Lessons From War with Sandeep Unnithan

With Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd), Director, Centre for Strategic Initiative

Sandeep Unnithan: Hello and welcome to Lessons from War. It's a new series on Chakra News, where we are talking with experts, domain experts, about lessons that India can learn from the wars that are raging on in the world today. And I have with me in Chakra News, a very distinguished veteran, Brigadier Arun Sehgal, who is Director, Centre for Strategic Initiative. He's been covering defence strategy and net assessments in India for decades. He's the go-to person for lessons from war. Brigadier Sehgal, welcome to Chakra News.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Thank you very much for having me on your show, it's an honour. 

Sandeep Unnithan: What are the lessons that we can learn from the wars that are on right now? The Russia-Ukraine war is raging, entering its fifth year. You have the US-Iran war, which is at pause. We're not sure when it'll restart. But look at these wars and tell us what lessons India can draw from them. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): See, there are multiple lessons. I'm sure your series would have covered them. But the critical item to me is the issue of strategic leverage. What has emerged from these wars is how countries have used coercion, power and influence to dictate behaviour. And this influence and behaviour is something we need to study in detail to understand its implications and its effects. Take an example, in August or June 2025, the Americans launched major operations against the Iranian nuclear facilities. Declare them all finished.

Sandeep Unnithan: Last year, 2025?

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): They come back on the 28th of February to launch a full-scale invasion. Why? Because they perceive that the perceptions of the American political leadership are that Iran is a rogue state, it runs a transient scheme, a transient people in Gaza and Palestine and other places. And it has to be checked. And that's not the only reason. The only reason was the current; the way things were emerging was that the Iranians were getting strong, capable, credible, and it was giving shake-up signals to the entire Gulf state status, which was created by America as a zone of its own security. So the issue that comes about is how the leverages were used. Now, you look at the counter-leverages being used. They thought that the 15,000 targets of the Iranian state would compel them to seek peace and bring about a change in leadership after the decapitation strikes. But what happened? They used counter-leverages. Okay. The Americans used military leverage. The Iranians used horizontal leverage against a military-oriented leverage, but in a different space. The space this time was not the retaliation to the American fire or retaliation to the Israelis, but to the so-called American-supported regimes in the Gulf states, who were providing the baseline or the support systems and were central to the communication and the data encryption, et cetera, for the Americans. Those were degraded. What happened? They pushed the Americans out of the entire Gulf region.

Sandeep Unnithan: And they've destroyed over 40 American aircraft. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): That's not the only thing, sir. The other leverage they used was that they pushed the Americans to stop flying a single aircraft from the entire Middle East.

Sandeep Unnithan: From the bases. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): From the bases. It's not very many people aware that all strikes that have been conducted, American strikes conducted against Iran, were either from the bases in Germany or from the aircraft carriers and some other bases, one or two.

Sandeep Unnithan: So the Iranians pursued a base-destruction strategy. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): They used a base-destruction. We call it horizontal escalation.  And then, that's one part. Then we come to economic leverage. The economic leverages were used by the destruction of the energy resources. Right. At least putting the energy resources under direct challenge, direct attack, indicating that you are vulnerable. There was also a third element of this, the cyber element. What people do not know is that within 12 hours of the first attacks, almost all the critical services in the Arab states were down. They were attacked by the Iranians. They had planned for it. They had already done all the details, planning for this particular kind of thing. This is one escalation. The third level of escalation is the denial of critical resources to the global system, and that is energy. Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz. 

Sandeep Unnithan: The Strait of Hormuz was blocked.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Right. Or let us put it this way, it was made unusable. I wouldn't like to use the word block, but it made it unusable by the… So, the issue that comes about is this, is that the leverages are there. Now, there is one more leverage. That leverage, which was being used, was by the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis realised that they have to get the Western or So, the eastern front is okay, fine, we will deal with it later, but they wanted to have a space in the global order or in the changing environment, and they understood it, that how this new shape of power structure will come out in the Middle East, and they wanted to be part of it. So, what did they do? They went and brokered a mediation role for themselves, and now they are trying to broker a quadrilateral of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. The same powers which were less than Turkey, which are brokering the mediation role, have now been combined to broker a role backed up by the credibility power in terms of military power and nuclear power.

