# Indian Army 2.0: Inside the Integrated Battle Groups & Drone Revolution |S3| Ep 37

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 15 Jan 2026, 55 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69451641/15_jan_26_defense_mix_15_jan_128.mp3

Is the era of the massive Indian Army over? In this episode of In Our Defence, Dev Goswami and Sandeep Unnithan decode the Indian Army's roadmap for force restructuring, a project that has been in the works for several years. The two answer the big questions: -Why is the Army desperate to "cut the flab"? -What exactly are Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs), and how do they change the way India fights wars? The episode also features a deep dive into the Army’s massive push for drones and whether tech is finally replacing boots on the ground. Finally, Dev and Sandeep imagine what the future Indian Army infantry soldier will look like and why the science fiction movies of the past years may not be so far off the mark on this aspect. Tune in! Produced by Taniya Dutta Sound mixed by Aman Pal

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
[0:08] Speaker 2: takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Deve Goswami and every week I sit down with experts
[0:16] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
[0:19] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
[0:32] Speaker 3: This is in our defense. Welcome to Another Defense.
[0:37] Speaker 2: We release this episode on Army Day, fifteenth January, which
[0:40] Speaker 2: is celebrated every year to sort of commemorate the day
[0:45] Speaker 2: and Indian General took over as the Chief of the
[0:48] Speaker 2: Independent Indian Army Field Marshall Career perm and on Army Day,
[0:54] Speaker 2: we want to focus this episode on the Nian Army
[0:57] Speaker 2: and especially what the Army of the future will look like,
[1:01] Speaker 2: something that was a major that that formed a major
[1:05] Speaker 2: focus area of the present Army Chief General General with
[1:10] Speaker 2: these press conference, the annual press conference that he holds
[1:13] Speaker 2: a couple of days before Army Day, UH, he spoke
[1:15] Speaker 2: at length about the restructuring that the Army is undergoing.
[1:19] Speaker 4: UH.
[1:19] Speaker 2: He spoke at length about several new units types of
[1:22] Speaker 2: units that will soon see light of day and will
[1:24] Speaker 2: be in the army. And he also spoke about a
[1:28] Speaker 2: legacy project that's been in the pipeline for several years now,
[1:31] Speaker 2: integrated battle Groups. Very interestingly, last year at his once
[1:37] Speaker 2: again at his annual press conference, UH General Devadi had
[1:42] Speaker 2: dropped I think a very bold comment where he had said,
[1:46] Speaker 2: UH talking about the ibgs, the integrated battle groups, that
[1:50] Speaker 2: we are hopeful that two zero two five we will
[1:53] Speaker 2: either create this IBG or cancel this project entirely, a
[1:58] Speaker 2: very bold comment I felt back then, and also I
[2:00] Speaker 2: think sort of a message to the government, which is
[2:03] Speaker 2: where the roadblock was in terms of clearance and financial
[2:06] Speaker 2: assistance and stuff like that, that either you clear it
[2:09] Speaker 2: or we just like, you know, stop this all together.
[2:11] Speaker 2: We will talk about this comment specifically also in a bit,
[2:15] Speaker 2: but we'll focus more first on the restructuring.
[2:19] Speaker 3: Are you very good? They've good to be back.
[2:21] Speaker 2: Just before the recording what you were saying, you can't
[2:23] Speaker 2: still imagine it's just been fifteen days.
[2:25] Speaker 3: Into the new year. It's just like you.
[2:27] Speaker 2: Months, Lots happening with the US, lots happening in the
[2:32] Speaker 2: Middle East now after South Americas absolutely something we thought
[2:36] Speaker 2: we might talk about this week, but I think this
[2:38] Speaker 2: is just a bit more topical, so we will, obviously
[2:40] Speaker 2: be stuff is still to happen. It's a very unfolding situation,
[2:44] Speaker 2: so we'll maybe talk.
[2:45] Speaker 3: About that a bit later.
[2:47] Speaker 2: But I thought this was a fascinating topic, and especially
[2:49] Speaker 2: because in twenty nineteen, I'm holding up this Discover story
[2:54] Speaker 2: of the Internet magazine that you wrote, you spoke to
[2:57] Speaker 2: obviously then Barmi chief Weapin Rabat, this piece of yours
[3:01] Speaker 2: from twenty nineteen January nineteen. I'm guessing this also came
[3:04] Speaker 2: after one of the annual press conferences of the Indian Army.
[3:07] Speaker 3: I had an exclusive. No, no, I'm talking the peace came
[3:09] Speaker 3: after the peace. It was around that. I think it
[3:12] Speaker 3: was in the week of Army Day. Yeah. Right.
[3:16] Speaker 2: This story that I've read sort of gives us the contours,
[3:20] Speaker 2: the broad contours of what General Rabat had in mind
[3:24] Speaker 2: back then, some of the things that he had already
[3:27] Speaker 2: said in motion, because this piece talks about how he
[3:29] Speaker 2: had met the senior leadership of the Indian Army back
[3:32] Speaker 2: then a few months before that and he sort of
[3:35] Speaker 2: you know, got them on board with the plan that
[3:37] Speaker 2: he had very interesting trivia in that that I did
[3:41] Speaker 2: not know. I mean I knew it, I did not
[3:44] Speaker 2: come unto a couple of years ago that the army
[3:46] Speaker 2: operated farms, something that I found out when I read
[3:50] Speaker 2: this piece, and that was one of the units that
[3:52] Speaker 2: were supposed to be disbanded and you know, outsourced to
[3:54] Speaker 2: the industry and stuff like that. So before WED they
[3:59] Speaker 2: talk about this topic of the restructuring of human army,
[4:03] Speaker 2: the cutting the flab so to speak, because the army
[4:05] Speaker 2: is huge, by the way, and one of the reasons
[4:07] Speaker 2: your piece came out in twenty nineteen and we're still
[4:09] Speaker 2: talking about it is because the army is so huge
[4:12] Speaker 2: that it just has a lot of inertia. Yes, it
[4:15] Speaker 2: is resistant to change by its very nature. Can't really
[4:18] Speaker 2: blame it because of the sort of a setup you have,
[4:20] Speaker 2: which is exactly what he wanted to change. By the way,
[4:23] Speaker 2: before we do that, though, because that would become a
[4:26] Speaker 2: very academic discussion, I want our listeners and viewers to understand.
[4:29] Speaker 3: Why are we even talking about this in the first place.
[4:32] Speaker 2: Why did Bipin Raba think of this as his sort
[4:36] Speaker 2: of legacy project that he talks about this He talks
[4:39] Speaker 2: about he wants to bequeath an army to his successors
[4:42] Speaker 2: that is lean, is able to fight a lean fighting machine. Right,
[4:46] Speaker 2: So why is this a point of discussion in the
[4:49] Speaker 2: defense forums. Why is this something that is on the
[4:51] Speaker 2: top of the mind then, back then and even right now.
[4:56] Speaker 2: The General Vivid has talked about this even in the
[4:58] Speaker 2: previous press conference, and he spent a large and talking
[5:00] Speaker 2: about at the press conference.
[5:02] Speaker 3: Why does the ind not we need to change basically?
[5:05] Speaker 4: Well, see, the fact is that the Indian Army is
[5:09] Speaker 4: one of the finest institutions in India. There's no doubt
[5:11] Speaker 4: about that, right, I mean, it's it is the institution
[5:15] Speaker 4: that commands the maximum number, the maximum respect across all
[5:19] Speaker 4: institutions in India, all the India today, mood of the
[5:22] Speaker 4: nation surveys. Whenever we do the thing, the one institution
[5:25] Speaker 4: everyone looks up to is Indian Army. But as you mentioned,
[5:29] Speaker 4: there is a certain systemic inertia. It is massive, it's
[5:33] Speaker 4: one point three million strong. It's one of the largest
[5:38] Speaker 4: pools of manpower in India. And it was seen that
[5:42] Speaker 4: it wasn't keeping up with the times in terms of
[5:45] Speaker 4: you know, the outgo on the revenue was dwarfing the outgoing.
[5:51] Speaker 3: Capitals, the sales and.
[5:52] Speaker 4: The salary expensions. Operations of yeah, the world impacting on
[5:58] Speaker 4: you know, force modernization. And also they were looking at
[6:00] Speaker 4: ways to you know, restore the teeth to tail ratio.
[6:04] Speaker 3: And this is not something new.
