Under the Vimarsha series of lectures organized by the VIF on 07 April 2021,General Bipin Rawat, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, YSM, SM, VSM, ADC, Chief of Defence Staff spoke on 'Shaping the Armed Forces to meet likely Current and Future Challenges'. It was followed with an equally exhaustive Q&A session. The CDS covered a wide spectrum in his talk, covering the issues of evolving nature of threats to India’s security, complexities in modern warfare, hybrid wars, implications of China’s rise, Pakistan’s proxy war against India, India’s military preparedness and the role of military diplomacy.

… according to her own admission, “China faces no threat”. It is therefore a matter to consider as to why China requires such a massive military establishment, a humungous power-bank which, even if intrinsic to its ‘barrel of gun’ ideology, far exceeds its reckonable defence needs - unless it is to provoke, dominate or impose over other nations’ sovereignty … this monograph is an assessment of the CMC’s strategic objectives and the PLA’s current war-worthiness to secure these …

After flashing in fury about an year back and eventually loosing much of its sheen and venom thereafter, the threat of CAATSA is alive, dangling yet again like the proverbial ‘Sword of Damocles’ over the fate of India’s purchase of S-400 system from Russia. This work is an attempt to analyse this issue in all its dimensions.

Commercial and military operations at sea and ashore across the globe are in the throes of technological and organisational transformation led by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies. These are impacting every aspect of the maritime industry necessitating `up-skilling, reskilling and retooling`. Industry leaders recognize the importance of 4IR and are adopting innovative models for their operations.