New Delhi, Sep 01: Former General Officer Commanding of the Army Training Command and military strategist Lt Gen Raj Shukla (Retd) on Tuesday cautioned that India’s defence procurement and modernisation framework is ill-equipped to handle the rapid transition to algorithmic warfare, asserting that the country risks preparing for the “last war and not the next” if budgetary priorities do not shift towards futuristic technologies.
Addressing the second annual Trident Lecture organised by the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS), Lt Gen Shukla as per Kashmir Convener said the battlefield dynamics have undergone a fundamental transformation over the past year, with the focus shifting from drone operators to software-driven algorithmic combat.
“See how fast things are changing. Till last year in Ukraine, the most prized commodity was drone operators. This year it has transitioned almost solely to algorithmic warfare,” he said.
The former GOC-in-C of ARTRAC emphasised that software innovations are now being delivered in Ukraine every two weeks and hardware innovations every four weeks, making traditional procurement procedures redundant.
“So you cannot have procurement from Delhi. You try any fancy amendments to DPP and all, it cannot meet the dictates of software. Hardware, yes,” he remarked.
Drawing a distinction between eras of warfare, Lt Gen Shukla said the industrial age was about mass and firepower, the information age brought network centricity and precision, but the AI digital age will be defined by cognitive ability, speed, data and software as primary operational resources.
He underlined that the quality of Artificial Intelligence depends entirely on the quality of data, and described “data readiness” as a huge challenge that India needs to address.
In a significant observation on the Ukraine conflict, the strategist noted that the debate over human intervention in decision-making loops has been overtaken by ground realities.
“The reality in Ukraine is that human is out of the loop. There’s no time to listen to the human being,” he stated.
On air defence, Lt Gen Shukla raised serious concerns about India’s preparedness against complex aerial threats, including a mix of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonics and drones.
While acknowledging that the S-400 and Akash Teer systems performed well during Operation Sindoor, he expressed doubts about their adequacy against saturation attacks.
“Are they good enough against, say, the rocket force with all kinds of ballistic, cruise, hypersonics, mix of drones? I have my doubts,” he said.
The retired Lieutenant General warned that with Turkey set to enhance Pakistan’s drone capabilities, the next confrontation may not be as benign as previous ones.
“Next time those drones may not be as benign as the drones in Sindoor were. I was always amazed that they kept loitering but never hit anything. Will they be as benign? I don’t think so,” he cautioned.
He called for an Indian equivalent of the Patriot and THAAD systems, integrated into an advanced space-based early warning intercept system, and advocated for a comprehensive review of air defence architecture.
On force posture, Lt Gen Shukla suggested a review of subterranean resilience, citing Iranian examples of digging facilities beyond the range of B-2 bombers.
He also took aim at ammunition holding assumptions, challenging the notion of short, swift wars.
“Do we need 40I? I think we need 90I,” he said, pointing to the protracted nature of modern conflicts and the criticality of surge capacities.
The strategist offered a clear benchmark for assessing India’s defence modernisation.
“If Budget 27 is about traditional tanks, guns—I have no quarrel with tanks, guns, I’m a gunner myself—but if 1 lakh crores out of 2 lakh crores for modernisation are not for cloud infra, edge compute, data readiness, encryptors, algorithmic warfare, robotics, all the things of the future, then very respectfully, we are preparing for the last war and not the next,” he warned.
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