[6:06] Speaker 4: It's been suggested for several decades starting from there have
[6:10] Speaker 4: been several you know, reform reports. Is General Krishnaraw way back,
[6:15] Speaker 4: I think in the late seventies he had started talking
[6:18] Speaker 4: about the Army two thousand project, if fire member correctly,
[6:21] Speaker 4: that was what it was called. And successive Army chiefs
[6:24] Speaker 4: have tried to change the army, make it more lean, agile,
[6:31] Speaker 4: more teeth, more combat ratios when you're looking at the
[6:36] Speaker 4: western adversary, northern adversary. And General Sundarji is the one
[6:39] Speaker 4: who brought in air land battle. That concept he brought
[6:42] Speaker 4: in which he wanted to try out during brass tacks
[6:45] Speaker 4: or brass tacks. And then you had Cargil and you
[6:49] Speaker 4: had very two quick wake up calls Kargile in ninety
[6:51] Speaker 4: nine and you had Parakraum in two thousand and one.
[6:54] Speaker 3: Now as soon.
[6:55] Speaker 4: As Cargil came in, you had the Cargile View Committee
[6:59] Speaker 4: talking about the the problems, and you know, there was
[7:01] Speaker 4: certain things that need to be done. Reforms had to
[7:04] Speaker 4: be brought in, and they suggested for the first time
[7:06] Speaker 4: you needed a Chief of Defense staff to drive the
[7:09] Speaker 4: integration of the services. And in two thousand and one,
[7:12] Speaker 4: where you had OP Paracrum, but the army was asked
[7:15] Speaker 4: to mobilize to coerse Pakistan into giving up terrorism as
[7:20] Speaker 4: an instrument of state policy. The army took several months
[7:23] Speaker 4: to mobilize infamously, and yes, because that was the nature
[7:27] Speaker 4: the army had never it was.
[7:29] Speaker 3: You know, it was still stuck in the age of
[7:31] Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies.
[7:32] Speaker 4: The army has never really modernized that much to keep
[7:34] Speaker 4: up with the way technology has been changing. To fight
[7:39] Speaker 4: the kind of battles that say, you needed a swift outcome.
[7:42] Speaker 4: You know, in a couple of hours, you need to
[7:44] Speaker 4: mobilize quickly, you need to impose punitive strikes on the adversary.
[7:48] Speaker 4: That kind of realignment of the army hadn't happened and
[7:53] Speaker 4: that was seen very very profoundly doing OP program, and
[7:56] Speaker 4: that is when a lot of ambitious generals, very far
[8:00] Speaker 4: sighted generals came up with this so called cold Start doctrine,
[8:04] Speaker 4: which is actually it's always been there, but it's not
[8:09] Speaker 4: got formal political approval. It's one of those you know,
[8:13] Speaker 4: what do you call it. It's called by various names.
[8:16] Speaker 4: You know, the dynamic response strategy. The cold start is
[8:18] Speaker 4: what we know it as in two thousand and three,
[8:21] Speaker 4: around that time is when they came up with this idea.
[8:24] Speaker 4: But even so there was a lot of inertia. You're
[8:27] Speaker 4: not getting the kind of forces that could move very rapidly,
[8:30] Speaker 4: swiftly to the border, mobilize in you know, forty eight hours.
[8:33] Speaker 4: And so General Rabat when I spoke to him at
[8:36] Speaker 4: that time in twenty nineteen, is he said, look, a
[8:38] Speaker 4: lot of these reports have come out. Everybody knows what
[8:41] Speaker 4: is to be done. It's now only a question of
[8:44] Speaker 4: getting it done. So ibg's were suggested way back in
[8:47] Speaker 4: ninety nine two thousand by the Cargil Review Committee report.
[8:50] Speaker 4: Nothing had happened there. He wanted to operationalize that that
[8:53] Speaker 4: concept where move away from these huge division formations.
[8:58] Speaker 3: To you know, lighter.
[9:00] Speaker 4: Brigades that could move very quickly, all arms brigades. So
[9:05] Speaker 4: in the Indian Army, the all arms unit is the
[9:08] Speaker 4: division which has got everything. It's got sappers, it's got artillery,
[9:12] Speaker 4: it's got an aviation you know, assets attached to it.
[9:16] Speaker 4: So he wanted to bring that into the brigades. So
[9:21] Speaker 4: this is also what the US has been doing in
[9:23] Speaker 4: the last couple of decades. They were, you know, focusing
[9:25] Speaker 4: around the brigade as the principal fighting arm So these
[9:29] Speaker 4: ibgs is what was being talked about then, and this
[9:33] Speaker 4: has been a work in progress. It's taken several years,
[9:36] Speaker 4: five six years for various reasons. It was delayed the
[9:40] Speaker 4: mobilization along the China Front. You know, the army is
[9:44] Speaker 4: mobilized along two fronts now West and North. We didn't
[9:49] Speaker 4: have a situation like this in several decades where the
[9:52] Speaker 4: army is simultaneously deployed along two fronts. Earlier, you had
[9:57] Speaker 4: the Northern Front, which was you know, it was a
[10:00] Speaker 4: it was a passive front. It was being looked after diplomatically.
[10:03] Speaker 4: But after twenty twenty, after what happened in Galvan, that's
[10:07] Speaker 4: when the Indian Army had to kind of move up
[10:09] Speaker 4: there as well. So that kind of impacted a lot
[10:13] Speaker 4: of the modernization, a lot of plans that you had
[10:16] Speaker 4: for ibg's and all of that. So it's it's very difficult.
[10:18] Speaker 4: They've you know, to modernize simultaneously when you're facing the adversary. Modernization, reform, restructure,
[10:26] Speaker 4: all that happens when you have a peace dividend. Yeah, right,
[10:29] Speaker 4: when you're you know, sitting in peace time. That's when
[10:32] Speaker 4: you do all of this. The Chinese are very smart.
[10:34] Speaker 4: They did all that over the last couple of over
[10:37] Speaker 4: the last decade. In fact, Xi Jinping began the process
[10:41] Speaker 4: more than a decade ago, and right now their theater
[10:44] Speaker 4: commands and all that are in place. They've you know,
[10:48] Speaker 4: they've more or less completed their modernization by twenty twenty
[10:52] Speaker 4: five or so. They are ready to go and you know,
[10:54] Speaker 4: test their adversaries.
[10:56] Speaker 3: So we have.
[10:58] Speaker 4: Unfortunately lost a lot of time. We debated a lot,
[11:03] Speaker 4: we discussed theater commands. We still don't have the theater commands.
[11:06] Speaker 4: Ibgs haven't come up. A small number of them have
[11:09] Speaker 4: come up. But now I think there is a renewed
[11:11] Speaker 4: push to get those ibgs going, especially post ops in
[11:15] Speaker 4: do Right, so after ninety nine, after Paragraum two thousand
[11:20] Speaker 4: and one, twenty twenty five ops Indur is when the
[11:23] Speaker 4: real wake up call comes and you just have to
[11:26] Speaker 4: look around the rest of the world.
[11:28] Speaker 3: Right everybody is rearming. I mean there is.
[11:33] Speaker 4: You're talking of the prospect of Arctic warfare in Greenland.
[11:38] Speaker 4: I'm sure that European connect there's one group of NATO
[11:42] Speaker 4: that's sitting in wargaming what to do if Greenland falls?
[11:46] Speaker 4: How do we hold Greenland against the US military. I'm
[11:50] Speaker 4: sure this is happening as we speak. So these are
[11:54] Speaker 4: unprecedented times. And that entire vacation that you had, that
[11:59] Speaker 4: peace and that's over, the time of peace is gone.
[12:02] Speaker 4: And now every country in the world, every significant country
[12:05] Speaker 4: that has adversaries military adversaries, is re arming. They're modernizing,
[12:09] Speaker 4: they're spending a lot of money, they're boosting defense budgets,
[12:14] Speaker 4: They're looking for ways to you know, surge their production capacities,
[12:21] Speaker 4: get the private sector in.
[12:22] Speaker 3: All of that is happening.
[12:23] Speaker 4: And that, of course is because of the Russia Ukraine War,
[12:26] Speaker 4: which enters its sixth year just a month from there.
[12:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, good point about the peace division, because I think
[12:33] Speaker 2: somewhere in your peace in train and and you also
[12:35] Speaker 2: write about how in the build up to the Cargill,
[12:39] Speaker 2: the years two Cargill, the army actually had sort of
[12:42] Speaker 2: start cutting down the numbers of its soldiers by not
[12:45] Speaker 2: filling the vacancies that for coming in. So for example,
[12:48] Speaker 2: if gcs and Jamans were retiring, they were not being
[12:51] Speaker 2: you know, hired with the same numbers to sort of
[12:53] Speaker 2: you know, cut the flab. However, very ironically, Cargile actually
[12:57] Speaker 2: forced the army to sort of expand again and you know,
[13:00] Speaker 2: set up two more units and stuff like that.
[13:01] Speaker 3: So I think that's a very good point you made.
[13:03] Speaker 3: It was deployments kind of thing.
