Army Chief lists four targets to transform the force

Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi on Thursday listed four distinct targets to transform the force, making it ready for the future.

He termed these four targets as 'springboards' which will drive the Indian Army's transformation in the years ahead. General Dwivedi was speaking at the inaugural of the two-day Chanakya Defence Dialogue, here. These four targets will be part of three-phased graded plan to transform till 2047.

He said the first target is self-reliance, empowerment through indigenization. It remains our first 'springboard'. Its results are visible in defence manufacturing, space achievements and rapid military technology absorption. "Yet much more remains to be done as we deepen our self-reliant capability base," the General added.

Second 'springboard' is having accelerated innovations. The Army chief said "we must now move on from experimentation to enterprise-scale impact at a much faster pace in AI, cyber, quantum, autonomous systems, space and advanced materials."

The third 'springboard' is adaptation, reforming the ecosystem. "As we align defence architecture with national self-reliance goals, we look forward to concrete suggestions from this dialogue to accelerate the next phase," said the Army chief.

General Dwivedi said the fourth and last 'springboard' is military civil fusion. The development of warfighting capabilities is a multi-agency, multi-modal endeavour wherein the troika of academia, industry and the military must achieve deep cross domain synergy, he explained.

On the three-phase plan he said the Army has envisioned the phase-1 that is till 2032 and this includes comprehensive framework under the decade of transformation or accelerated transition. The phase -2 will be from 2032 to t 2037, a five-year period of consolidated gains from phase 1. The phase -3 is what would be from 2037 to 2047. "This is when we graduate to the next level of integrated future ready force design."

The General mentioned a '5-S approach' that is Sammaan, Sambhad, Saiyog, Samridhi and Sulaksha that would drive Army's progress. Translated to English it would be respect, dialogue, cooperation, prosperity and security.

General Dwivedi said the world is increasingly become multipolar where major powers are continuously jostling and competing.

The world is swiveling towards national security, deterrence and war fighting, and that inevitably raises a fundamental question on how must the Indian military transform to remain decisive and ready in this rapidly evolving global landscape, he added.