Compass to reshape India's military future

The roadmap outlined in the ambitious document is persuasive; the challenge lies in executing its vision

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On March 10, defence minister Rajnath Singh released “Defence Forces Vision 2047: A Roadmap for a Future-Ready Indian Military”. By the centenary year of Independence, the armed forces aim to become an integrated, all-domain force, ready to respond across the full spectrum of conflict to protect and promote national interests, in concert with all elements of national power.

The newly-articulated vision is important because India faces a demanding security environment even as the character of conflict is being fundamentally transformed. The structure and doctrinal thinking that serve the military today will need to be reshaped for the battlespace of tomorrow.

The document gets the broad diagnosis right. It situates military transformation within the larger national ambition of building a Viksit Bharat (Developed India) and argues that this requires a Sashakt Bharat (Empowered India) that is strong economically, diplomatically, technologically and militarily. That is a useful starting point because military power is situated within the wider national security architecture.

Its central argument is that the line between war and peace is eroding. Adversaries increasingly operate through proxy conflict, grey-zone coercion, disinformation, and other forms of pressure below the threshold of open war. Future insecurity will spill across maritime, space, cyber and cognitive domains, leading to persistent, multi-domain contestation in which coercion may be more psychological than kinetic.