A nation-state—with its numerous institutions, actors, and daily interactions—is a complex system and it is a tall task to predict the future trajectory of any of its sub-systems such as the armed forces. What is certain, though, is that every sovereign state aims to have a military that is of the highest possible calibre. One of two paths may be chosen to achieve this goal: tying-in the military’s capability development with the economic performance of the state, or the military developing enabling and cross-cutting capabilities that are relatively independent of the fluctuations in the country’s economic fortunes. A future-ready force need not necessarily be funding- or resource-intensive; the imperative is a smart approach to its threat environment and the ways to mitigate it. The future of warfare seems to be shifting towards non-contact and information operations, supplemented by limited actions in the physical domain. India needs to be oriented, prepared and equipped to fight this kind of conflict.
The State and War
‘War’ is almost unanimously understood as the use of violence by the state to attain certain political objectives.[1] There are, however, some qualifications to this seemingly straightforward definition. The image of conventional war is a mental and theoretical juxtaposition of two unrelated sets of historic events: Westphalian pre-nation-state war between kingdoms, and the globe-spanning First and Second World Wars. These have mingled with each other to...
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