Sandeep Unnithan: But Brigadier Sehgal, that's a fascinating overview, but what are the lessons for India from this? How can India learn from this conflict? What are the leverage points that India has in a conflict, say against Pakistan or against China? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Excellent question, I knew this was going to come. So, the bottom line for India is, we have to understand that for the last 76 or so years, or whatever number of years that we have been independent, we have had a legacy boundary issue with both our neighbours. The important part of this is that it continues, and no effort has been made to resolve that legacy issue, number one. Number two, the challenges are increasing by technology development and rapid militarisation, as well as, as far as China is concerned, technological upgrades. So, we need to look at these challenges from the current environment of a multi-domain operational environment. What is happening? The ISR reach is increasing due to all these parts. Their space systems are increasing. Their cyber capabilities are increasing. Their ability for non-contact war are increasing. So, if these things are all increasing, then what we are looking at is developing countervailing capabilities. I'll give you a small example. We wrote a paper on India's strategic missile force. What did we recommend? We said India needs to have a strategic missile force from 200 to 1,500 strike, 2,000 kilometres. And I wrote in categorical terms that we must have the ability to hit Pearl Delta. 90% of the analysts don't even understand what Pearl Delta is. Pearl Delta is home to the Chengdu region. It is home for entire military-industrial complex of the Chinese. So, what do you do? What are you creating? You are creating a threat in B for the Western Theatre Command, whose logistic chains, supply chains, and critical strategic assets, as well as the military-industrial complex, are all under your influence.

Sandeep Unnithan: In the Pearl Delta of China?

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd):  All along. People also don't understand. Why are the Chinese so serious about it? Southwestern China and Western China are territories which they still do not control. They control militarily. They are not an integrated part of the… The populations are not integrated. This is what we call the near abroads. We also have similar areas in our country. I will not name them, but you will understand which areas they are. They are the near abroads which are not fully, totally controlled. They are concerned. There is a concern about them. So, what do we do? They create a threat in B. Now, what happens to us is that we are focused on the line of actual control. We self-deter ourselves. We say, okay, we got 50,000 troops. We are very highly… We also got 50,000 troops. Ballooning. That's not important. It is the ability to intervene when required in a quick time frame and to make sure that the intervention is not one-to-one. It is at a practical level, operational level, and strategic level to be escalated. The problem over here is the perception of strategic restraint by us. Look at Pakistan. On the 10th of May, we had a situation where 12 airfields in Pakistan were down. Not a single aircraft was flying. If we had pressed home our advantage for two more days, we would have created a much higher degree of damage and taken out their critical assets. What are the critical? Air defence systems, their command nodes. We could have taken them out. 

Sandeep Unnithan: Destruction of military equipment.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd):  Critical military systems. 

Sandeep Unnithan: Irreplaceable in the short term. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd):  Those nodes which are central to this. The wars are not fought by human beings anymore. The wars are being fought by these nodes. If you had taken them out and pushed them to the back, that would have made the change. Iranians would have done it. Iranians have done it. The issue basically is the mindset of restraint. What is the mindset of restraint? It is the perception that we can handle escalation and the consequences of escalation. Escalation dynamics are unknown. Until now, they have been gamed. Even once they are gamed, they remain unknown. Look at what is happening to America. America never thought that it would take the extreme step of going to Hormuz. Every piece of evidence was there. There were submarines. Mines. Everything was there. But it's a mindset. It's a mindset game. So strategic leveraging is equally a mindset game. What is the message that you want to convey? How do you want to convey? To whom do you want to convey? That's the name of the game.

Sandeep Unnithan:  And how do you sharpen this strategic mindset? Do you do it through regular exercise? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): First and foremost, there has to be what I call a civil-military compact. The civil-military compact has to have what I would call close coordination between the military perspective and the civil perspective. 

