns borders.
On the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he further said one of the important lessons at the strategic level is that it has “reaffirmed the relevance of hard power”.
“It has shown that where national interests are involved, countries will not hesitate to go to war. Secondly, land will always remain a decisive domain of warfare, especially where there are contested borders, disputed borders, just as in our case, the notion of victory will always remain land-centric,” Gen Pande said.
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On the Agnipath scheme, he said this is a “transformative reform” which will bring about or which has brought about a “paradigm shift or change” in the way the force’s human resources are being managed, and the benefits of this scheme are manifold.
It will help us bring a much youthful profile for the Indian Army, more technologically adept youth joining the military.
“We will have a fitter Army, and availability of soldiers in combat frontline units will increase,” Gen Pande said.
“And, we are very certain that at the end of four years, when we actually start to see the results, it is going be a win-win situation, not only for the military, but also for the society and the country overall,” he said.
On the transformation steps taken by the Army going forward, Gen Pande said year 2023 has been declared as the year of transformation by the force.
“We have taken a number of transformation initiatives so that we become a more modern, more technology-driven, self-reliant and a battle-worthy force to be able to not only carry out our mandate more effectively, but also to be able to meet future security challenges in a much effective manner,” he said, adding that the Army has laid down five domains in which this transformation will take place in the future.
The first domain is force restructuring and optimisation so that you become more agile, and you look at certain legacy establishment units, and you modify them and if they are no longer relevant, you do away with them, the Army chief said.
The second one is infusion of technology and modernisation, third is the systems, processes and functions, “so automation and digitation we want to bring in, with an aim that operational, administrative and logistic efficiency is enhanced,” he added.
“The fourth domain is in the human resource management and that is where the new HR management or the Agnipath or Agniveer scheme comes into play. And, the last is the jointness and integration because we firmly believe that as you go forward, three services need to work together to leverage each other’s potential and to maximise operational outcomes,” Gen Pande said.
“While all this is happening, the Army is also conscious of our permanent commitments along the borders. So, it is extremely important that operational readiness is maintained, of a very high order, at all times, notwithstanding the transformations that we undertake,” the Army chief added.