[13:04] Speaker 4: But you know, twenty twenty five, I mean, we've discussed
[13:06] Speaker 4: it in the past episode as well. Twenty twenty five,
[13:09] Speaker 4: to my mind is a watershed year for India, of
[13:13] Speaker 4: course because of Ops Indur, but also for the Indian
[13:16] Speaker 4: Army because my sense is that it marks a break
[13:19] Speaker 4: from the past. Twenty twenty five, you have nineteen eighty
[13:22] Speaker 4: nine when the Indian Army enters Jamun Kashmi to fight
[13:26] Speaker 4: that the terrorism that's been pushed from across the border,
[13:30] Speaker 4: and then you cut to twenty twenty five, which is
[13:32] Speaker 4: when you have the Prime Minister coming out and drawing
[13:35] Speaker 4: the new red lines, which says no state and non
[13:38] Speaker 4: state actors and all that so that actually marks the
[13:41] Speaker 4: end of the Indian Army's prolonged commitment into counterin surgery.
[13:45] Speaker 4: It will be there. Ciops will be there for the
[13:48] Speaker 4: Indian Army, but primarily focused on the Russia rifles right
[13:53] Speaker 4: all the battalions of the ARA that are fighting, they
[13:55] Speaker 4: will remain there, but the army per se will be
[13:58] Speaker 4: pulled out. This is my sense I'm seeing it from
[14:01] Speaker 4: the statements that we're hearing from the Army Chief General,
[14:05] Speaker 4: what he spoke at the press conference. The sense on
[14:09] Speaker 4: the ground is that the army is now preparing for
[14:11] Speaker 4: conventional war in a way it hasn't in several decades.
[14:15] Speaker 4: And that is the sense of all of this modernization
[14:19] Speaker 4: that's been spoken about the IBGS that's coming in. It's
[14:23] Speaker 4: a very very important turning point in the history of
[14:27] Speaker 4: the Indian military where after several decades, after nearly four
[14:32] Speaker 4: decades of fighting in ciops where that's not your primary task.
[14:37] Speaker 4: The Army's primary task is, of course, defend the borders,
[14:41] Speaker 4: hold the ground and of course inflict pain upon your adversary.
[14:47] Speaker 4: Ciops is the second, uh, you know, task that the
[14:51] Speaker 4: armed forces are. They were focusing a lot on the
[14:53] Speaker 4: second task, the first one kind of took a back seat.
[14:56] Speaker 4: But now I think we're coming back to an era
[14:59] Speaker 4: of conventional war, when you know, all bets are off
[15:05] Speaker 4: the table, what kind of war we're going to be fighting,
[15:07] Speaker 4: whether it's going to be a you know, war of vettrition.
[15:10] Speaker 4: General Robert I remember, you know, God rest his soul.
[15:14] Speaker 4: We had a lot of conversations when he was Chief
[15:17] Speaker 4: of Defense Staff, and he once told me that, you know,
[15:21] Speaker 4: wars of vettrition another thing of the past. Who can
[15:23] Speaker 4: think of two countries slugging it out for years like
[15:25] Speaker 4: the First World War, you know, And he says that
[15:30] Speaker 4: the next war is going to be space, it's going
[15:31] Speaker 4: to be cyber a lot of that special forces action
[15:34] Speaker 4: and stuff.
[15:35] Speaker 2: And then lo and behold, a few years after that,
[15:37] Speaker 2: Ukraine Russia. Ukraine had more than the Second World And
[15:42] Speaker 2: yes it was that.
[15:44] Speaker 4: And you know, i've just when you mentioned what you're
[15:47] Speaker 4: going to be talking about today, they've I just reached
[15:49] Speaker 4: into my library.
[15:50] Speaker 3: I pulled out the oldest book I have in my library.
[15:52] Speaker 4: It's written by this young British officer called Major ce
[15:56] Speaker 4: Colwell and heroes to be Major General. I want to
[15:59] Speaker 4: just read out a couple of lines from what he
[16:01] Speaker 4: says in this The book is called Tactics of Today.
[16:05] Speaker 4: It was written one hundred and twenty five years ago
[16:07] Speaker 4: when Major Calvill was marching through South Africa. He was
[16:12] Speaker 4: part of the British contingent there, and he writes in
[16:15] Speaker 4: his preface there he says, this little volume, written while
[16:18] Speaker 4: advancing with a natal field force from Lang's Neck to
[16:21] Speaker 4: the Lindenburg district, does not pretend to do more than
[16:24] Speaker 4: scratch the ground. We have left our works of reference behind,
[16:28] Speaker 4: and even infantry drill has ceased to occupy its place
[16:32] Speaker 4: in the values of the average officer. A writer on
[16:35] Speaker 4: military subjects who has no books to turn to when
[16:37] Speaker 4: in doubt is like a bark without a rudder, and
[16:40] Speaker 4: can really hope that he will avoid existing reefs by favor.
[16:45] Speaker 3: Of good fortune.
[16:46] Speaker 4: He says that we have no idea what we are
[16:47] Speaker 4: heading into, and he finally says that you know, we
[16:50] Speaker 4: have turned over another page in the history of tactics,
[16:53] Speaker 4: and the Franco German war is you know, in a receding,
[16:58] Speaker 4: and the army, which is profiting from the less of
[17:00] Speaker 4: our South Africa war, would have gained a march upon
[17:02] Speaker 4: its rival should they meet in combat within the next
[17:05] Speaker 4: few years, and we'll start with at least one point
[17:08] Speaker 4: in its favor. So he's saying, this guy is fighting
[17:10] Speaker 4: the Boer War of nineteen hundred and one, and he says,
[17:13] Speaker 4: the kind of tactics that we are seeing today is
[17:17] Speaker 4: what is going to reshape the wars of the future.
[17:21] Speaker 4: And he was involved in the First World War, so
[17:23] Speaker 4: he knew the way warfare was moving. You had smokeless powder,
[17:28] Speaker 4: which meant there was no fog of war on the battlefield.
[17:31] Speaker 4: You had this thing of British columns that were marching,
[17:36] Speaker 4: you know, lockstep being taken out by Boer snipers because
[17:39] Speaker 4: they had this fantastic rifle, the Mauser rifle with the
[17:49] Speaker 4: box magazines. So that was a turning point in warfare
[17:52] Speaker 4: nineteen and one hundred and twenty five years. And now
[17:55] Speaker 4: I believe with the Russia Ukraine War, you're seeing another
[17:58] Speaker 4: turning point. I mean, there are guys who say that, look,
[18:00] Speaker 4: Russia Ukraine and drone warfare has changed warfare more profoundly
[18:07] Speaker 4: than say the stirrup and boarded for mongo archers, you know,
[18:13] Speaker 4: a thousand years ago. So that is how profound you know,
[18:16] Speaker 4: change has been thanks to the Russia Ukraine w very quickly.
[18:21] Speaker 4: You know, what are the changes you're looking at Russia
[18:22] Speaker 4: Ukraine war. The first thing, of course is drones, right.
[18:26] Speaker 4: It has completely changed the battlefield. You're looking at a
[18:29] Speaker 4: transparent battlefield, right that anything that's there on the battlefield
[18:34] Speaker 4: can be detected, it can be tracked, and it can
[18:36] Speaker 4: be hunted in real time. And it is so effective.
[18:39] Speaker 4: The kind of first person viewed drones that have come in.
[18:41] Speaker 4: Guys with goggles they're just flying these drones over the battlefield.
[18:46] Speaker 4: They can, you know, knock out individual soldiers. They're hunting
[18:49] Speaker 4: individual soldiers. That's one big thing. Then you have electronic
[18:53] Speaker 4: warfare that's coming in a very big way. Ew Then
[18:56] Speaker 4: you have your traditional maneuver warfare has changed completely. You
[19:03] Speaker 4: have you know, the heavy firepower that's come in long
[19:07] Speaker 4: range precision fires. You have the ability to fire these
[19:11] Speaker 4: heavy drones very deep into Nymy territory. All of these
[19:15] Speaker 4: things have happened in the last four or five years.
[19:17] Speaker 4: And that's why I think we are in a turning point,
[19:20] Speaker 4: not just for the Indian army, which is because of
[19:23] Speaker 4: the political leadership which has decided to use military as
[19:28] Speaker 4: an instrument of state power after several decades coercive state power.
[19:34] Speaker 4: And you also have the global environment also shaping. So
[19:37] Speaker 4: that's why it's a convergence of many, many factors. And
[19:40] Speaker 4: so what General Dwivedi said is a manifestation of all
[19:44] Speaker 4: of this that the world is changing around us and
[19:47] Speaker 4: we also have to, you know, rapidly change get drones
[19:50] Speaker 4: in a big way. So all the reforms that he's
[19:53] Speaker 4: talking about is essentially that, you know, future proofing the
[19:56] Speaker 4: Indian Army.