Sandeep Unnithan: You mean wargaming with the civilian establishment? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Before that, there is a system. I don't know how many people are aware. I'm sure there are lots of people. The National Security Council of the United States is the main decision-making body that weighs all these things. And they integrate all elements of national power under one roof and are answerable directly to the president. From there, the Pentagon takes its policy. The State Department takes his policy. The technology guys take their own policies. And all the other elements take their own policies and bring them together, and they make one full whole. The National Security Council in India has to become like that. It has to take charge. It is trying to take charge. But it still operates in silos. Well, everybody has silos. Everybody has different groups. But the principles, the four or five principles, the top leadership of the NSAs, top leadership at the particular military level, have to have one single understanding of what the game is. And there has to be coherence in what is required, what is not required, what is required to be done, and what is not required to be done. That's all part and parcel of that. I'll give you a small example. We are talking about quantum computation. Quantum is a new game. Quantum sensing, quantum computing, and quantum communication are three aspects. We've written a big paper, recommending eight major recommendations to the system. See, what is quantum sensing? Now, if you have quantum sensing, any metal piece within 1,000 metres above sea level can easily be identified. Now, the Chinese are working on the system. Now, tomorrow, the Chinese will be able to locate your submarines wherever they are operating. They already are operating. If we develop the same capability, we will not be surprised by the attack on that poor Iranian frigate that took place. We would have known the location. That's important. Quantum communication is central to your nuclear command and control. It cannot be... Add to that your ISR, your space-based systems, and what we call physical cyber. You have to connect the cyber in a fashion that the attacks on your cyber systems get automatically rerouted to your new systems, so you are not affected. How do you operate without a GPS environment? All these are factors which we have identified, we have said, we have written, I've written about it. These are the issues we need to address in terms of, particularly since we're talking about lessons of war. India has to redefine its capacity and capability. But what is happening is we continue to remain in silos. We blame the government for being in silos. I'm afraid the services are in silos. There are three wars. I keep telling everybody, every time there's a war, three different wars are being fought. There's an army war, there's an air force war, and a navy war which is waiting. That's all that has happened. This is what the issue with us is. The second issue is AtamNirbhar Bharat. Atam Nirbhar Bharat is basically, everybody thinks of is technology development, technology access from abroad, et cetera, et cetera. No. Our first critical issue is that, since we must recognise the fact that we will have to get the systems from abroad, the systems from abroad have to come into India and be fielded in India. The first issue is, if you're talking about a multi-domain concept, it is the integration of these foreign systems into our overall operational design. Now, that is where this whole issue comes from. Now, you heard about the fact that the French are not giving us the source codes for the Rafale. What happens? Figuring with the source code is like, when you buy your car, and the guy says, don't go to the mechanic and change the settings because we will not guarantee we will be, while being violated. We are doing it. So, the Indian government has to have any foreign vendor who is an OEM manufacturer, system manufacturer; there must be a big clause that he has to integrate his system into our existing system architecture. That integration must form a part and parcel of it. And it must be so defined in the contract, sir.

Sandeep Unnithan: Right. And without that, there's no contract. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): That's the current mantra that the government is following. They're realising it. It's not that they're not realising it. They are working on it. But we are so infatuated by technology agnosticism and trying to get it from anywhere else in the world, etc. No. So, there are multiple things we have to do. We have to re-look at this entire warfare from a very different perspective. 

Sandeep Unnithan: You think the fact that we don't have a written national security strategy is coming in the way of all of this that you just mentioned? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): The national security strategy will be a document like you have in America. That gives you nothing at the end of the day. What you need is what we had recommended. I think it's the sixth finance commission or somebody to whom we had gone and presented the services. We need to create principles committees. Principal committees everywhere. There was this proposal, which, as usual, like in our country, is gathering dust, which is about reconstituting DRDO, the entire setup. We were talking about a technology commission, if you remember, under the prime minister, and the technological headquarters to be service guys and DRDO working on this thing, and reducing the labs, etc. That's the kind of model we need to do. We also need to integrate our IITs and other systems. There is no shortage of talent in this country, as just now we were discussing before this. We have to integrate the talent. How do we integrate talent? We have to bring the talent inside the system. I was running, I mean, I was taking lectures in the Future Warfare course, which is the previous CDS, or the current CDS is still running. There were a lot of industry guys. I met a guy who had developed a phenomenal wargaming system. His limit was, sir, nobody will buy it. I'll never be the L1. And since I will not be the L1, I said, what will you do with your work? He said, I'll make it into a game and sell it in the market. And the same thing is happening. I am currently an advisor with IIT Kanpur and developing a wargame. Okay, this wargame is human-centric. Your decision matrix is getting picked up, and your decision chains are being evaluated by the AI. And you don't really have to be concerned. AI will give you outputs that you are looking at. We are doing a very sophisticated model. But again, interest is very minimal.

