Armed Forces set for major tri-service mountain drill focused on futuristic warfare

As India intensifies its focus on futuristic warfare, a tri-service, multi-domain exercise, codenamed ‘Vidyut Vidhhwans’ is being conducted later this week under the aegis of Headquarters Northern Command.

The drill, which comes a few months after Operation Sindoor where all three services were involved in carrying out precision attacks deep inside Pakistan, will bring together troops, systems, strategies and doctrines that span not just the domains of land, air and sea, but delve into space, cyber, electromagnetic and cognitive domains.

The exercise will simulate high-pressure situations, including communication breakdowns, cyber intrusions and disinformation, exercising troops and commanders with challenges of operating in an interconnected and networked environment, defence officials said.

“At its heart, this exercise is about readiness not just for war, but for unpredictability. And it began not with noise, but with a thoughtful dialogue and well-crafted strategy to shape a future ready force,” an Army spokesperson said.

The lead-up to the drill began with ‘Samwad’, a brain storming event held at Mathura earlier this month, where officers and subject matter experts exchanged ideas on modern threats and emerging technologies.

In his key note address at the event, Lt Gen Pratik Sharma, GOC-in-C, Northern Command, had said, “The boundary between kinetic and non-kinetic operations today blurs rapidly. Adversaries will attempt to paralyse a commander’s decision cycle without firing a shot, by disabling communication, disrupting satellites or creating mass confusion through disinformation. In this reality, Multi-Domain Operations are not restricted to battlefield tactics but encompasses a paradigm shift in operational art”.

‘Samwad’ focused at preparing military minds to think beyond the precincts of conventional warfare. Topics ranged from satellite vulnerabilities to information warfare, with the core message being that future wars will be fought in uncharted territories and will test the minds as much as the machines.

For Exercise ‘Vidyut Vidhhwans’, formations are readying their gear and grid incorporating niche technologies and new generation equipment which is spread over the entire Northern Command theatre.

Besides the Armed Forces, the Central Armed Police Forces that function under the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Central Government agencies are also being integrated along with the private sector players to achieve jointness, self-reliance and innovation under the ‘whole of the nation approach’.

This is not the first time that a tri-service, multi-agency military drill is being held. Last year, Exercise Poorvi Prahar, a nine-day drill in Arunachal Pradesh involved elements from the Army, Navy and Air Force for enhancing synergy and validating joint operations in rugged high-altitude terrain.

Tri-services drills have also taken place in the past in places such as Visakhapatnam on the eastern seaboard and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, home to India’s sole Tri-service Command, though the Navy’s participation in high altitude joint exercises is a recent development.

Defence sources say that several aspects of emerging warfare transcend service line, such as cyber, intelligence, surveillance and covert missions. Besides, the Navy, which is a multi-dimensional force operation in sub-surface, surface and aerial domains, besides cyber, special operations and electronic warfare, has also been associated with operations in the mountains.

The Navy’s Marine Commando Force has been deployed in Kashmir, particularly around Wular Lake, on anti-terrorist operations for many years and during the stand-off with China in 2020, they were deployed at Pangong Tso Lake in eastern Ladakh.

The Navy’s Boeing P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft, based at Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu, and unmanned aerial vehicles also flew reconnaissance and survey missions along the Line of Actual Control AC to monitor Chinese movements. The P-8s were also reported to have been deployed along the western borders in the aftermath of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack for intelligence gathering.

In May 2023, the Defence Ministry went ahead with the move to cross-post officers to different services to give them better, hands-on understanding of their sister services’ ethos, role, nuances and operating procedures – a step towards the establishment of the much talked about integrated theatre commands. This initially involves about 150 officers at the level of Major and Lieutenant Colonel or equivalent.