Former Army chief Gen Manoj Pande stated that a mobile phone is as crucial as a personal weapon for Army jawans, stressing the need for comprehensive education on digital platform risks and opportunities. He emphasized that information warfare is now central to military planning and refuted the idea that drones have made conventional combat obsolete, asserting that traditional platforms will evolve with technology. Gen Pande also highlighted that future conflicts will span multiple domains beyond land, sea, and air, including cyber and space.

Former Army chief Gen Manoj Pande stated that a mobile phone is as crucial as a personal weapon for Army jawans, stressing the need for comprehensive education on digital platform risks and opportunities. He emphasized that information warfare is now central to military planning and refuted the idea that drones have made conventional combat obsolete, asserting that traditional platforms will evolve with technology. Gen Pande also highlighted that future conflicts will span multiple domains beyond land, sea, and air, including cyber and space.

Former Army chief Gen Manoj Pande stated that a mobile phone is as crucial as a personal weapon for Army jawans, stressing the need for comprehensive education on digital platform risks and opportunities. He emphasized that information warfare is now central to military planning and refuted the idea that drones have made conventional combat obsolete, asserting that traditional platforms will evolve with technology. Gen Pande also highlighted that future conflicts will span multiple domains beyond land, sea, and air, including cyber and space.

Former Army chief Gen Manoj Pande (retd), on Saturday, pointed out that a 6.5-inch mobile phone is as important, if not more, than a personal weapon for Army jawans.

During a seminar on 'National Security and Economic Resilience for a Viksit Bharat' organised by the Vyana Geo-Economic Forum (VGEF) in Kolkata, he was asked if Army jawans should be allowed to actively use social media platforms. 

He answered, saying soldiers must be educated about both the opportunities and risks associated with mobile phones and digital platforms.

"When we grew up in the Army, one firearm was issued against your name. You were expected to sleep with it, train with it and know it thoroughly. Today, a 6.5-inch mobile phone is as important, if not more, than a personal weapon," he said, according to news agency PTI.

Pande said awareness, education, enforcement and regulation must go hand in hand.

"A soldier must understand what a mobile phone can do, what its pitfalls are, both during war and in peacetime, and what the security threats are. Education is important, awareness is important, and some amount of enforcement and regulation is also essential," he said.

Highlighting the growing significance of information warfare, he said it had moved from the margins of military planning to the "centre stage".

Speaking about the changing nature of warfare, Gen Pande rejected the view that  conventional combat had become obsolete because of drones and precision weapons.

"The importance of the soldier will always remain very salient, very important. I don't agree with the hypothesis that drones alone are the future of warfare," he noted.

According to Pande, traditional platforms such as infantry, tanks and artillery will continue to play a critical role, but would have to evolve by integrating new technologies.

"If there is a tank, it should be able to launch drones, detect enemy movement and operate in a networked environment. Technology has to be integrated into conventional platforms," he said.

Citing the recent conflicts across the world, he said these have demonstrated that technology alone could not determine victory or defeat.

"Technology will be an enabler. We cannot ignore it and must optimise its potential. But, technology by itself will not decide the outcome of a battlefield," he said.

The former Indian Army chief highlighted that future wars would no longer be confined to land, sea and air, but increasingly involve cyber, electronic, space and information domains.

"It is no longer the old way of fighting. We have to build capabilities across all domains and prepare for the wars of the future, not the last war," he said, reported PTI.

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