AIMA Conclave 2022: Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari on the future of air warfare

AIMA Conclave: Future warfare is likely to be hybrid in nature wherein weapons such as economic strangulation, information blackout, computer virus, and hypersonic missiles would be used, IAF Chief Vivek Ram Chaudhari said at All India Management Association’s (AIMA) 7th National Leadership Conclave.

"Cyber and information" have become the modern tools for shaping the battlefield, Air Chief Marshal said in his speech at AIMA Conclave 2022.

A well-created narrative in the information domain to adversely affect the enemy, can have devastating effects, Chaudhari mentioned.

As humans become more and more interconnected, a cyber-attack on our networks can cripple command and control structures, Chaudhari noted. "What I am trying to get at is that in the next war, the enemy might not be a country or an organisation," he mentioned.

Future warfare is likely to be hybrid in nature and the spectrum of conflict will be spread across all domains spanning from conventional to sub-conventional, kinetic to non-kinetic, and lethal to non-lethal, all under a nuclear overhang, he said.

"The weapons we are looking at would be ranging from a small computer virus to hypersonic missiles," he added.

"There is a need for us to develop capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict and focus on multi-domain operations. Similarly, our doctrines, equipment, training, and tactics will have to be flexible and able to adapt rapidly to these new challenges," he stressed.