In an era of technology-driven warfare, Army Staff General Dhiraj Seth brought forward a stark reminder as to why boots on the ground matter and how land remains the only tangible measure of victory in prolonged wars.
During his address at the NDTV Defence Summit on Thursday, Seth highlighted how, in the era of tech warfare, a tangible victory with boots on the ground will remain relevant as technology might help shorten battles, but it is not necessarily shortening wars.
"We see salvo after salvo in today's social media covering warfare across the globe, where information narratives and warfare are being fired to fog the real battle picture, creating uncertainty and confusion...
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"However, I strongly feel, through all this clutter, one reality that does not change: land will always be the one and only tangible and useful factor of success. Victory was, is, and will always be measured in territorial terms, and that territory will be occupied, secured, and defended only by the force," he said.
He explained how "yoddha," or the warrior, is at the heart of capability development, and that every capability should answer how it would help that soldier who puts his boots or tracks on the ground.
The army chief recalled a photograph taken on December 16, 1971, at the end of the war in Bangladesh that showed the Pakistanis surrendering.
"The reason I allude to this today is that that photo gave us a very defining moment, because that was the precise moment when the war came to an end. But there is no demarcating moment; there is no termination point which indicates an end to the hostilities," Seth elucidated.
He added that timelines are becoming increasingly indefinite, with intermittent spikes of intense fighting. Technology is certainly shortening the battles, but it is not necessarily shortening the war.
"These millennium wars can best be described as wars with pause. Pause, in fact, is becoming a part of military strategy, with the pause representing not the domination of conflict but merely a change in its intensity and manifestation," the Indian Army chief underlined.
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