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General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), addressed an audience at the International Centre on November 20, highlighting the transformative changes in modern warfare driven by technological advancements. Speaking at the C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium, he elaborated on the evolving nature of warfare and India's preparedness for future conflicts. CDS Chauhan identified three major technological trends reshaping future warfare: robotics and automation, celerity (speed and velocity), and the intelligentisation of warfare.
“Warfare has always been a contest between humans. One may be better armed, equipped with superior body armour, a sword, a lance, or a modern rifle, or possess better mobility. Yet, at its core, combat has always been between human beings,” he explained.
He warned of an impending shift to human-machine warfare, stating, “We are at the cusp of a new era. While combat today remains between humans, tomorrow it could involve humans versus machines or even machines versus machines.”
“The second trend I've identified is celerity, which relates to velocity and speed. This is being driven by technologies like hypersonics--glide and cruise--fractional orbital systems capable of circling the globe, and stealth technologies. Small cross-section drones, often deployed in swarm formations, are becoming armed, invisible, inaudible, and undetectable--making them untargetable,” he said.
“The third change is the intelligentisation of warfare, encompassing artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, large language models, supercomputing, and edge computing. The result is the pervasive digitisation of the battlefield,” he said.