Need to extend surveillance envelope, says deputy air chief

Indian Express

11-06-2025

Operation Sindoor has thrown up the lesson that modern warfare has fundamentally altered the relationship between distance and vulnerability, thanks to technology, a top military officer said Wednesday, while also highlighting critical importance of deep surveillance in contemporary warfare.
Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit said the existing principles of war are being challenged and new ones are emerging.
'Earlier, the horizon marked the limit of immediate threat. Today, precision-guided munitions like SCALP, BrahMos and HAMMER have rendered geographical barriers almost meaningless, as strikes with BVR AAMs (beyond visual range air to air missiles) and supersonic AGMs have become commonplace,' he said at a seminar hosted by think-tank CAPS (Centre for Air Power Studies) and Indian Military Reviews (IMR).
He said when weapons can strike targets hundreds of kilometres away with pinpoint accuracy, the traditional concepts of front, rear and flanks, combat zones and depth areas all become irrelevant.
'What we call the front and the theatre, merge into one. This new reality demands that we extend our surveillance envelope far beyond what previous generations could have even imagined,' he said, adding that we must detect, identify and track potential threats not when they approach our borders, but when they are still in their staging areas, airfields and bases, deep within adversary territory. 'This existed as a concept even earlier but today we have the means to realise it,' he said. 'When hypersonic missiles can traverse hundreds of kilometres in minutes and drone swarms can reach their targets before traditional decision-making processes can respond, real-time or near-real-time surveillance becomes… essential for survival.'