New Delhi: “India missed the woods for the trees during the war,” Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said Thursday, dwelling on the lessons of the Kargil War that lasted more than two months.
Insurgency in the Kashmir Valley was a challenge that made the security forces forget to look at what was happening at higher altitudes in the Great Himalayan range at that time, General Chauhan said at an event organised by News9 in New Delhi to celebrate the Kargil heroes.
Back in 1999, the Pakistani soldiers were initially mistaken for ‘mujahideens’. The ingress of Pakistani fighters into Indian territory took place only a few months after India and Pakistan signed the Lahore Declaration. A number of battles came to be fought during the war to recapture the points occupied by the Pakistani fighters. The war began on 3 May and ended 26 July with a decisive Indian victory.
The military leadership “must have the ability to have a 360-degree outlook towards the threats and challenges that face the nation,” the CDS said.
He added that a lot was written about the war as well as about the suboptimal jointmanship during the war. “We have taken a bit long to promote jointness and jointmanship.”
General Chauhan stressed on the importance of looking at the larger picture in hand. “We sometimes remain too focused on the immediate and easy tasks that we ignore the bigger picture,” he said.
The forces had now “moved beyond jointness” and were “actually working towards promoting a joint culture which is slightly distinct from the culture of individual service,” he said. Integrating the three services in multiple domains was another success that the forces have been able to achieve “in some manner.”
The CDS added that the forces were also trying to come up with joint structures for operations that would separate ‘force generation from force application.’
He added that no war in the future was going to be fought as the last war. “Indian armed forces must be prepared for the same. War and warfare are evolving at a rapid pace. Its character and nature are changing very rapidly because of rapid transformation in technology and ongoing geopolitical flux.”
About the Kargil outcomes, he said the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was one of the requisitions of the committee that reviewed the war. “The appointment of the CDS in some manner that way is a progeny of the war. As CDS, I feel both honoured and humbled at the same time as I stand before you all.”
Any war is a very important political-military event in the history of a nation, he said. “It has a potential to change the destiny of the nation and its people, territories and its ideology. It is for this reason that I feel the story of all wars needs to be recalled time and again and retold multiple times. The memory of the sacrifices made by the soldiers must become a part of the national folklore, as indeed it has become in regard with the Kargil War.”
He said that the conflict underscored the need for robust and responsive defence strategy. According to the CDS, it also emphasised the importance of public and international diplomacy, a strategy which was then used effectively not only to neutralise the narrative being played by the adversaries but also to get global popular support.
“Kargil War was a limited war. It was the first limited war for the subcontinent. Both the nations had demonstrated nuclear capability in 1998. Both these terms were new for India, the Indian armed forces, and the Indian subcontinent. In my view, there will always be more than a casual connect between limited war, full scale conflict and nuclear weapons,” the CDS said.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, General Chauhan said. “It is said in the context of protecting democracy, but it is even relevant for the military.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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