Sandeep Unnithan:  We just had the Secretary of Defence Production talk. On a talk show, he mentioned the need for dual-use capacities to be created in the civilian sector as well. Where, in any future war, you would have surge capacity in the civilian sector as well. Shouldn't this be the job of the Defence Ministry to have already identified this?

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): What I would say is slightly different. I would say to develop three capacities. Surge capacities, dual-use capacities. Take three big projects. You, as a man who is responsible for it, rightly what you said. Develop them and showcase them. So that it becomes a model worth following. 

Sandeep Unnithan:  Which the industry can then follow.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): What we do is, we say this should happen. This ought to happen. This is what the architecture should be. We leave it at that. Nothing happens beyond the architecture.  So, it's just statements you're saying.

Sandeep Unnithan: Just a statement. You need a proof of concept. You want a pilot project.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Exactly. 

Sandeep Unnithan: Which the industry can then come in.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Yes, of course. That's what you need. And you have to give them.

Sandeep Unnithan: Is it the job of the Defence Ministry? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): See, it's diffused. Diffused. The Secretary of Defence will say, if I get a project, I will do it. CDS will say, I will do it. But my scope of manoeuvre is only this much limited. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, somebody in the system ought to be. 

Sandeep Unnithan: So, whose job is military-civil fusion, for instance? That is a capacity we are all talking about when you're talking about magazine depth. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Sir, it's like this. When I was in service, and I was the first director of net assessment, the net assessment was created only for this purpose. Right. We did a lot of this kind of work. And I learned my trade in America from Mr Andrew Marshall, who is called the Sadhguru of this strategy. 

Sandeep Unnithan: Office of Net Assessment. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Yeah, I did an apprenticeship with him. And we brought it into India. We did a lot of this work. A lot of this work. I showed you this multi-spectrum concept of the China issue. It's being done on a net assessment basis. Now, the issue is, if you have those studies, and studies are lying in the government of our time, after that also. And for 10 years, I ran this kind of game in NDC. For 10 years, I ran these games based on these lines. But the question then is, who follows them up? Somebody has to follow up on them. And that's where the whole issue lies. The ownership of putting a project from a concept or a proof of concept, designing the whole project, what are the elements of the project, into developing into even a prototype or getting it productionized tomorrow, is something that's where the link stops. I mean, we have what is called the Centre of Excellence in Technology at IIT Delhi. Yes. Ask them how much they are doing. They're doing phenomenal work. But again, they produce something, it has to go through the process of L1 and L2 or whatever nonsensical things are there. So, you know, there is a social issue of accountability to be held by people. There are other issues. That becomes a problem in our case. But the sad part of it is, and this is something important to understand, our opponents are not constrained by these constraints. We have a CDF, Chief of Defence Force.

Sandeep Unnithan: In Pakistan. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): In Pakistan, who has under him the entire capacities of cyber warfare, rocket forces, and the new National Strategic Command. All are directly under him. They are integrated. They have an SPD over there. The Strategic Plans Division's only job is done; it is not factored by 10 other guys. His only job is capacity building, capacity development, looking at places where they can get resources, and developing technology partnerships. All this is being done under the SPD. And looking at future capabilities, space-based operations against or under him. You know, India doesn't have a military space programme. Is ISRO the only guy? We have to go to ISRO and say, we also want to launch 10 satellites. Our NAVIC is not working today. 

Sandeep Unnithan: But don't you have a Defence Space Agency? You think that's not enough?

