India will retaliate at place of its choosing if Pak drones damage assets: Bipin Rawat

New Delhi: Chief of defence staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat on Friday said India that should reserve the right to respond to attacks in the grey zone, such as the June 27 Jammu drone attack, at the place and time of its choosing.

The concept of grey zone warfare refers to employing aggression and other actions to achieve national objectives below the threshold of armed conflict, and the ambiguity it creates.

“You have to be prepared for all this and yet at the same time send a strong message that if anything of this nature, whether in grey zone or in the hybrid domain, damages our assets and affects our national security, we should reserve the right to respond at a place and time of our choosing and in a manner in which we wish to respond,” Rawat said at a seminar organised by the Global Counter Terrorism Council.

His comments came a day after Indian Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane said that the easy availability of drones allowed both State and non-state actors to use them, increasing the complexity of challenges faced by the security forces. The Jammu attack was the first-ever offensive use of drones to target an Indian military facility.

Rawat said counter-drone systems were being brought to Jammu, but it was hard to say where the next attack could take place. “Will the next attack happen in Jammu? We don’t know. It could happen on some other airbase. We need to look at counter-drone systems,” he said.

He said if the assumption is that the drone was launched by Pakistan, it is important to understand what the intention was. “Was the intention only messaging that I have the system, I can do this to you, or was it to engage one of our facilities. If it was to engage one of our targets and destroy it, then the reaction of the armed forces would have been very different than what has happened this time. We do not know the ultimate intention. Political will is there and the armed forces are ready to do it,” the CDS said.

He said the Indian Air Force had prioritised the deployment of anti-drone systems in a way that Jammu was probably given less weightage as the air force has limited number of systems and deployed them elsewhere.

“We need to rapidly look at counter-drone systems. At the same time, you have to be prepared for kinetic engagement of drones. We have sharp shooters, we have sniper rifles. These have to be deployed to bring down these drones…But the fear of using kinetic force is if you tell the sharpshooter to knock down a drone on seeing it….What would happen in that situation in Jammu if drones are flying in the air and everybody opens up their rifles and starts firing in the air and then you find you have brought down a friendly helicopter. This airspace management is something that also has to be controlled,” Rawat said.

The CDS said ceasefire does not merely mean stopping of firing between adversaries on the Line of Control. “If you are using indirect systems to disrupt harmony and causing damage to each other, it amounts to violation of ceasefire. We will deal with this in that manner,” he said. Indian and Pakistani militaries had earlier announced that they had begun observing a ceasefire along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir from the midnight of February 24.

Rawat said India needs a large number of counter-drone systems to defend its assets. “We are gradually building those capacities and building the numbers we require. But at the same time let me warn you, what you think that only drones are the threat. Look at the way war was fought between Hamas and Israelis. You saw mass rocket attacks happening. What if rocket attacks of that nature happen? We have to be prepared for defending against that also,” Rawat said.

IAF chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, “We have gone over this subject (drone attack) in terms of the implications of this kind of capability in the hands of non-state actors and the effect that drone capability and armed drone capability have even in future conflict situations. Both have been addressed to a large extent in our planning and what kind of systems we need.”

He said the Jammu base did not have critical assets and IAF had not deployed counter-drone systems there. “Some ability to counter has come and much more is coming. In a month, deliveries will start for another such system from indigenous sources. Lot of work has gone behind it,” he said.

The drone attack is a watershed in asymmetric warfare and underlines the need for the armed forces to build capabilities to deter, detect and neutralise such aerial threats.

The drone threat has surfaced at a time the armed forces are undergoing a major restructuring drive. Theaterisation plans are being refined to integrate the capabilities of the three services and optimally utilise their resources for future wars and operations. The plans cover the setting up of an Air Defence Command to protect key assets and installation from airborne attacks by standalone weapons such as armed drones, rockets and missiles.