Recent geopolitical power plays have shown that countries will not hesitate to go to war when “national interests are concerned”, and these developments have reaffirmed the relevance of hard power, Army Chief General Manoj Pande said on April 23.
“The impact of supply chain disruptions and weaponisation of denial regimes came to the fore during the pandemic and also from the lessons of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. These developments have underscored that the security of the nation can neither be outsourced nor be dependent on the largesse of others,” General Pande said addressing the national leadership conclave of All India Management Association.
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In the context of capability development, if we are import-dependent for critical technologies on countries that possess them, we must be very clear that we will always remain one technology cycle behind, General Pande said. “Weapons manufacturing, aerospace, shipbuilding and electronics are some of the sectors where we must create our own equivalent to Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin or Raytheon Technologies, to name a few.”
The Army’s transformation roadmap entailed five pillars – force restructuring and optimisation; modernisation and technology infusion; improving our systems, processes and functions; human resource management; and promoting jointness and integration with the sister services, the Army Chief said. “The unprecedented trends in the geostrategic landscape, the limitless potential of disruptive technologies, the transforming character of modern wars and the profound changes in the socio-economic domain, are the four key drivers of Army’s transformation efforts,” he stated.
In this regard, to achieve self-reliance, he said linkages amongst academia, research and development establishments, industry, and users or the Services are critical for this ecosystem. Stating that Indian defence industry on its part is rising up to the challenge, General Pande said there are 340 indigenous defence industries working towards fructification of 230 contracts by 2025, that entail an outlay of ₹2.5 lakh crore.
Similarly, he said Army’s ammunition inventory comprises 175 variants of different calibre and type, of which 134 ammunition variants have already been indigenised through efforts of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and defence public sector units.
