Difficult to define friends or enemies in today’s world: CDS

Pune: Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Friday said assumptions about permanent friends or adversaries are increasingly becoming unreliable in the current global order and asserted India must remain prepared - mentally, structurally, materially - to act independently when required.

Emphasising the need for pursuing strategic autonomy, the CDS noted partnerships are valuable when aligned with national interest, but they cannot substitute for indigenous capability or the power to exercise freedom of choice.

“In today’s world, it is difficult to define who are your friends, who are your allies, who are your enemies and who are your adversaries. Strategic alignments have become fluid and transactional,” General Chauhan observed.

He was speaking at the ‘JAI’ (Jointness, Aatmanirbhar Innovation) seminar organised by the Southern Command here.

“India must, therefore, be prepared to act independently when required. That preparedness has to be mental, structural and material,” he stressed.

General Chauhan pointed out that the global security environment was undergoing dramatic shifts marked by uncertainty and flux.

He referred to the rise of coercive nationalism and economic weaponisation, where trade, supply chains, technology access and critical resources are increasingly used as tools of strategic leverage.

The CDS flagged the erosion of established norms of state behaviour, including the questioning of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and added advances in precision and long-range targeting have lowered the threshold for the use of force.

“Declared wars are becoming obsolete. Competition is increasingly manifesting through proxies, sub-threshold operations and cyber activities,” he said, adding that cognitive and information warfare has emerged as a central battlespace targeting societies rather than armed forces.

Referring to the theme of the seminar ‘Jai Se Vijay’ (success from victory), General Chauhan said it was not merely a slogan, but a strategic axiom, linking purpose with outcomes.

He noted that “JAI”, as articulated in recent deliberations, stands for Jointness, Aatmanirbharata and Innovation, and underlined that future readiness would depend on overcoming strategic vulnerabilities, outdated doctrines and organisational silos.

Victory, he insisted, is not about rhetoric but demonstrated and verifiable outcomes, adding that the Indian armed forces must shape themselves for an increasingly competitive, confrontational and technologically disruptive decade ahead.