New Delhi: Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari speaking at an event in New Delhi stressed on the need to supplement India’s economic success with a mirrored trajectory of home grown military capabilities.

There have been attempts by various power centres to enhance their outreach in vulnerable and vacated spaces in economic, technological, and military domains. The country must prepare for hybrid battles since they present a unique challenge as the security environment in our neighbourhood is still far from ideal, said the Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF) at the India Defence Conclave.

“India, as a responsible power, is committed to enhancing cooperation and collaboration with the objectives of sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth and security,” he said.

Chaudhari stressed that given the political scenario prevalent today, it is important for the Indian Air Force to enhance its capabilities across the conventional, sub-conventional and non-conventional domains.

New technologies, platforms, weapons, systems, and forms of warfare are being conceptualised, which have the potential of making the existing inventory less relevant or even redundant. Our adversaries have developed full spectrum capabilities across multiple domains, which can be brought to bear upon us in case of any escalation, or even in a no war no peace situation, he emphasised.

“Today, we are faced with a wide variety of threats, but a distinct challenge lies in the convergence into hybrid wars. To counter such threats, we need to build and maintain a technological edge over our adversaries and prepare for hybrid warfare. This makes indigenous research and development and production wait of platforms, sensors, weapons or networking, very critical for future capability building,” he said.