Welcome Remarks by the Director during the VIF Strategic Capsule for Senior Air Force Officers from 29 to 30 July 2024

Respected Air Chief, Sh Gurumurthy Ji, Lt Gen Ravi Sawhney Ji, Participants of strategic capsule, Distinguished speakers, Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the two-day strategic capsule being organised by the VIF and the Indian Air Force for senior air force officers. We look forward to 2-days of intense and meaningful interaction with you on strategic challenges facing India at a time of great international churn and uncertainty. Some of the prominent thinkers and practitioners of strategic craft will be speaking to you over the next two days. In the past, we have organised similar interactions for the senior officers of the Indian Army and the Indian Navy.

We are grateful to the senior leadership of the Indian Armed Forces for giving us this opportunity for the last several years. We hope to continue with similar closed-door interactions in future also.

Sh S Gurumurthy, Chairman of the Vivekananda International Foundation will start the course with a talk on India’s civilisational ethos and its strategic approach. Specific sessions have been organised to cover major power rivalries and how India can navigate them, the emerging challenges for India in the neighbourhood, India’s growth trajectory up to 2047, the challenges and opportunities provided by emerging technologies, and India’s national security structure reforms. Gen Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff, will interact with you on the last day. The programme has been organised by a team led by Lt General Ravi Sawhney (retd) in consultation with the Indian Air Force.

Friends,

The post-Cold War order, characterised by the US dominance and unipolarity in finding a way in front of our own eyes. While the US remains a preeminent power, it is being challenged seriously by China. The strategic thinkers both in the US and China see the further deepening of the broad-based US-China rivalry which is likely to deepen further. The scholars are looking for parallels in history. They are using the framework of the “power transition” theory in international relations to look for clues to how the China-US rivalry may pan out in the future and whether & this is important, the rivalry and competition would lead to a major conflict. The two global powers are likely to clash, if they do, in the Indo-Pacific, possibly one Taiwan or South China Sea. Scholars are studying the British-German rivalry in the second half of the nineteenth century when Germany challenged British supremacy. The British-German rivalry, the mistakes by the leadership on both sides and the fragility of the military alliances led to the 1st World War. There were many smaller conflicts and issues which made the international environment fraught.

The current global situation is becoming increasingly precarious. China has rapidly built its military, economic and technological capability rapidly over the last few years, not without the help of the US itself, who at one point in time regarded China as a “responsible stakeholder” in international relations. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war in Europe has consolidated Russia-China strategic ties and triggered the emergence of a multipolar world order in which the power distribution is more defused than at the end of the Cold War. Russia & NATO appear to be fighting a proxy war. In the last few weeks, we have seen Russia-China military drills in the Bering Strait which led to the US and Canadian jets being scrambled. Both sides seem to be probing each other increasingly. This has global implications.

India

India is also a rising power. It will have to navigate the new world order and the uncertainty while ensuring that its interests are safeguarded. We need to learn proper lessons from the ongoing wars in the world and draw correct conclusions. Our assumptions about war and peace will have to be re-examined. For instance, the wars are going to be of far longer duration than we had expected. They will be fought in multiple domains. Their character will be hybrid where new technologies will be used and even the private sector will be involved. Information space will play an important role in the hybrid war scenario. No one should expect any helpful role from the international community if the war breaks out as the UNSC is completely paralysed.

Clearly, the ongoing wars have deep lessons for India. Are our military doctrines for the new age war adequate? Do we have enough manpower and resources to fight long-duration wars mostly by ourselves? What kind of skills and training do we require for warfighting? How soon can we become Atmanirbhar in new technologies and also absorb them? What are the implications for logistics and infrastructures at the time when we have embarked upon theatrisation? The production and availability of appropriate ammunition to be prepared for long-duration war becomes extremely important. We will need to develop a strong and robust defence industrial system to remain self-reliant in weapons and ammunition. The rise of drone and missile warfare will have implications for air defence. An appropriate lesson needs to be drawn with regard to military diplomacy, international partnerships, and nuclear doctrine. The war of the future will be fought in the fog of narrative and counter-narrative on social media, cyber and information warfare and weaponisation of finance, trade and supply chains. An all-nation approach would be needed to be ready for future conflicts. The time to prepare is now. About 25 years ago we began to reform our national security system. The NSC played a big role in that. The time has come to have another look at our national security structure in light of the global churn. The NSC should play its role in the next phase of national security reforms. To begin with, a National Security Strategy document needs to be formulated to identify the challenges & opportunities and roadmap for national security to be built for the next decade at least.

Apart from focusing on the contemporary military, political and economic issues in this capsule, we will also focus on India’s civilisational strengths. Today we see China, Russia and other countries highlighting their civilisational character. India is a long, and enduring civilisation that has survived many onslaughts for thousands of years while also flourishing as an eminent civilisation for centuries. Does the past hold any lessons for us to deal with today's problems? This is an area of enquiry and interest. We will touch on this briefly during the capsule.

Apart from geopolitical and geo-economic issues, humanity is facing many existential threats. A report by Tim Lenton and his colleagues in 2023 identifies 25 global tipping points, which if crossed, will make the planetary systems unstable and push them into non-linear uncontrolled trajectories. These tipping points are to be found in the cryosphere, biosphere, Oceans and atmosphere. They span a whole range of phenomena such as the rise of global mean temperature, the thawing of permafrost, the melting of the ice sheets, the collapse of ocean currents etc. We need to watch carefully the signs of stress that may be developing in biophysical systems. Such changes will have major national security implications which we do not quite understand. We need to broaden our lens of national security and include non-traditional security issues to have a better grasp of the challenges that we are likely to face. Climate change is one of them. Non-traditional security issues can no longer be ignored in the national security matrix of our country.

I may mention here that Shri Gurumurthy ji had addressed the experts and professionals at the NITI Aayog earlier this year. Chapter 13 in this year's Economic Survey, titled “Climate Change and India: Why We must look at the problem through our lens” is based on his lecture. This is being circulated for your information.

I now request Shri Gurumurthy Ji to address the participants.

Thank you.