Agencies
New Delhi, May 9: Army Chief General Manoj Pande on Monday said the Russia-Ukraine war’s impact on supply chains has impacted availability of some spares and weapons for India, adding that it highlights the need to be self-reliant in defence manufacturing.
Interacting with the media in the national capital today, the Army Chief, who took over the reins in the beginning of this month, also said that the Russia-Ukraine war showed that modern-day wars may not necessarily be short and swift, and the importance of information warfare is a highlight as well.
“The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has important lessons for us. The foremost is that the relevance of conventional war still remains. We are seeing many platforms - artillery guns, air defence guns, rockets, missiles and tanks being employed in this war in one way or the other. It also tells us that wars need not necessarily be short and swift. It could prolong in a manner the current conflict is,” the Army Chief said.
“Second important lesson would be for us to try and be self-reliant in terms of weapons, armaments, equipment and spares from outside. We are dependent on certain weapon systems specially in the area of air defence, rockets, missiles and certain tanks from Russia and Ukraine. So increasing self reliance and decreasing our dependence on outside sources is an important lesson. We have already started this in keeping with the Make in India initiative as also to attain ‘Aatmanirbharta’,” he said.
He said as far as the “immediate impact” is concerned, the supply chain of certain spares and ammunition has been impacted to some extent.
“But we have adequate stocks to last for a reasonable period of time. We are also looking at certain alternate mitigation measures, identifying alternate sources from friendly foreign countries. In the long term, this is also an opportunity for the private industry to step up production and meet the requirements,” he said.
The Army Chief also said that another important lesson from the ongoing war is the aspect of “non-contact or non-kinetic warfare”.
“The lesson has come out loud and clear. The cyber domain, be it the information domain, we have seen the battle of narratives has been used to gain advantage over the adversary. We need to increasingly focus on the new domains of warfare, focus on capability development...” he said.
He said addition to immediate impact, also more importantly the emerging geopolitical order is something we will have to monitor very closely in terms of realignment, in terms of new alliances. That is something which will perhaps be much clearer once the conflict ends. We have to also watch out for the stance and position of our adversaries,” he said.
General Pande added that India’s attention should not get diverted from Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific due to the Russia-Ukraine war. |