[19:57] Speaker 3: Right, that's obviously the reason.
[20:01] Speaker 2: That is the tactical and the military reason for doing
[20:04] Speaker 2: what the army is doing. But just two for a
[20:06] Speaker 2: reference to our viewers, because you mentioned this briefly about
[20:10] Speaker 2: the budget, I have numbers for the twenty six total
[20:15] Speaker 2: military budget defense budget. Unfortunately there's no breakup between Army,
[20:19] Speaker 2: Air Force and the Navy and pritty shure the government
[20:21] Speaker 2: has it, but they did not release it.
[20:22] Speaker 3: But still this will give our listeners.
[20:25] Speaker 2: View was a picture of exactly what you were talking
[20:26] Speaker 2: about because a majority of this more than half would
[20:28] Speaker 2: be in an army because of sheer size the air
[20:30] Speaker 2: force in the Navy is more than comparison the total
[20:33] Speaker 2: defense budget for the year financial year was rupee six
[20:36] Speaker 2: point eight one lack road, of which the revenue expenditure
[20:40] Speaker 2: that is, the money that the three forces spend on
[20:43] Speaker 2: salaries and daily operations operation requirements basically was three point
[20:47] Speaker 2: one to one lack row, and the pension bill again
[20:50] Speaker 2: for the three forces was six one point six to
[20:52] Speaker 2: one lackroer, leaving only rupees one point eight lackrow for
[20:58] Speaker 2: buying stuff, of which which a large part of the
[21:02] Speaker 2: money is already stuff you bought, by the way, so
[21:05] Speaker 2: the you that you bought you're paying for, you know,
[21:08] Speaker 2: still matches for that. So so when people, as an example,
[21:13] Speaker 2: is just an example, just an example for us.
[21:15] Speaker 3: Buy one hundred and fourteles will be paying.
[21:18] Speaker 2: For several decade decades actually ye, because it does not
[21:21] Speaker 2: go in one single check by the.
[21:24] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's it's the death of the budget.
[21:27] Speaker 2: So that I think actually was one of the biggest
[21:30] Speaker 2: forces I think for the army to sort of reshape
[21:32] Speaker 2: and cut down it's built so that it would spend
[21:34] Speaker 2: money on buying drones for example, building a rocket forces
[21:37] Speaker 2: also something that is us that the general that which
[21:41] Speaker 2: you've talked about, uh, and stuff like that. So let's
[21:44] Speaker 2: talk about the IBGS, something that's been happening for several years,
[21:47] Speaker 2: and I don't want to give us a very plain,
[21:49] Speaker 2: sort of an academic breakdown of how the integration will
[21:52] Speaker 2: happen and what units will be there. Easier way to
[21:55] Speaker 2: do it isn't a live war scenario. So you can
[21:57] Speaker 2: pick whichever you want. You can pick operations in dore
[22:00] Speaker 2: hypothetical one two point zero, or you can pick the
[22:04] Speaker 2: LAC standoff, whichever you think is the best and the
[22:07] Speaker 2: most appropriate to give us a picture of IVEBGS.
[22:09] Speaker 3: Let's say India war to launch a.
[22:11] Speaker 2: Ground encouraging ground operations, something that the Army chief said
[22:15] Speaker 2: India was ready to during options in either against China
[22:18] Speaker 2: or percussion for whatever sort of provocation.
[22:21] Speaker 3: They throw at us.
[22:23] Speaker 2: With the IBGS in existence, completely done, the project is
[22:26] Speaker 2: fully done, is complete transformed? How does the fighting look
[22:30] Speaker 2: different compared to now versus with IBS completely in the AA?
[22:34] Speaker 3: Tell us that and we well, so.
[22:37] Speaker 4: The integrated battle group. The idea is the IBG is
[22:40] Speaker 4: you have these brigade size formations like I mentioned, which
[22:43] Speaker 4: are completely integrated. They have all their firepower, They're headed
[22:46] Speaker 4: by major generals that can command these forces. So they
[22:53] Speaker 4: have about three battalions and uh there's plans for about
[22:57] Speaker 4: a dozen of them. They're breaking up one strike core
[23:01] Speaker 4: into several ibgs. They plan to have a number of
[23:04] Speaker 4: them on the Western Front and of course on the
[23:06] Speaker 4: northern Front. So the idea is that it is to
[23:09] Speaker 4: cut down the mobilization time and to have these forces
[23:14] Speaker 4: moved very quickly. That's the whole concept behind the IBG
[23:20] Speaker 4: war fighting scenario. And if you were to look at
[23:23] Speaker 4: the way the ibgs would be deployed, my sense is
[23:28] Speaker 4: that these would be part of offensive formations. You have
[23:32] Speaker 4: two types of course. You have the strike course and
[23:35] Speaker 4: you have the pivot course. Pivot course wold ground strike
[23:38] Speaker 4: course go across into enemy territory, so typically we have
[23:43] Speaker 4: four strike course And to understand the role of a
[23:45] Speaker 4: strike course, that a strike core has no tasks on
[23:49] Speaker 4: Indian territory. All their tasks are across the border, whether
[23:53] Speaker 4: it's across the LC, the international border, or the LAC.
[23:58] Speaker 4: So one of the primary reason, one of the primary
[24:01] Speaker 4: thrusts of the IBG would be to cross over into
[24:05] Speaker 4: enemy territory cause huge damage on the enemy's war fighting potential,
[24:11] Speaker 4: his armored formations, his fighting formations, degrade them, destroy them
[24:19] Speaker 4: and whole territory. So the whole thing is that they
[24:23] Speaker 4: would go across very swiftly, and they would mobilize in
[24:27] Speaker 4: a number of locations, literally searched, a number of arrows
[24:31] Speaker 4: would shoot out from across the international boundary, across the
[24:36] Speaker 4: YEOC as well and grab territory and then fight the
[24:40] Speaker 4: enemy over there. So that is the idea, and you
[24:42] Speaker 4: will do it very quickly.
[24:43] Speaker 3: From the.
[24:45] Speaker 4: Time that the signal is given forty to seventy two hours,
[24:49] Speaker 4: they would have already moved in very quickly before the
[24:53] Speaker 4: pakistanis kind of the adversaries kind of mobilize their forces
[24:58] Speaker 4: to face them.
[25:00] Speaker 3: So this is what you're looking at now.
[25:01] Speaker 4: If a hypothetical scenario that you painted, how would it
[25:06] Speaker 4: play out, Say in opsind two point zero. The first
[25:10] Speaker 4: salvos would come from the rocket force. Now that's an
[25:14] Speaker 4: important component of that. The rocket force will go across
[25:17] Speaker 4: and hit the two thousand and or so Pakistani targets
[25:21] Speaker 4: that have been identified as a center of gravities of
[25:26] Speaker 4: the enemy, paralyze their communication nodes, their movement of their
[25:32] Speaker 4: strike course. The northern one and the southern one completely
[25:35] Speaker 4: immobilize them. After this massive barrage from long range precision
[25:41] Speaker 4: fires you know, dramas, missiles, cruise missiles, drones. All of
[25:48] Speaker 4: that happens followed by the air force. You will then
[25:51] Speaker 4: have the army moving in, so the opening blows would
[25:54] Speaker 4: be delivered by long range artillery, long range missiles. Then
[25:58] Speaker 4: the IBG would move. Now this different from in the
[26:01] Speaker 4: old days because now you have the ability to engage
[26:06] Speaker 4: targets in depth. Earlier, an infantry soldier had the ability
[26:10] Speaker 4: to engage a target at one four hundred meters that's
[26:14] Speaker 4: the range of his rifle. Today you have Indian Army
[26:18] Speaker 4: drone platoons that have the ability to engage over the horizon.
[26:23] Speaker 4: They're going to five kilometers, ten kilometers, and even with
[26:26] Speaker 4: FBV drones wire guided FBE drones go up to fifty kilometers.
[26:30] Speaker 4: Even so, the range reach of an ordinary soldier has
[26:36] Speaker 4: now expanded dramatically in the last couple of years, especially
[26:39] Speaker 4: with the kind of reforms that you're talking about, So
[26:42] Speaker 4: when IBG will have far more striking potential than say
[26:46] Speaker 4: even an old strike court had. Now the strike course
[26:49] Speaker 4: of old we had three strike coores one, two and
[26:54] Speaker 4: twenty one. Now we have seventeen. They had a limited thing.
