CDS Gen Anil Chauhan highlights India's military transformation

New Delhi [India], August 9 (ANI): Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Friday delivered an insightful talk on his seminal book 'Ready, Relevant and Resurgent: A Blueprint for Transformation of India's Military' at the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi.
During his address at the event, General Chauhan revealed that the title of the book was framed in 2023 during the Combined Commanders Conference 2023. The conference is chaired by the Prime Minister of India and is held once in two years.

"Let me begin by saying the title of the book, 'Ready, Relevant and Resurgent', this was what we framed for ourselves when we went for the Combined Commanders Conference in 2023. The Combined Commanders Conference is chaired by Prime Minister and is held every two years. That was the theme we had selected for that conference, 'Ready, Relevant and Resurgent'", CDS General Anil Chauhan said.
The CDS informed that the sequel to the war doctrine is already in the works. He noted that India's military transformation is not just "structural" but a cultural and cognitive shift rooted in both "Shastra and Shastra".
"I want to talk about it more, and in fact, I'm ready with the sequel to this particular book, another one which covers a few more ideas about how we're going to transform our armed forces. Maybe what I can say is what I was talking in the recent CAPS seminar that in Indian system Shastra or Shashtra, both are important and knowledge of weapon system, strategy, tactics, statecraft, everything is, both of them have to go hand in glove and that's what we require. And few odd very intelligent, competent generals like used to happen in the past, one Guderian, one Manstein, one Patton, that will not work", CDS General Chauhan said during the event.
The talk highlighted the significant progress being made in India's military transformation, with a focus on jointness, future readiness, and strategic agility. The reforms outlined in the book aim to equip the Indian Armed Forces with the skills and knowledge necessary to meet the challenges of the future.
General Chauhan said that the main purpose of writing the book was to spread awareness about the happenings in the uniform community.
"Of course, the purpose behind writing this particular book, my basic idea was that there is a need for me to spread awareness at least among the uniform community to what is happening. It is the part of my job, my job has taken me to, I don't have exact statistics but every kind of command, every kind of training institute in which we have addressed officers," CDS Chauhan said.

The talk highlighted major reforms, including tri-Service Staff College integration to foster jointness, doctrine development accelerated 4x through distributed authorship, online training & evaluation linked to career progression and rank-agnostic future warfare courses open to services, academia and industry. Civilian faculty to bring academic rigour to military education and a pan-services E-library system for shared knowledge resources.
CDS reiterated that true Atmanirbharta lies in creating indigenous systems to maintain surprise and strategic advantage, and that collaboration between services, DRDO, MOD departments, ISRO, NTRO and others is already showing results.
A sequel to the book is already in the works, indicating the ongoing nature of India's military transformation.
On Thursday, CDS Genl Anil Chauhan and Secretary, Department of Military Affairs, formally released the declassified versions of the Joint Doctrines for Cyberspace Operations and Amphibious Operations during the Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting in New Delhi.
The declassification of these doctrines underscores India's commitment to enhance visibility, accessibility and wider dissemination of joint war-fighting concepts.
The Joint Doctrine for Cyberspace Operations outlines a unified approach to defend national cyberspace interests, integrating offensive and defensive cyber capabilities and enabling synchronised operations across the three Services. It emphasises threat-informed planning, resilience building, real-time intelligence integration and development of joint cyber capabilities.
The Joint Doctrine for Amphibious Operations, which are operations carried out over water and land, defines the framework for planning and executing amphibious operations by integrating maritime, air and land forces. It stresses interoperability, rapid response capability and joint force application to influence operations ashore.
A Defence Ministry release said the CDS has initiated development of numerous new doctrines/primers covering contemporary as well as niche areas of war-fighting such as Military Space Operations, Special Forces Operations, Airborne/Heliborne Operations, Integrated Logistics, Multi Domain Operations.
These doctrines will provide stakeholders and policymakers with a common lexicon and guidelines for effective planning and smooth execution of joint military operations.
Joint Doctrine for Amphibious Operations mentions the importance of Amphibious operations which necessitate 'Jointness and Integration' among the three services with seamless coordination and synergy. (ANI)