New Delhi: Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Sunday outlined India’s expanding strategic role in the Indo-Pacific, highlighting how modern warfare now stretches beyond traditional battlefields to space, cyberspace and even the cognitive domain.
Speaking at the 9th Military Literature Festival 2025 in Chandigarh, under the theme ‘Heartland and Rimland Powers in a Multi-domain Warfare and India’, he said India’s unique geography gives it a dual advantage as both a continental and maritime power. “Being both a continental and maritime power positions, India is the first responder and the preferred partner of choice for many nations,” he said.
He pointed to the enduring influence of geography on global strategy, referencing British author Tim Marshall’s ‘Prisoners of Geography’, “A nation’s location and its geographic characteristics determine its ability to project power and provide strategic options, regardless of its size.”
Reflecting on India’s post-independence challenges, he observed, “If you look at the geopolitical events of the 20th century – India’s partition, the coming of Pakistan, our war with China – (these) forced India to have a continental kind of an outlook. But if you have a look at India’s geography, I think it says that India is both a continental and a maritime power.”
Gen Chauhan traced the evolution of global power struggles over the past century, highlighting, “Over a century, the struggle for global power has been about control of geography, the seas, the continent, the skies and today, it extends to space, cyberspace and the cognitive domain.”
He cited small but strategically vital nations such as Djibouti and Singapore to illustrate his point. “Djibouti lies at the Bab el Mandeb and Singapore at the Strait of Malacca, both not only strategically important but also vital for trade,” he said.
The CDS also highlighted Indonesia’s crucial maritime corridors – the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok and Ombai-Wetar straits – which connect the Pacific and Indian Oceans and serve as lifelines for global commerce.
Through his remarks, Gen Chauhan emphasised that modern warfare is multi-domain and that India’s geographic and strategic strengths uniquely position it to play a pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific and the broader Indian Ocean region.
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