Bengaluru, Apr 9 (PTI) Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit on Thursday said India’s environment makes the transformation towards Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) urgent, as the country faces threats that do not respect domain boundaries.
Asserting that preparedness must be multi-domain from the outset, he said that MDO is not a future option, but a present imperative.
He was delivering the keynote address at the second edition of “Ran Samwaad 2026”, with a theme “Multi-Domain Operations: An Imperative for Addressing Conventional and Irregular Threats.” “India’s environment makes this transformation urgent — not aspirational. We face threats that do not respect domain boundaries,” Dixit said.
Noting that along our northern borders, surveillance drones, satellite monitoring, electronic warfare, and rapid force mobilisation coexist in a state of permanent readiness, he said in the maritime domain, sea lines of communication intersect with space-based surveillance, undersea competition, and carrier-based power projection.
According to him, the threat is evolving with each passing day on the western borders. Hybrid threats — misinformation campaigns, cyber intrusions targeting power grids, drone swarms over sensitive installations — deliberately blur the line between peace and conflict.
“These threats cannot be addressed by one service. They cannot be addressed sequentially. They must be addressed simultaneously, across domains, in a synchronised coordinated response.” On the ongoing West Asia conflict, he said it is a sharp reminder that sea lane disruption, energy supply shocks, and regional instability can affect India’s interests without a single adversary targeting us directly.
“Preparedness must be multi-domain from the outset. That is why MDO is not a future option. It is a present imperative,” he stressed.
Observing that multi-domain operations are not cosmetic jointness of three services talking to each other at conferences and meetings but planning separately, Dixit said, “it is also not adding a cyber use annex to a service-specific plan. It is not about buying advanced platforms without thinking how they connect.” “True MDO is architectural. It requires force structures, command relationships, data standards, training pathways, and industrial ecosystems to be built for interoperability from the very start. It is about thinking in terms of systems rather than platforms, effects rather than service equities, and speed of decision rather than tradition,” he said.
“In short: MDO is not about what we own. It is about what we can do together — faster than the adversary,” he added.
Citing the Russia-Ukraine war, the Air Marshal said, the early stages of the conflict showed how a smaller force — using commercial satellite imagery, space-based communications, secure digital networks, and precision fires — could impose disproportionate costs on a larger one.
“The decisive factor was not any single weapon. It was the integration of sensing, targeting, and strike into a coherent, real-time architecture. Conversely, forces that relied on centralised command nodes and exposed logistics proved deeply vulnerable. The lesson: resilience and convergence are not optional — they are the price of survival,” he said.
The US-Israel air strikes on Iran, which began in earnest in February, is perhaps an instructive study in multi-domain operations, he said.
“Consider what has been in play simultaneously: B-2 stealth bombers flying ultra-long-range strike missions; carrier strike groups providing sea-based air power; submarine operations in the Indian Ocean; Iranian retaliation using coordinated salvoes of ballistic missiles and drones striking across nine countries at once; and Iranian restrictions on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — weaponising geography and economics as part of the same campaign.” “No single domain has been decisive. Every domain is contested. The conflict has also demonstrated how quickly regional instability reaches our doorstep — an Iranian naval frigate was recently sunk barely forty nautical miles from Sri Lanka, in waters where India has vital interests. For us, this is not a distant spectacle. It is a strategic lesson delivered in real time,” he added.
Pointing out that India’s own experience with Operation Sindoor in May 2025 underscored, sharper than any doctrine document ever could, Dixit said, “that jointness is the need of the hour. Integrated operations, coordinated across services and domains in real time, define the new standard. That lesson must now be embedded into how we train, how we equip, and how we fight.” Atmanirbharta in defence is not just about making weapons in India, the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff said, it is about controlling architectures — software, encryption, data standards, and upgrade cycles. “Without that control, we are dependent on others at the worst possible moments.” “The record defence exports of nearly Rs 24,000 crore in 2024-25 and BrahMos missiles serving with friendly country tell us that Indian capability is recognised globally. We must build on that confidence at home,” he said.
The proliferation of drone technology across modern battlefields deserves special mention, Dixit said adding from Eastern Europe to West Asia, relatively low-cost unmanned systems — when integrated effectively — have changed the calculus of conflict.
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