India to raise new 'rocket force' for missiles: Gen Bipin Rawat

General Bipin Rawat urged that India needs an integrated security architecture to handle the two hostile neighbors- China and Afghanistan, non-contact technological warfare and internal security challenges.
This comes after India must be wary of China aggressively entering Afghanistan after friendly introductions with Iran and Turkey.

The Chief of Defence staff, at a talk at the India International Centre mentioned that the Confucian or `Sinic’ civilization would join hands with the Islamic civilization to battle the western one.

General Bipin states that only time would tell if this is to happen or not, adding that some sort of 'jointmanship' is visible between Sinic and Islamic civilizations.

"They (China) will step into Afghanistan in the time to come very shortly," said Gen Rawat expanding that China is now trying to make friends with Iran, moving towards Turkey and stepping into Afghanistan.

India would have to wait-and-watch how events unravel in the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan since China has grown faster than what the world has been able to see.

Events and turmoil in Afghanistan can't be anticipated as of now, Rawat added.

The CDS said that Pakistan would continue to fuel and expand its proxy war in India pointing to what we today can see happening in Jammu & Kashmir.

He said that Pakistan is 'attempting it at Punjab once again' and trying to spread their wings in other parts of the country as well.

We must be prepared to combat any signs of aggression be it direct or via use of technology along land borders, urged Gen Rawat stating that proxy of the northern adversary (China) has shown aggression in the nations around South China Sea.

"A whole of government approach" is adopted by India to deal with security issues.

India is looking to raise a new 'rocket force' for different sort of missiles. This is to ensure 'jointness' of armed forces and central armed police forces which would in turn create dual-use infrastructure and logistics via civil-military fusion.

Unified theatre commands would pave way for building integrated war-fighting machinery. This would in-turn strengthen capabilities in the arena of space, cyberspace and special operations.

India must consider technology as an important facet of war-fighting as China becomes 'more and more aggressive'. The reason being that an adversary would try to disrupt strategic networks, energy, banking, transport and communication grids.

Future wars can't necessarily be won like past wars which were battles of attrition, said General Rawat.

The CDS said that transforming the national security architecture is what India must head in the direction of. This would require some kind of jointness and integration among all security forces and civilian organizations.
(With inputs from TOI)