[26:58] Speaker 4: They could only make limited in versions of a couple
[27:01] Speaker 4: of kilometers, five kilometers, ten kilo. We've never really gone
[27:04] Speaker 4: very deep into Pakistani territory. But now because of these
[27:09] Speaker 4: technologies that have come in, these new formations that are
[27:12] Speaker 4: come in, these new capabilities that have come in, we
[27:14] Speaker 4: have the ability to go in significantly deeper to fifty
[27:18] Speaker 4: kilometers and all that. You have the ability to with
[27:23] Speaker 4: stuff like coming in, like drone enabled maneuver warfare. It's
[27:26] Speaker 4: not been put into practice, but I'm sure they're working
[27:29] Speaker 4: on something similar where drones form the spearhead of maneuvers
[27:34] Speaker 4: maneuver warfare. Earlier it was the tank. Now you have
[27:38] Speaker 4: massive drones operating in this air literal that is from above.
[27:43] Speaker 4: The air literal is zero two thousand feet. So you
[27:46] Speaker 4: have these drone swarms coming in hitting their enemy at
[27:49] Speaker 4: the rear, you know, literally collapsing his defenses, stranding him,
[27:53] Speaker 4: encircling him. You know, all of that is going to happen,
[27:55] Speaker 4: and that's all the EUDRA, the buyer of all of these,
[28:00] Speaker 4: are part of that, you know, restructuring of the armed
[28:04] Speaker 4: forces based on the kind of technologies that are coming
[28:07] Speaker 4: in and we saw a bit of that. They will
[28:09] Speaker 4: obsindur if you remember the tenth of May, that thirty
[28:13] Speaker 4: minute barrage of Brahmas missiles, the paralysis of Pakistan's airfield.
[28:19] Speaker 4: So that was achieved in very very rapid you know, succession,
[28:24] Speaker 4: one after the other. You had their airfields taken out
[28:27] Speaker 4: and you had the Park Air Force moving into debt bases.
[28:30] Speaker 4: So the thing is that now with jointmanship coming in integrated,
[28:35] Speaker 4: the war fighting being emphasized, you will have faster tempo
[28:41] Speaker 4: of operations. So therefore the IBG becomes just one component
[28:45] Speaker 4: of an overall force movement where you will have the
[28:50] Speaker 4: air force moving in. Of course the army moving in
[28:54] Speaker 4: the drones will first go the drones, the rockets, the missile,
[28:56] Speaker 4: the air force, and then the IBG moves in very
[28:58] Speaker 4: swiftly does the mopping up and holds territory. So the
[29:01] Speaker 4: main thing of the focus of the army is to
[29:04] Speaker 4: hold territory and that is going to be very important
[29:07] Speaker 4: in post conflict negotiations, and so that is primarily the
[29:12] Speaker 4: focus of the IBGS, both in the western theater, western
[29:15] Speaker 4: sector as well as in the northern sector.
[29:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I think that if you were to
[29:19] Speaker 2: simply sort of, you know, maybe understand this, it's something
[29:23] Speaker 2: that you capability wise can do anyway right now. However,
[29:28] Speaker 2: you're just formalizing structures to ensure that it happens by default. So,
[29:32] Speaker 2: for example, a striker commander today, if he wants to
[29:35] Speaker 2: do something like what you describe, he can probably do
[29:37] Speaker 2: that by saying, okay, lone Jan Longjiangi. But that's something
[29:43] Speaker 2: he has to do at his level. But if the
[29:45] Speaker 2: Army headquarters devises this massive plan that applies to the
[29:48] Speaker 2: entire Indian Army across the country, it's just easier for
[29:51] Speaker 2: everyone to do what needs.
[29:52] Speaker 3: To be done.
[29:53] Speaker 4: Absolutely so with the kind of capabilities that you have now,
[29:56] Speaker 4: with the kind of like every battalion now has drone platoons.
[30:01] Speaker 4: They're talking about drone companies, So you have battalions that
[30:05] Speaker 4: have the ability to strike very quickly, very you know,
[30:09] Speaker 4: like at ten twenty kilometers and all without relying on
[30:12] Speaker 4: their own artillery. So drones have become like they've replaced rifles,
[30:17] Speaker 4: they've augmented artillery. So the striking power of battalions today
[30:22] Speaker 4: is far greater than what it was even a decade ago,
[30:25] Speaker 4: right so I've spoken to field commandos saying that the
[30:30] Speaker 4: problem we have now is is not drones.
[30:33] Speaker 3: Is that we have too many of them.
[30:35] Speaker 4: The air litteralists completely clogged with those that like traffic jam.
[30:39] Speaker 4: Thousands It's a traffic jam. Yeah, it's thousands of drones
[30:42] Speaker 4: up in the air there and we have no idea
[30:44] Speaker 4: of you know, like you mentioned, it's like a traffic
[30:47] Speaker 4: jam over there. The air literal is completely crowded with
[30:51] Speaker 4: drones of all sizes and shapes, and you have this
[30:54] Speaker 4: thing of you know, if you're looking at a core,
[30:57] Speaker 4: for instance, you have drones from one division that are
[31:02] Speaker 4: going and flying into the area of another division. So
[31:04] Speaker 4: you know, those kind of this thing is happening. So
[31:07] Speaker 4: drones have actually significantly increased the war fighting potential of
[31:12] Speaker 4: all these formations, and that is one of the reasons
[31:15] Speaker 4: that you're now seeing them being inducted across. Artillery is
[31:19] Speaker 4: inducting them. Cor of Artillery is inducting them, and you're
[31:23] Speaker 4: of course getting it into the three hundred and eighteen
[31:27] Speaker 4: infantry battalions as well. And the most important thing there
[31:31] Speaker 4: is that you know, I've been talking to the Field
[31:35] Speaker 4: Army some very bright officers who are doing some fantastic
[31:38] Speaker 4: cutting edge technology AI drones. All of that is that
[31:44] Speaker 4: you have a whole new card of officers who are
[31:48] Speaker 4: thinking out of the box innovators, right, and this is
[31:51] Speaker 4: being encouraged by the Army from the top down. Earlier
[31:54] Speaker 4: it was that, you know, the innovator was seen as
[31:57] Speaker 4: a stand alone is a curiosity, you know, like he's
[32:01] Speaker 4: this guy who's done this innovation and you know, he's celebrated,
[32:04] Speaker 4: and then that never gets absorbed as technology. But now
[32:08] Speaker 4: the Army is actively encouraging it. So it's not just
[32:11] Speaker 4: speeches when the Army chief says that we are encouraging innovators,
[32:15] Speaker 4: where you know, this is a decade of transformation. As
[32:17] Speaker 4: he spoke, this is the thing of a year of absorption.
[32:23] Speaker 4: Last year was a year of technology absorption. This is
[32:26] Speaker 4: this stuff is actually happening on the ground. We sit
[32:29] Speaker 4: here and you know, Delhi far away from the Field Army.
[32:31] Speaker 4: We think that, you know, we know everything. Nothing much
[32:35] Speaker 4: is happening, but there's a lot that's going on in
[32:37] Speaker 4: the field right. The field Army is really absorbing drones
[32:41] Speaker 4: in a way that it suggests that you know, the
[32:44] Speaker 4: conflict well, the conflict is upon ours. We saw that
[32:48] Speaker 4: during absen Dur. But now they are prepared, far greater awareness,
[32:54] Speaker 4: far more preparedness. And the main thing is that innovators,
[32:58] Speaker 4: I mean, you know, celebrated, they've been feateted, they've been promoted,
[33:03] Speaker 4: and that is the way to go forward, you know,
[33:06] Speaker 4: because technology can't just come, you know, in an isolation.
[33:10] Speaker 4: It has to come through innovators. And it is this
[33:12] Speaker 4: human capitalizing that the army is tapping. And the classic
[33:16] Speaker 4: case is the Ramjet artillery round. Yes, the IT Madras. Yes,
[33:22] Speaker 4: I mean, what an amazing project. I mean, that's one
[33:25] Speaker 4: of the first time that India is actually taking the
[33:28] Speaker 4: lead in military technology where there's just one other country
[33:33] Speaker 4: that's developing this kind of round. And IT Madras is
[33:37] Speaker 4: already well on the way towards you know, getting there.
[33:40] Speaker 3: It's another three or four years. It will be in
[33:42] Speaker 3: the Indian army.
[33:45] Speaker 4: Around that actually functions like a small little BrahMos missile.
[33:49] Speaker 4: You know, it goes to thirty or forty percent more
[33:53] Speaker 4: range from the existing calibers.
[33:55] Speaker 3: So lots is going on.
[33:57] Speaker 4: It's a very interesting time to be looking at the military.
