Analysis Of Sansad TV Discussion:
”Imported Military Weapons as Force Multipliers”

Relevance

”GS 2 & GS 3: Government Budgeting, Indigenization of Technology”

Introduction

• Ukraine’s invasion by Russia will possibly impact several of India’s ongoing programmes that could, in the medium term, compromise its prospective operational efficiency.
• For example, drones and other force multipliers, including surveillance equipment, sensors and radar, which would have been coming from Ukraine will now stand jeopardised following the Russian offensive.
• High-tech imported weapons may not just act as force multipliers but could also give a window of technology exchange which will benefit our defence in a long way to go.

About Force multiplication

• Various devices or techniques to enhance or intensify military force have existed perhaps from the earliest period of human conflict but the term “force multipliers” has become popular in military circles only in the last few decades.
• Force multiplication refers to an attribute or a combination of attributes that make a given force more effective than that same force would be without it.
• Hence a force multiplier is anything that substantially enhances the combat potential, impact and effectiveness of a given force.

Importance of Force Multipliers

• Exploiting battlefield transparency requires real-time, robust, reliable and networked command, control, communications, computers and intelligence processing systems in order to reduce the decision making time.
• The development and fielding of automated sensors for various levels of operations and their integration with requisite foolproof communications provide the much-needed force multiplier effect.
• Adequate redundancy into the systems provides a reliable, fail-safe architecture.
• Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, Flight Refuelling Aircraft (FRA), stealth technology, Precision Guided Munitions (PGM), Electronic Warfare (EW), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and military satellites are all considered to be force multipliers – assets that can dramatically increase the effectiveness of force of given size and capability.
• By “multiplying” system effectiveness, they make it possible for the force to do far more than without them.

How do UAVs act as a force multiplier?

• The UAV based multi-band, multi-mode communications node can contribute as a force multiplier by supporting offensive operations, especially when a ground-based communication network fails to keep pace with the operations in terms of physical speed, power, frequency, bandwidth and channel availability.

India on the path of self-reliance in the defence sector

• India would soon notify a new list of weapons and systems that cannot be imported to promote self-reliance in the defence sector.
• Customisation and uniqueness of military hardware is critical to hold the advantage of surprise over India’s adversaries and it can be achieved only if weapons and systems are developed in the country.
• This will be the third positive indigenisation list — the government has already notified two lists of 209 weapons and equipment that cannot be imported.
• For uniqueness and surprise elements, military equipment has to be developed in our own country.

The future land battlefield and Force Multiplier

• The future land battlefield will extend beyond immediate geographical space and physical domain with the increasing ability of the warring sides to look deep into each other’s territory.
• There shall be near real-time flow of information due to advanced integrated sensors. Precision fires would enhance the lethality, cause heavy degradation and provide deep strike capability.
• The battle would overlap through multispectral domains, i.e., conventional, sub-conventional and non-conventional.
• Technology would be the major force multiplier and would drive cyber, space and information warfare and these would be fought in the backdrop of the nuclear environment.