Wrong War

Pravin Sawhney

A month after the Indian Air Force conducted its Exercise Vayu Shakti in the desert of Pokharan with elements of the Indian Army to demonstrate ‘jointness’, the latter returned the favour in full measure. The Indian Army conducted Exercise Bharat Shakti in Pokharan. Going one-up on the IAF, it told the media that its exercise was a tri service endeavour. While some elements of the IAF were visible in the sky over Pokharan, the Indian Navy was apparently also conducting some manoeuvres in the sea coinciding with the land exercise, which showcased simulated ground-based firing, obstacle fording and tank manoeuvres.

The star attraction was the Bharat Shakti artistic installation in sand showcasing models of a tank, a fighter and an aircraft carrier with ‘Swadeshikaran se Sashastikaran’ (empowerment through indigenisation) emblazoned across it. That this was the star of the exercise was evident from the fact that most of the action took place around or over it, so that it remained in all photo frames. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi who took stock of India’s military preparedness by witnessing Bharat Shakti, which translates into India’s power, posed extensively with the installation which effectively encapsulated his slogan of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. A remarkable coincidence two months before the General Elections.

Interestingly, the official press release claimed that ‘Bharat Shakti will simulate realistic, synergised, multi-domain operations displaying integrated operational capabilities of the Indian Armed Forces to counter threats across land, air, sea, cyber, and space domains.’

Notwithstanding the gaps between the claims, the demonstration, and the exercise, it was evident that India continues to prepare for a hugely outdated war. This is deeply worrying, especially when India’s primary threat, the PLA, is at the cutting edge of modern warfare in technology, war concepts, capabilities, and capacities. Worse, there is a standoff at the Line of Actual Control for four years.

Before analysing the Indian military narrative, a good start would be to use the Pentagon prism to know PLA’s modern war capabilities, which Indian is also up against. By 2010, the Pentagon was aware that China had operational systems (software networks which connect all war domains) and guided munitions that were as capable as its own. It could close the kill chain as quickly as the US military. The PLA could do stand-off precision attacks at long ranges as good as the US military with its indigenous mortars, rockets, missiles, and artillery projectiles most of which were guided. Coupled with increasing miniaturization, guided weapons brought unprecedented lethality at long ranges. Once this realisation came, there were brainstorming sessions in the Pentagon on how to offset PLA’s combat advantage. Finally, in 2014, the Pentagon announced its third offset strategy by which the PLA advantage was sought to be outmatched by use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomy by the US military.

Meanwhile, China in 2015 did two things: it announced its ‘Made in China’ programme to focus on key emerging technologies including AI, and the PLA declared its major structural reforms. Both programmes created challenges for the US military which had concluded that PLA was its primary threat, just as India did in 2020.

The PLA’s military reforms created a new organisation called Strategic Support Force (SSF), and Xi Jinping as the Chairman of the Central Military Commission announced timelines to accomplish military modernisation in three stages called mechanisation (building of required platforms for physical land, air, sea war domains), informatisation (for integration and synergy in multi-domain operations), and intelligentisation (use of AI and other emerging technologies in informatised war). The PLA declared that it could combat in four physical (land, air, sea, outer space) and two virtual (cyber and electromagnetic spectrum) domains.

After analysing PLA reforms, the Pentagon was baffled by two things:

One, the PLA’s use of AI in its software networks. Aware of China’s progress in software systems, the former US deputy defense secretary, Robert O. Work, said in September 2020, ‘Between Russia and China, China is the most dangerous competitor since a major strength for China is the intangible autonomy of software systems and communications networks that comb through vast amounts of sensor data to spot targets, route supplies, schedule maintenance, and offer options to commanders.’

And two, the PLA’s SSF. As Robert Work observed in 2019, ‘The US should consider replicating the Chinese model of a single unified Strategic Support Force overseeing satellites, cyberspace, electronic warfare, and information warfare—functions that the US splits between Space Command, Cyber Command, and other agencies. I think the unified Strategic Support Force is a better way to go, but this