[34:01] Speaker 2: In fact, you know, the thing earlier last year there
[34:03] Speaker 2: was this change in an hr policy of the army
[34:08] Speaker 2: where basically, if I'd recalling it correctly, so any officer
[34:12] Speaker 2: who you know had this sort of hobby, let's say it,
[34:15] Speaker 2: he was allowed to do that. However, after a certain
[34:17] Speaker 2: number of years he had to by default accept a
[34:20] Speaker 2: command role and take his attention off from his so
[34:23] Speaker 2: called hobby, otherwise he would lose his career prospective.
[34:26] Speaker 3: Right, I think they've changed that.
[34:27] Speaker 2: Now you can still pursue your innovation, you can still
[34:31] Speaker 2: pursue your promoted and be still promoted.
[34:33] Speaker 4: And that So one of the leading beneficiaries of that
[34:37] Speaker 4: is Colonel Yes, Yeah, Colonel Kalashniko as he called him.
[34:42] Speaker 4: He's the first Indian to design a nine by nineteen
[34:45] Speaker 4: submachine GUNYAH, which has been accepted into service. So the
[34:50] Speaker 4: idea is the message has gone down the rank and
[34:53] Speaker 4: file that you know, they we are looking out for
[34:56] Speaker 4: people who can deliver solutions for us because you know,
[34:58] Speaker 4: like I was talking to one of the innovators who.
[35:00] Speaker 3: Knows our problems better than us.
[35:04] Speaker 4: So thereby extending that corollary, they are becoming their own
[35:09] Speaker 4: problem solvers. So you know, gone other days when you
[35:12] Speaker 4: you know, waited for someone to come to your thing
[35:15] Speaker 4: and you kept complaining, or the DADO doesn't do this,
[35:17] Speaker 4: or they don't do that, or we have no contact
[35:20] Speaker 4: with the research institutions. The things are also changing because
[35:23] Speaker 4: now you have not just a different army hierarchy, leadership,
[35:28] Speaker 4: but also industry that has really matured. So if you
[35:32] Speaker 4: go out with a solution, you can quickly find an
[35:36] Speaker 4: industry partner you can deliver it for you. Right, So
[35:39] Speaker 4: that civil military fusion, as General ral Shukla talks about,
[35:44] Speaker 4: it's already happening as we speak.
[35:46] Speaker 2: Right, we'll talk more about this, especially about what the
[35:49] Speaker 2: future soldier of the army could look like.
[35:52] Speaker 3: But after a quick.
[35:53] Speaker 5: Break, A lot of fans of a wondering that you know,
[35:57] Speaker 5: and I'd like to ask because a lot of male
[35:59] Speaker 5: journalists who sit on the side and question female athletes
[36:02] Speaker 5: sometimes asks, man, you're going to settle down? You know,
[36:04] Speaker 5: that proverbial question, stereotypical as cliche as it gets.
[36:08] Speaker 6: I think, I think it's a good question to ask,
[36:10] Speaker 6: and I think I should settle down, and I think
[36:12] Speaker 6: I will settle down, hopefully in the course of the
[36:15] Speaker 6: next three years. I think as I get marriage. Yes, oh,
[36:19] Speaker 6: I mean as.
[36:20] Speaker 5: I believe you can settle. You don't need to be
[36:22] Speaker 5: married to.
[36:23] Speaker 6: I mean as as I think, you know, as I
[36:26] Speaker 6: start to age, I think companionship is more important and
[36:29] Speaker 6: I think it's necessary. So yeah, probably soon.
[36:33] Speaker 5: Soon, Okay, we're going to leave it in that. But
[36:38] Speaker 5: a parting shot, what you've learned, how you look back.
[36:43] Speaker 6: No, I think sport has been my greatest teacher. It
[36:45] Speaker 6: taught me a thing or two about winning, but sport
[36:49] Speaker 6: really taught me how to lose. Sport taught me a
[36:52] Speaker 6: lot about integrity, which I hold dear to me. Sport
[36:57] Speaker 6: taught me a lot about respect, about learning to respect people,
[37:00] Speaker 6: about respecting rules, but sport importantly taught me how to
[37:04] Speaker 6: respect my own self. And sport basically has left me
[37:08] Speaker 6: in good stead to play the larger game, the game
[37:11] Speaker 6: called life.
[37:11] Speaker 5: So if you could give yourself a twenty three year
[37:15] Speaker 5: Rulden advice, would it be.
[37:17] Speaker 6: I don't know. I think, as I said, already kind
[37:21] Speaker 6: to yourself.
[37:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome back before the breakers, and we've described to
[37:29] Speaker 2: us what how the army could fight like in the future,
[37:33] Speaker 2: in the very near future, with when it has these
[37:36] Speaker 2: ibgs in place, integrated battley groups where it integrates different
[37:40] Speaker 2: elements of what already has, but in a very formalized setup,
[37:44] Speaker 2: so that it's very easy to launch an operation in
[37:47] Speaker 2: the in the shortest possible time. It's happening, it's been approved,
[37:53] Speaker 2: it's happening, and we'll probably see it very very soon.
[37:55] Speaker 2: So this next question is sort of redundant, but I
[37:58] Speaker 2: am still curious about this common meant that the Army
[38:01] Speaker 2: chief made last year. Again, it was General Devadi. This
[38:04] Speaker 2: was his first annual press conference after he took over
[38:07] Speaker 2: as the Army chief, where he basically said that if
[38:11] Speaker 2: it doesn't happen by this year. He said the same
[38:13] Speaker 2: jan last year, if it doesn't happen by this year,
[38:16] Speaker 2: I'm shelving the project now. For me, that was a
[38:18] Speaker 2: very interesting comment because if it's something that you've devoted
[38:21] Speaker 2: so many years too, if it's something that is so
[38:23] Speaker 2: crucial for you, how can you talk about shelving it altogether?
[38:26] Speaker 2: So what was that comment all about?
[38:28] Speaker 3: Sandy?
[38:29] Speaker 4: Well, you know, my sense is that I haven't had
[38:31] Speaker 4: a chance to ask him about that comment, but my
[38:33] Speaker 4: sense is that where the rest of the world was
[38:36] Speaker 4: heading in twenty twenty five, this is of course, his
[38:38] Speaker 4: comments came pretty Obsen door is that they were moving
[38:42] Speaker 4: away from ibg's integrated battle groups towards heavy divisions, going
[38:47] Speaker 4: back to divisions. So the integrated battle group is something
[38:50] Speaker 4: that came up. It is a post Cold War era
[38:53] Speaker 4: construct where the Americans led the way on this. The
[38:57] Speaker 4: Russians also had their battalion Tactical groups dgs as they
[39:00] Speaker 4: call them. The Americans had the Striker brigade concept where
[39:06] Speaker 4: he had a fully light brigade which could be swiftly
[39:10] Speaker 4: airlifted into conflict theaters.
[39:13] Speaker 3: So a lot of work was going on around the.
[39:16] Speaker 4: Brigade itself, right, But with the Russia Ukraine War, what
[39:20] Speaker 4: they've realized in twenty twenty four to twenty five is
[39:23] Speaker 4: that brigades are no longer sufficient. They can't generate that
[39:28] Speaker 4: kind of combat mass and firepower to break through determined adversaries.
[39:35] Speaker 4: And you only have to see what the Russians have
[39:37] Speaker 4: been fighting in Ukraine all of twenty twenty five. What
[39:40] Speaker 4: five thousand square kilometers were captured. Some of the heaviest
[39:44] Speaker 4: fighting has happened in twenty twenty five. So in the
[39:48] Speaker 4: West there is a kind of thinking, at least in
[39:50] Speaker 4: the United States US military, they're going back to divisions.
[39:54] Speaker 4: They're saying, we're done with brigades. Striker brigades are thing
[39:59] Speaker 4: of the past. We have to fight near peer adversaries.
[40:02] Speaker 4: We need to go down the division path. We need
[40:04] Speaker 4: to focus on divisions, and we need to make them
[40:09] Speaker 4: much more lethal with the kind of firepower, long range,
[40:12] Speaker 4: precision fires, electronic warfare thing to fight the battles of
[40:18] Speaker 4: today and tomorrow. So are my senses that he said
[40:22] Speaker 4: it saying that, look, possibly we need to go back
[40:24] Speaker 4: to our divisions. And my sense also again is with
[40:29] Speaker 4: this IBGS, I'm not very clear how this is going
[40:34] Speaker 4: to play out. Whether they're going to convert the whole
[40:37] Speaker 4: army into ibgs or they will retain division because the
[40:40] Speaker 4: division is the actual combined arms of the army.
[40:45] Speaker 3: But they said divisions are moving too slow.
