CDS Gen Anil Chauhan detailed India’s national security architecture via “three concentric circles”—mission security, defence, and military preparedness. He stated securing a nation depends on diplomacy, economy, technology, and jointness among services.
Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Saturday offered a comprehensive outlook on India’s emerging national security framework, stressing the need for preparedness, jointness among the services, and said securing a nation depends on “diplomacy, the economy, and technologies.”
National Security’s ‘Three Concentric Circles’
Addressing a public gathering at the Indian Military Heritage Festival in Delhi, CDS General explained national security through what he called “three concentric circles” – a mission’s security, its defence, and at the core, the military preparedness essential to sustain. “I’ll try to explain a national security architecture in the form of three concentric circles. The outermost circle outlines the steps to secure a mission. Then there’s the middle circle, which is part of it. And how do you defend your mission? And in the centre of that is the military preparedness of a mission… They may help to derive a national security strategy, a defence strategy, or a military strategy, or all three of them,” General Chauhan said.
“Our job is to visualise how wars will be there in the future, understand the operating environment and what kinds of threats and challenges there will be, equip ourselves, and then train ourselves… That is all about military preparedness… There is a defence identity and a strategic culture… Securing a nation depends on diplomacy, the economy, and technologies,” he added.
The Role of Military and Human Geography
Highlighting the importance of military geography in planning, the CDS said, “Military geography is important. Whenever you’re doing any kind of appreciation of anything, you first analyse the terrain. Then you come down to relative strength, then you come down to time and space… At a larger geopolitical level, the location of a particular nation actually determines its importance… All operations take place in an environment that encompasses physical geography and human geography.”
General Chauhan stressed that at the geopolitical level, a nation’s location shapes its strategic relevance. More importantly, he added that human geography plays an essential role in operations, especially in counterinsurgency. “Human geography is equally important in understanding warfare, especially counterinsurgency and CICP operations. This is important so that you understand where you’re operating,” he said.
Engaging with Junior Leadership Amid Reforms
The CDS also emphasised his efforts to connect with the Army’s middle and junior leadership, calling it crucial during a phase of sweeping reforms. “These are my thoughts and ideas on the military, and my idea was basically to establish a connection and reach out to the middle and junior level leadership of the Indian Army. This is important because the nature and the scope of reform that we are attempting are so huge that every one of us has to be on the same page,” he added.
Clarifying ‘Jointness’ Among Services
General Chauhan clarified that the push for jointness does not mean erasing individual service traditions or strengths. “Each service will retain its individual identity… We are trying to extract the best practices from each service… When we look at jointness… During a period, there was a lot of need to reassess the requirements for assets that have been removed from the northern borders or from east to west. It required a lot of movement by air,” he said.
“Without even asking their vice chiefs, because they knew that this had to be done. And they were able to speak to each other and had built that kind of confidence. So it was done at that level back… So this is the example of jointness,” CDS Chauhan added.
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