New Delhi: The use of rockets and missiles has risen as a geopolitical tool of coercion for state and non-state actors with countries like China and North Korea relying heavily on their rocket forces to threaten others, said Lt General P.R. Shankar (Retd) at a lecture for Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).
He said while North Korea has been trying to pressure Japan, South Korea and the US, China has been browbeating Taiwan. The day is not far when it will start coercing India too, said Lt General Shankar. “The day is not far when they will start coercing us (India). Their way of coercing is firing,” he said.
He also kept Iran ahead of China when it came to the projection of force and power by the use of missiles.
According to the Lt General, “China does economic power projection, not military power projection. But Iran doesn’t have an air force and it is offsetting its air force by use of missiles.”
He added this tactic was being used by China against the US – China had gone for long-range rockets because it doesn’t have the number of bases that the US has.
“Against us (India) in the Himalayas, (since) they can’t deploy their air power, they are using their missile power. It is the cheaper air force,” he said.
On how Russia had made use of missiles, Lt General Shankar said the country had postured with nuclear warheads and fired conventional warheads to achieve deterrence in its ongoing aggression against Ukraine. “It has used air, hypersonic/cruise/guided missiles, rockets, and guns to deter NATO from getting directly involved.”
Ukraine, on the other hand, used rockets and cruise missiles “imaginatively to deliver crucial blows to Russia”, which helped sink a large part of the Russian Navy, Lt Gen Shankar said.
Rockets were “a choice of tools of power, coercion and terror” for the state as well as non-state actors, he said, adding that “enhanced ranges outpace conventionally artillery or aircraft”.
He also suggested combining missiles or rockets with drones in order to make them more effective. “When combined with drones, they expand and threaten every corner of the battlefield.” He added that it presents a new vista of non-contact warfare with positive escalatory controls.
Missiles were also cheaper and far less complicated for air forces to acquire and maintain, flexible in employment and light on training and infra requirements, he added.
He also said that while India did not require a rocket force, it certainly needed “integrated thinking and jointness”. According to Lt General Shankar, “We sorely lack that at every level.”
Lt General Shankar pointed out that while India has the technology and wherewithal to produce any kind of rocket or missile and even has a reasonable inventory and adequate capability to accelerate production, the country lacked the “vision to put it all together”.
Pointing out certain areas where there was a need to put in more work, he said a major part of the inability was the lack of recce-strike-integration capability. He added that integration of surveillance and long-range firepower through a dedicated command and control system was “sorely” lacking.
He further said that India lacked a national security strategy, pointing out that ISRO and DRDO didn’t exactly “see eye to eye”.
Coming to where the services stand on getting along, the retired Armyman said, “Each service has its own philosophy at variance with the other.”
He pointed out that the Army had reduced the number of rocket regiments in its long-term plans and as the range of engagement had increased, “the Indian Artillery has been stripped of integral deep surveillance and targeting capability”.
“While the rest of the world is integrating firepower, surveillance and observation through repurposed apps in battle, we have systematically disintegrated our structure,” he said.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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Lol, the ugly truth is india is a fake superpower
Mano ya na mano but this is the ugly truth, indian studpid kids were seen posting nonsense about Canada, UK that india can destroy these countries, india will never dare to attack Canada with its missiles because then the hitback for india will be a disater – WEST will then erase india from map and from world.
People should teach their kids as not to talk nonsense.
Spot on. India’s history is replete with her missing RMAs (Revolution in Military Affairs). In rough chronological order, she had no answer to superb Central Asian light cavalry, gunpowder artillery (both wheeled and camel-mounted), hollow square rifle volleys, ship-borne artillery, etc. etc.. Let’s hope a poverty of imagination does not render vulnerable again.