Future Force For Future Wars

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the top commanders to develop the military into a future force while taking note of the rapidly changing technological landscape.

Changing the nature of wars

• Blurred definitions: Could not say whether we are at war or peace as war is becoming practically limitless in variety.
  • Now, new terms denote changes in the de?nition of modern war. These include ‘hyper’, ‘hybrid’, ‘compound’, ‘non­linear’, ‘fourth­ generation’, ‘next­ generation’ and ‘, contactless’.
• Based on political domination: War, at its core, is organised violence waged for political domination.
  • If humans are naturally political animals, war will be the proverbial state of nature and peace, the aberration.
• Use of technology: For peace to prevail or been­ forced, the development of future force capability based on a Third Offset Strategy was announced by the U.S. in 2014.
  • It consists of cutting­-edge technology, exploration of new oper­ational concepts for utilising such technology, and retaining the brightest in human resource to achieve the objective of peace.
  • It provides for autonomous learning systems, assist­ed human operations, advanced manned­unmanned systems operations and, network­enabled autonomous weapons.
  • It impacts cognitive and perceptional domains through weapons, soldiers, robots, and cyborgs.
• Decline of Westphalian terms: Strategists reared in Western-­Style liberal democracies, are slowly being forced to come to terms with anomalies in the existing paradigm.
• Anonymous threats: Bypass frontiers without challenging national sovereignty.

Way forward: Confluence technology and a whole-of-government approach -

• Breaking of civilian-military silos: Most important political trend affecting armed conflict in the 21st century will be in the relationship between civilians and those who fight on their behalf.
• Expediting speed of decision-making besides shedding legacy system (organised campaigns, orchestrated by domain ­led central staff1): To prepare for accelerated future wars, democracies need to master the ‘hybridised effect’ of warfare.