OPINION | Conventional platform-based warfare has not gone away—it has only become more complex

There is a growing tendency to proclaim that conventional, platform-based warfare belongs to another era. The spectacular rise of drones, precision-guided munitions, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare, cyber operations and cognitive warfare appears to suggest that the tank, artillery gun, combat aircraft and warship, and even infantrymen, are gradually becoming relics of the past.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The character of warfare is certainly changing at unprecedented speed. But its fundamental purpose remains unchanged: to deter an adversary from imposing his will—and, if deterrence fails, to defeat him and secure one’s political objectives, through warfighting.

Technology has not eliminated the need for conventional combat power. It has made its employment more complex.

A drone may detect a tank. A satellite may identify an artillery battery. AI may process the information. A precision missile may destroy the target. But when territory has to be captured, defended or physically controlled, it still requires infantrymen, protected mobility and sustained firepower.

This distinction is particularly important for India. Our adversaries continue to possess formidable conventional capabilities and substantial inventories of missiles, drones, aircraft, artillery, armour and naval platforms. They could also seek to exploit simultaneous or coordinated pressure along India’s land and maritime frontiers.

A limited border confrontation could escalate through artillery exchanges, drone attacks or missile strikes. Equally, as experience has demonstrated, a cross-border terrorist attack could trigger punitive military action which, in turn, escalates into a larger conventional conflict.

India therefore needs to prepare not for yesterday’s wars, but also not for a war that exists only in technological imagination.

The answer lies in combining traditional platforms with new technology into an integrated combat system.

Armour: Vulnerable, but indispensable

The tank has come under intense scrutiny because of the battlefield experience in Ukraine. FPV drones, loitering munitions, anti-tank guided missiles, precision artillery and persistent surveillance have made armoured formations considerably more vulnerable.

But vulnerability is not obsolescence.

The tank remains uniquely capable of combining protection, mobility, firepower and shock effect. No drone can occupy and hold ground. No missile can replace the physical presence of an armoured formation.

The future tank, however, cannot fight as it did in the past. It will require active protection systems, counter-drone capability, electronic warfare protection, multispectral camouflage, improved situational awareness and network connectivity.

Armour will remain essential—but armour must become harder to find, harder to target and harder to kill.

Mechanised infantry: Essential to exploit and hold ground

Mechanised infantry complements armour by providing protected mobility and the manpower required to clear and hold objectives.

Its vulnerability is similar to that of tanks. Infantry combat vehicles are increasingly exposed to drones, top-attack weapons, precision artillery and anti-armour missiles.

Future IFVs must therefore incorporate active and passive protection, counter-UAS systems and electronic protection. Mechanised infantry formations should possess organic drones, loitering munitions and anti-armour weapons.

The mechanised formation of tomorrow must be capable of seeing, striking and manoeuvring rapidly in a contested electromagnetic environment.

Infantry: Still the ultimate force to gain and hold territory

The soldier remains indispensable.

Whether in mountains, deserts, forests or urban terrain, infantry will continue to seize, clear and hold ground.

Technology will, however, fundamentally alter the infantryman’s capabilities. Small UAVs will provide organic reconnaissance. Precision weapons will increase lethality. Digital networks will improve situational awareness. Wearable systems will enhance night fighting and battlefield awareness.

Yet technology cannot replace leadership, morale, physical courage and cohesion.

The future infantryman must be technologically empowered without becoming technologically dependent.

Artillery: From massed firepower to networked precision

Artillery has repeatedly been declared obsolete—and repeatedly returned to centre stage.

Ukraine has demonstrated that artillery remains one of the principal instruments of battlefield destruction. What has changed is the speed and precision of the kill chain.

UAVs, satellites and electronic sensors can locate targets rapidly and feed information to guns and rockets. Artillery therefore becomes part of an integrated sensor-to-shooter network.

India requires a balanced artillery force comprising guns, rockets and long-range precision fires.

But artillery survivability will be crucial. Static gun positions will increasingly be detected and destroyed. Shoot-and-scoot mobility, dispersion, deception, camouflage and emission control will become as important as range and calibre.

Air defence: The shield for the entire force

The proliferation of drones and precision weapons has transformed air defence.

The threat spectrum now extends from sophisticated combat aircraft and cruise missiles to ballistic missiles, loitering munitions and swarms of inexpensive drones.

A future air-defence system must therefore be layered, networked and economically sustainable.

India needs an architecture combining long-, medium- and short-range missiles with guns, electronic warfare, directed-energy systems and inexpensive counter-drone interceptors. The objective must be to ensure that no major formation, airbase, logistics node or command headquarters becomes an easy target from the air.

Attack helicopters: From battlefield hunters to stand-off combat systems

Attack helicopters face an increasingly lethal environment. Modern air-defence systems, MANPADS, drones and precision weapons make prolonged exposure over the battlefield extremely dangerous.

Yet their speed, mobility, firepower and ability to exploit terrain masking remain valuable.

Their employment will therefore have to evolve towards stand-off engagements, anti-armour missions, reconnaissance and battlefield networking.

Attack helicopters should increasingly operate alongside UAVs and electronic-warfare systems rather than independently.

Combat engineers: Enabling manoeuvre in a precision battlefield

Combat engineers are likely to become even more important.

Bridging, breaching, mine clearance, obstacle reduction, route opening and fortification remain fundamental to conventional operations. But infrastructure itself will be under attack. Bridges, roads and logistics nodes can be rapidly destroyed by precision weapons.

