Indian Armed Forces must transition to intelligent warfare: CDS
Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan called for the Indian Armed Forces to shift towards intelligent warfare and adopt All-Realm, All-Domain Operations. Speaking at a defence seminar, he stressed strategic deterrence and reforms for future-ready forces.
Published Date - 25 February 2026, 05:15 PM
Hyderabad: As warfare expands from the physical to the synthetic and cognitive realms, the Indian Armed Forces (IAF) need to transition from net-centric operations toward intelligent warfare and move beyond multi-domain operations to all realm all domain operations (ARADO), said General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff.
Participating in the annual seminar titled ‘Multi-Domain Integrated Technologically-Empowered Resilient Armed Forces’ (MITRA) at College of Defence Management, Secunderabad, here on Wednesday, the CDS highlighted the ‘Third Revolution in Military Affairs,’ characterised by convergence warfare that fuses contact and non-contact, kinetic and non-kinetic, and old and new domains across all levels of conflict.
He also emphasised the need to establish non-nuclear strategic deterrence, ensuring the ability to win at every level of escalation.
This year’s seminar theme, ‘MITRA,’ underscored the evolving role of military and war-fighting strategies in an increasingly complex geopolitical and technological landscape.
The seminar served as a strategic platform to align contemporary conflict lessons with India’s unique operational environment, focused on self-reliance and structural reform, with an objective to develop MITRA armed forces that are multi-domain in vision, integrated in action, technology-empowered in execution, and resilient in purpose.