India's strategic thinking needs radical recast: IAF chief

[Adux]

India's strategic thinking needs radical recast: IAF chief
29 Jul 2007, 2216 hrs IST,PTI
Print Save EMail Write to Editor




PUNE: Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal F H Major has suggested a radical change in India's strategic thinking in view of enlarged strategic dimensions that would also ensure an accentuated role of aerospace power in the new security arena.

"The redrawn strategic boundaries of resurgent India extending from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca and from the Central Asian Republics to the Indian Ocean point towards the need to recast our strategic thinking," he said.

The IAF chief was delivering Air Marshal Y V Malse Memorial Lecture organised by the Centre for Advanced Strategic Studies on Saturday.

"India's strategic frontiers are expanding, its regional role is increasing and with it there is a spreading-thin of our resources to manage it all. Perhaps encouraged by powers such as the US, we are aspiring for a greater regional/ international role," he observed.

"But we need more national power to back it and the gumption, flexibility and speed of decision-making to make that a reality."

Our old concerns and issues with Pakistan and China have not diminished and both of whom are more powerful today, the latter significantly so. There is considerable increase in Chinese power and influence in the countries surrounding us, Major said. Besides India also faced the problem of terrorism and internal security challenges, he said.

"Considering the expanding strategic boundaries, aerospace power can no longer remain tactical. Recent developments have endowed aerospace power with unprecedented force enhancement, be it in reach, accuracy, carrying capacity or precision."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ical_recast_IAF_chief/articleshow/2242672.cms