Engineers must therefore possess greater mobility, protected equipment, rapid-repair capabilities and autonomous systems for reconnaissance and route clearance.

The ability to restore mobility faster than the enemy can destroy it could become a decisive operational advantage.

Signals: Protecting the nervous system

Modern warfare depends upon information. Sensors must communicate with command centres; command centres must communicate with shooters; formations must share intelligence in real time. But this creates a major vulnerability.

Electronic warfare, jamming, spoofing, cyberattacks and physical strikes can disrupt communications and navigation.

India therefore needs resilient, redundant communications architectures incorporating satellites, tactical radios, fibre, terrestrial networks and secure data links. Most importantly, forces must train to operate in a communications-denied environment.

The ultimate test of a networked army is not whether it can fight when connected, but whether it can continue fighting when disconnected.

Combat aircraft: More important—not less

The emergence of drones does not make combat aircraft redundant.

Manned fighters provide speed, range, payload, air superiority and operational reach that remain indispensable in major conventional warfare.

But the air environment is becoming increasingly dangerous. Long-range air-to-air missiles, integrated air-defence systems, passive sensors and electronic warfare can threaten aircraft at considerable distances.

India therefore needs a mix of manned fighters, UCAVs, loyal-wingman systems, AEW&C aircraft, tankers, electronic-warfare platforms and long-range precision weapons.

The future fighter will increasingly function as the command node of a larger manned-unmanned combat team.

Combat ships: Vulnerable, but essential for sea control

Aircraft carriers and destroyers are undeniably more vulnerable than they once were.

Long-range anti-ship missiles, submarines, mines, drones and autonomous systems can threaten even sophisticated surface combatants.

Yet large ships provide capabilities that unmanned systems cannot replicate: endurance, aviation, command-and-control, air defence, sea control and sustained presence.

India should therefore not abandon major surface combatants. It should make them part of a distributed maritime combat architecture, protected by submarines, aircraft, unmanned systems, electronic warfare and layered air defence.

Submarines: The enduring value of stealth

Submarines retain a unique advantage: concealment.

They can conduct surveillance, threaten hostile naval forces, deny sea areas and contribute to strategic deterrence while remaining difficult to locate.

But technological advances are also making the underwater environment more transparent. Maritime patrol aircraft, unmanned underwater vehicles, seabed sensors and advanced anti-submarine warfare systems are steadily reducing submarine sanctuary.

India therefore needs both a larger and more technologically sophisticated submarine force and a stronger undersea surveillance architecture.

India’s roadmap for future conventional warfare: What should India do?

First, stop thinking in terms of platforms and start thinking in terms of combat systems.

The relevant question is no longer simply how many tanks, guns, aircraft or ships India possesses. It is whether they are connected to the sensors, communications, electronic warfare and precision weapons necessary to survive and prevail.

Second, make every combat formation drone-enabled and counter-drone capable.

Drones must become ubiquitous—from the infantry battalion to the aircraft carrier. At the same time, every formation must possess the means to detect, jam, deceive and destroy hostile drones.

Third, design survivability into every platform.

Active protection, camouflage, deception, electronic protection, decoys and signature management must be integral to platform design rather than expensive afterthoughts.

Fourth, build mass as well as sophistication.

The next major war could consume enormous quantities of drones, missiles, artillery ammunition, electronic-warfare equipment and replacement platforms. India cannot depend exclusively upon small numbers of exquisite systems.

The defence-industrial base must possess the capacity to surge production during conflict.

Fifth, prepare for a communications- and navigation-denied battlefield.

Training must routinely assume that GPS is unavailable, satellites are degraded, networks are jammed, and headquarters are under cyberattack.

Sixth, reinvigorate combined-arms warfare.

The answer to drones is not to replace tanks with drones. It is to use drones to make tanks more effective.

Artillery must be integrated with UAVs. Infantry must operate with armour. Combat aircraft must operate with unmanned systems. Warships must operate within an integrated maritime network. Engineers and Signals must be treated as combat enablers rather than supporting afterthoughts.

Finally, India needs a truly joint doctrine for conventional warfare.

The future battle will not respect traditional service boundaries. Land, air, maritime, space, cyber and electromagnetic capabilities will have to operate as one integrated combat system.

Conclusion:  The platform is not dead. Independent action is

The central lesson is straightforward.

The tank is not dead. Artillery is not dead. Infantry is certainly not dead. The fighter aircraft is not dead. The aircraft carrier and destroyer are not dead. The submarine is not dead.

What is dying is the concept that any of these platforms can fight independently and survive through shock action, speed, range or firepower alone.

The battlefield of the future will punish concentration, predictability and technological isolation. It will reward dispersion, deception, networking, precision, resilience and adaptability.

For India, therefore, the choice is not between conventional warfare and technology.

The choice is between conventional warfare transformed by technology—and conventional warfare defeated by it. India must choose the former.

Our objective must be a force capable of deterring conflict, controlling escalation if conflict begins and, should deterrence fail, fighting and winning a high-intensity conventional war against sophisticated adversaries.

The wars of the future may be fought with autonomous drones, artificial intelligence and precision weapons.

But ultimately, wars will still have to be won by forces capable of seizing ground, controlling the air, dominating the sea and imposing their will on the adversary.

The platform-based war is not over. It has simply entered a far more complex and lethal era.

(Lt Gen Philip Campose (Retired) is a former Vice Chief of the Indian Army. He has authored a book titled ‘A National Security Strategy for India: The Way Forward’)

(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.)