[40:48] Speaker 4: You know, they're not agile, so therefore let's go for
[40:51] Speaker 4: light commando battalions. Let's go for ibgs. But my sense
[40:55] Speaker 4: is that they will possibly go back to divisions as
[41:00] Speaker 4: thing of war fighting, as is happening across the world,
[41:03] Speaker 4: and you just have to see, like I said, Russia, Ukraine,
[41:06] Speaker 4: that's the theater the way you know, future wars are
[41:09] Speaker 4: going to be fought empty battlefields. Battlefields are empty. There's
[41:13] Speaker 4: nothing out there because anything that's there is within minutes
[41:17] Speaker 4: it's hunted down and such.
[41:20] Speaker 3: You know, brutal precision that you can you.
[41:22] Speaker 4: Have the ability to see the whites of the soldiers
[41:25] Speaker 4: that you're waking out, the whites of their eyes. You
[41:28] Speaker 4: can see it. That's it's cruel, it's heartrending. It's like,
[41:31] Speaker 4: you know, war is a video game, but that's the
[41:34] Speaker 4: way wars are, and we have to be prepared for it.
[41:37] Speaker 4: We have no designs on anyone's territory, but if this
[41:41] Speaker 4: kind of thing is going to be, you know, inflicted
[41:44] Speaker 4: on us, we better be prepared for it.
[41:46] Speaker 3: Right.
[41:48] Speaker 2: So I want to talk about drones on this point,
[41:52] Speaker 2: on this on this note, because that's also a significant
[41:56] Speaker 2: that was a significant topic of discussion at the press
[41:59] Speaker 2: conference yesterday. He was asked multiple questions on this in
[42:03] Speaker 2: the follow ups, and we were talking about the concept
[42:07] Speaker 2: of air literals. Yeah, so tell us how the army
[42:11] Speaker 2: is right now you looking at drones and is there
[42:14] Speaker 2: sort of and what sort of a strategy strategy do
[42:17] Speaker 2: you do you picture the Army adopting in the future,
[42:21] Speaker 2: especially in terms of let's say, will the future Indian
[42:27] Speaker 2: soldier get drone flying training as like basic training, like
[42:31] Speaker 2: you know, it's as integral to your training as it
[42:35] Speaker 2: is firing a rifle.
[42:36] Speaker 3: For example.
[42:36] Speaker 4: I can tell you that the army is going all
[42:39] Speaker 4: out to train its soldiers to become drone warriors. The
[42:42] Speaker 4: plans for like a lack one hundred thousand drone warriors.
[42:46] Speaker 4: They want to create that every company is going to have,
[42:48] Speaker 4: Every battalion is going to have your drone. They already
[42:52] Speaker 4: have drone platoons, so about twenty five thirty soldiers, all
[42:58] Speaker 4: of them equipped with the first person view drones, combat
[43:01] Speaker 4: drones with you know, dropping payload of various sizes shapes.
[43:06] Speaker 4: There's a young officer again who's pioneered something called the
[43:11] Speaker 4: Ugly Barn fuse, which is a very very important innovation
[43:14] Speaker 4: because that literally converts any dumb ammunition into uh, you know,
[43:19] Speaker 4: a drone capable ammunition because it's it's basically a fuse.
[43:23] Speaker 4: It's a safety right, so it can arm any dumb ammunition. Otherwise,
[43:27] Speaker 4: you always have that thing that when will it you know,
[43:30] Speaker 4: when can you make it safe? When when you are
[43:33] Speaker 4: met all of that, so little innovations like that are
[43:37] Speaker 4: have huge downstream ramifications, so innovations like this are being pushed.
[43:42] Speaker 4: They're looking at a very large force of drone operators,
[43:45] Speaker 4: and like I mentioned, I'm meeting all the time when
[43:49] Speaker 4: they move into drone enabled maneuver warfare, you know d
[43:53] Speaker 4: m W, which is being spoken off in the West,
[43:56] Speaker 4: It's not being done on a very big scale right
[43:58] Speaker 4: now because a lot of the efforts are about getting
[44:03] Speaker 4: the maximum number of drones, getting the forces sensitized to
[44:06] Speaker 4: drone warfare, and a lot of units are manufacturing drones,
[44:10] Speaker 4: that's the most important. They're making it in the field,
[44:13] Speaker 4: right in the field itself. They're producing hundreds of drones,
[44:16] Speaker 4: like one of the strike course for instance. They've got
[44:18] Speaker 4: massive drone workshops. They're just going into the field and
[44:22] Speaker 4: making their own drones. They're getting their components, they're figuring
[44:25] Speaker 4: out the supply chains, doing all of the kind of
[44:27] Speaker 4: things that you would have to otherwise do in crisis.
[44:31] Speaker 4: So you're looking at again like this Boyer war book.
[44:34] Speaker 4: You saw what happened in eighteen ninety nine to nineteen
[44:39] Speaker 4: hundred and one, so there was at least the intelligency
[44:42] Speaker 4: of the British Army knew how the next war was
[44:44] Speaker 4: going to happen. So when they went into conflict in
[44:46] Speaker 4: nineteen fourteen, the British expeditionary forces in Europe had a
[44:52] Speaker 4: bit of a leg up over the Germans and then
[44:55] Speaker 4: they of course deployed tanks in nineteen sixteen in Cambrai.
[44:58] Speaker 4: And this Russia Ukraine war has been a big wake
[45:02] Speaker 4: up called, especially when it comes to drone warfare for
[45:05] Speaker 4: the world and Russia and Ukraine they've got their unmanned
[45:09] Speaker 4: systems commands right, and that's also where we need to
[45:14] Speaker 4: be going. And today you're looking at drones that are
[45:17] Speaker 4: doing everything from long range, you know, precision attacks. They're
[45:22] Speaker 4: knocking out individual infantry soldiers, they're attacking ships. There are
[45:27] Speaker 4: drones attacking other drones. So you have to hear what
[45:32] Speaker 4: Putin said about what eight years back, was it twenty
[45:35] Speaker 4: sixteen or seventeen. He says, the future warfare is going
[45:38] Speaker 4: to be drones fighting other drones and whoever, can you know,
[45:42] Speaker 4: produce the maximum number of drones and overpower the adversary
[45:47] Speaker 4: will win the battle. And who knew that, You know,
[45:51] Speaker 4: less than a decade from that statement, the Russians were
[45:54] Speaker 4: going to be producing the maximum number of drones Russians
[45:57] Speaker 4: and the Ukrainians. Right, So drone warfare, dronery has changed
[46:04] Speaker 4: warfare in a way that you know, few innovations, miilitary
[46:08] Speaker 4: innovations haven't. Like the machine gun, for instance, is one
[46:12] Speaker 4: big innovation that came up in the nineteenth century that
[46:16] Speaker 4: completely changed the way armies, you know, mobilized, march, moved
[46:20] Speaker 4: and all of that. And then of course in the
[46:22] Speaker 4: Boyer War you had the rifle firing you know, from
[46:27] Speaker 4: a box magazine that that could take out guys who
[46:32] Speaker 4: are marching in the field. So therefore people had to
[46:34] Speaker 4: conceal themselves, they had to take.
[46:36] Speaker 3: Cover all of that.
[46:37] Speaker 4: So warfare has changed, and the drone of today, of
[46:41] Speaker 4: the twenty first century is what the rifle was to
[46:45] Speaker 4: the Boyer War one and twenty five years.
[46:47] Speaker 2: By nice point. A couple of last points on this topic.
[46:52] Speaker 2: As you talk about the future of armies, and especially
[46:55] Speaker 2: in an army, is about the future infantry soldier an army. Uh,
[47:02] Speaker 2: I want to know what's happening in terms of the
[47:07] Speaker 2: tech that the future Indian infantry soldier will carry. What's
[47:10] Speaker 2: happening maybe in India, what's happening across the world in
[47:13] Speaker 2: terms of innovation and research that will probably be adopted
[47:16] Speaker 2: by ind at some some point, sort of in the
[47:20] Speaker 2: realm of fantasy.
[47:21] Speaker 3: But I am honest talking.
[47:22] Speaker 2: About, you know, stuff like exoskeletons. I am talking about
[47:25] Speaker 2: devices that improve your line of vision.
[47:27] Speaker 3: I am talking about.
[47:28] Speaker 2: Devices that give you a better sort of domain awareness
[47:31] Speaker 2: of where you are.
[47:32] Speaker 3: I am talking about stuff that is sort of futuristic.
[47:35] Speaker 2: I'm not talking about cybogs yet, but I'm talking about
[47:38] Speaker 2: with because there has been some research down here and
[47:41] Speaker 2: there on stuff like that. In India, for example, I
[47:43] Speaker 2: was very surprised to find out it's not really high
[47:46] Speaker 2: tech per se, but the DRDO and Tata have developed
[47:50] Speaker 2: something that was called as a passive exo skeleton, which
[47:53] Speaker 2: is supposed to support an infantry soldier's body structure and
[47:57] Speaker 2: give them sort of extra strength. Perhaps it's not really,
[48:01] Speaker 2: like I said, very high tech in that perth in
[48:03] Speaker 2: the sense that I'm asking the question to you. But yeah,
[48:05] Speaker 2: in the future, maybe a few years from now, maybe
[48:08] Speaker 2: a decade from now, will the infantry soldier look like
[48:11] Speaker 2: what he or she looks like right now, or is
[48:13] Speaker 2: there going to be a massive cheange over there? What
[48:15] Speaker 2: do you foresee over We've already seen the future infantry Soldier.
