'Strike first and strike farthest' is mantra for future wars: IAF chief

Tribune News Service

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, April 18

Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari on Tuesday said the mantra for future wars would need capability of ‘seeing first’

followed by ability to ‘strike first’ and then ‘striking the farthest’.

In simpler words, the IAF chief listed how sensors, UAVs, fighter jets with long-range missile and manned-unmanned teaming of platforms will define the outcome of air power in future wars.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh Memorial seminar with the theme ‘Aerospace Power: Pivot to Future Battle Space Operations’ organised by the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS) here. The seminar will be an annual event, the Director General of CAPS Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd) said.

“To see first and see clearly, to reach first and reach the farthest and to strike first and strike with precision will be the mantra for fighting modern wars,” the IAF chief said.

India's security concerns necessitate that it puts in place adequate military power that has the ability to achieve deterrence, ensure

information dominance, coerce when needed and provide multiple response options.

Over the last few decades, the understanding of a military operational environment has significantly transformed into simultaneous, parallel and independent operations across multiple domains, the battle space in the land, sea, air, cyber and space domain, he added.

The future battle space will be increasingly complex characterised by heavy dependence on technology, asymmetric nature of threats, high tempo of operations and enhanced lethality, the IAF chief said.

The world is increasingly becoming volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, it is high time that we develop counters. “We must evolve to counter the volatile with stability and calmness,” the IAF chief said.

Attributes of high speed, reduced response time, long reach, increased mobility, technological intensity, precision firepower, shock effect, ability to operate across domains and network-centric operations have made aerospace power a formidable component of our nation’s military might. Operations like Balakot have also demonstrated that given the political will, aerospace power can be effectively used in a no war, no peace scenario, under a nuclear overhang without escalating into a full-blown conflict.

Aerospace power offers aerospace control and dominance will become a crucial factor in future battle space operations. To be able to control the airspace across domains will prove vital in the future and in order to achieve that, we must harness technology, he said.

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