[48:19] Speaker 2: You have seen it.
[48:20] Speaker 4: I've seen it in a movie that came out in
[48:22] Speaker 4: nineteen eighty seven. Right, it's one of the most astounding
[48:28] Speaker 4: science fiction films that has ever been made. It's a
[48:33] Speaker 4: movie called Predator.
[48:34] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[48:35] Speaker 4: Right, So the Predator, which is the creature, that alien
[48:37] Speaker 4: creature that comes in, is actually the Soldier of the Future. Right,
[48:40] Speaker 4: that's what it's going to be like. You're going to
[48:42] Speaker 4: have a guy, though not seven feet tall as the
[48:46] Speaker 4: Predator is, but someone who's enormously you know, competent, can
[48:52] Speaker 4: carry a lot of load, which is where your exoskeleton
[48:55] Speaker 4: comes in. Who can hide, which is where that invisibility
[48:59] Speaker 4: clone of Predator is. He's got all his weapons on
[49:03] Speaker 4: his body, including FPV drones. I don't think the first
[49:06] Speaker 4: movie had a drone, but I think the third of
[49:08] Speaker 4: the fourth movie they were launching drones from their back.
[49:11] Speaker 4: So this guy's got a canon on his thing. He's
[49:14] Speaker 4: got the Predator vision, which is basically a thermal imaging
[49:17] Speaker 4: camera where he's got a helmet and that's the most
[49:20] Speaker 4: important thing, where his entire face is covered and protected, right,
[49:25] Speaker 4: which means that that's a smart helmet. He can see
[49:28] Speaker 4: the environment around and you have that predator vision thing
[49:32] Speaker 4: and he's his face and his ears and his eyes
[49:36] Speaker 4: are protected from the environment. Yeah, so, which means that
[49:40] Speaker 4: gases l rad's, you know, things like long range acoustic
[49:44] Speaker 4: devices which the Americans are supposed to have used in Venezuela,
[49:48] Speaker 4: will will protect him. So it's a very well protected
[49:51] Speaker 4: soldier who's invisible as well. And this invisibility thing, and
[49:56] Speaker 4: this is exactly what I was seeing in this the
[49:59] Speaker 4: the footage from the Russia Ukraine War. You see soldiers
[50:02] Speaker 4: walking around in cloaks, right, those are the first invisibile
[50:06] Speaker 4: ta cloaks, the Harry Potter kind of things where they're
[50:09] Speaker 4: trying to hide from these FPV drones, right. And these
[50:14] Speaker 4: FPV drones are the most lethal at night because they're
[50:17] Speaker 4: picking up all these soldiers with the heat lession heat signatures.
[50:22] Speaker 4: They're literally droning them out right. And that is something
[50:27] Speaker 4: that we are going to see a lot of because,
[50:30] Speaker 4: let's face it, the battlefield of the future, not forget
[50:33] Speaker 4: the future, the present battlefield is infested with drones. And
[50:36] Speaker 4: if you're going to protect yourself, you have to be invisible, right,
[50:39] Speaker 4: So you need to have that special suit that is
[50:42] Speaker 4: going to you know, cloak your body. Emissions them mill signatures,
[50:47] Speaker 4: heat signatures reduce all of that.
[50:49] Speaker 3: So you'll have to be invisible and you have to
[50:51] Speaker 3: be mobile. At the same time.
[50:52] Speaker 4: You're seeing that in Russia Ukraine as well, you have
[50:55] Speaker 4: the concept of motorcycle bone infantry because the Russians have
[50:59] Speaker 4: realized that you can't mass in the way that you
[51:02] Speaker 4: were the way the British did in nineteen one hundred
[51:06] Speaker 4: and one in the Boyer War. They had to, you know, disperse,
[51:10] Speaker 4: They had to move in small teams. This is exactly
[51:13] Speaker 4: what's happening, not because of the rifle today, but because
[51:16] Speaker 4: FPV drones. So you have small teams and if you
[51:19] Speaker 4: see the footage of them operating, it's almost like their
[51:21] Speaker 4: commando teams to two man teams, three man teams, that
[51:24] Speaker 4: kind of thing. So they'll all be pretty much on
[51:27] Speaker 4: their own, moving separately, but at the same time they're
[51:30] Speaker 4: all networked, right, So the guy on his smart helmet,
[51:35] Speaker 4: he's going to see where he is, his location, where
[51:39] Speaker 4: his buddies are where, and where the enemy is. So
[51:43] Speaker 4: that that is the kind of thing because at the
[51:44] Speaker 4: end of the day, you will need a you will
[51:47] Speaker 4: need boots on the ground. Now, if you were to
[51:49] Speaker 4: take that forward, you're looking at basically a soldier that's
[51:54] Speaker 4: integrated with AI and stuff like that, you know, with
[51:58] Speaker 4: built in generative way. Moving forward, you will have a
[52:03] Speaker 4: soldier who's accompanied by other drones, robots. They will be
[52:06] Speaker 4: flying robots, there will be ground boats, they will be
[52:09] Speaker 4: tracked robots and all that. So he will be like
[52:12] Speaker 4: a mothership, kind of a moving mothership, either in a
[52:14] Speaker 4: vehicle or you know, on foot or you know, moving
[52:19] Speaker 4: very quickly with a jetpack or something like that. So
[52:21] Speaker 4: it's not science fiction anymore, you know, and when you
[52:24] Speaker 4: see what's coming out of Russia Ukraine, it's science fact.
[52:27] Speaker 4: It's the future that's being written, you know, in real
[52:31] Speaker 4: times playing out.
[52:32] Speaker 3: Now.
[52:32] Speaker 4: You have already you have drones that can identify people
[52:38] Speaker 4: with their exactly like you do with your airport when
[52:42] Speaker 4: you walk into your airport and you identify your facial
[52:46] Speaker 4: patterns and the door opens. You have that technology in
[52:49] Speaker 4: drones as well, so they can identify individual people and
[52:51] Speaker 4: assassinate them. So all of this is coming together, and
[52:55] Speaker 4: that is essentially what the future soldier is going to
[52:58] Speaker 4: look like. So, there was a great project called the
[53:01] Speaker 4: f Incess Future Infantry Soldier as a system, which was
[53:06] Speaker 4: abandoned about a decade ago. They killed that program. I
[53:11] Speaker 4: wonder why it was a very short sighted decision to
[53:13] Speaker 4: kill that program, because that would have actually been the
[53:17] Speaker 4: Mark one for a upgrade of the infantry Soldier into
[53:23] Speaker 4: the kind of technologies that we are seeing today. So
[53:26] Speaker 4: by if that project had taken off a decade ago,
[53:29] Speaker 4: you would have had the Mark two or the Mark
[53:32] Speaker 4: three version of that. But in twenty twenty five, twenty six,
[53:36] Speaker 4: we're now again starting from scratch, you know. So the
[53:39] Speaker 4: drone warriors and all that are something that we should
[53:42] Speaker 4: have already started about.
[53:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sort of like the stepping stone to what
[53:47] Speaker 2: you were just talking about writing right right now.
[53:48] Speaker 3: I think great.
[53:50] Speaker 2: I think we'll ended on that very fantastical but not
[53:53] Speaker 2: so fantastical by the way, note because like you said,
[53:56] Speaker 2: it's soon to be reality.
[53:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[53:59] Speaker 2: Great, a fantastic chat, great chat, as always, learned, lots.
[54:06] Speaker 3: And get Insie. Thank you so much, thanks for having me,
[54:08] Speaker 3: and thanks as.
[54:09] Speaker 2: Always to our listeners and viewers. That's it for this
[54:11] Speaker 2: week's Defense. Does for more Tunion next week. Till then,
[54:14] Speaker 2: stay safe and not trust any boundaries with their passport.
[54:24] Speaker 1: In a world of contested powders and silent battles, One
[54:33] Speaker 1: voice cut through the noise.
[54:36] Speaker 2: Was Israel able to achieve its aim when Israel bombed Iran?
[54:42] Speaker 1: Do you think the Chinese army is at war with itself?
[54:47] Speaker 1: Joined veteran war correspondent God of salvanth one of India's
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[54:55] Speaker 3: Navaskar and jahand I'm God a Saventh.
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