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Defence Space Agency is like any other Department of Defence's place. ISRO is under the PMO. Who listens to them? They have. They have a programme. They have an ambitious programme. But just do an audit. Somebody should do an audit. What did they say 10 years back, 5 years back? See, my biggest gripe, and now I'm an elder statesman, is that, please, you say, we have developed this doctrine of multi-domain operations. We have developed cyber operations. Where is this doctrine's takeoff stage? Your writing is as if it's a new doctrine being said. No. That doctrine must start from where we are today, and an objective assessment of where you are today, and move from there to where you want to go in the future. I mean, it can't start from zero. It can't start from the literature given to you by the Americans or anybody else. It has to be. So, you know, this is how it is. And our opponents are not like that. Our opponents are developing, designing, developing, and deploying. Designing, developing, and deploying these new systems against us. And I'm afraid if we continue the way we are, we will hold, we'll manage, but we will not be a balancing power or like my friends in Lowy Institute's index says, we are a big power. We will not be a big power because, unfortunately, the big power has to exert influence. Another area we talk about is Great Nicobar.

Sandeep Unnithan: I was going to ask you about the Great Nicobar Island. 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): The whole idea basically is this. Your centrality of India as a wedge inside the Indian Ocean region is your highest strategic criticality and your strategic strength. How can you not leverage it? You can keep talking on sand models or discussions and say PRC will not come here, this guy will not come here, etc., etc. See the nature of the war, which is changing. It will be a multidimensional war. You have to control that. So, therefore, what is central to us? India has to take charge of the Bay of Bengal. Access to Malacca and the Arabian Sea prevents Gwadar from becoming a major Chinese naval outpost at the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz. This is something which we have to do. And we also have to ensure that the other straits like Panama and Suez, and our interests in the other areas, are paramount, and they must be appreciated and defended.

Sandeep Unnithan: How does the Great Nicobar Island project help in this? 

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): Great Nicobar Island is a forward outpost you will create right at the mouth of the sea. And it is a transhipment post. So, what do you do? Look at Chak fu. I will give you an example with Chak fu. Chak fu was what? Chak Fu was just an outpost where they created two single buoy moorings. A large Chinese VLCC would come, discharge through and go again. Then they created a big economic zone over there. Who developed it? Not the Chinese as much as the Japanese did. This whole area then developed into a commercial enterprise. Started with this thing of being a point where the VLCC would discharge their crude. From there, it became a pipeline. There it became a railway line going to Yulan in China, and then from there to downstream refineries. And the whole ecosystem developed. What are you going to do? The same thing you have to do over here. A. B. This area of interest is no longer Chinese. Securitisation of Chak fu enhances the Chinese interest and leverage in this particular region. In the Bay of Bengal. In the Bay of Bengal. And you connect this with Hambantota. You have an arena of your backwaters which is being, let's put it this way, dominated by the Chinese presence.  And in multiple dimensions. Space, physical, underwater, cyber, everywhere now, add to this the two ports which the Americans are now trying to get in Bangladesh. The ball game changes. Now what do you do? You have a simple counter and island. We are going to develop this, and Greater Nicobar Island will be developed. That poor airfield has not been improved until now. Make it deploy and deploy a BrahMos battery over there. You see the game changes. It is now. So, this is what is called: you cannot play the game of strategic restraint. Until and unless you show capacities, you show capabilities, and you know political determination, we'll be at a strategic disadvantage. Despite having the manpower, the resources, $1.4 billion people, huge technical capabilities, the job of the system is to integrate capacities, capabilities, manpower, resources, etc. to make it into a firm, strong capability for the country, not for the armed forces, only for the country. for the country.

Sandeep Unnithan: Absolutely. Fascinating overview there from you, Brigadier Sehgal. You know, the fact that if you have to have strategic restraint, you have to back it with comprehensive national power and uh the iron fist in the velvet glove. If I can use that line and you're from the armoured corps, you would appreciate that.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): We just have an iron fist. We don't use a velvet glove in the armoured core.

Sandeep Unnithan: But when you're talking of comprehensive national power and what India is, then obviously it's a combination.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): In the Trumpian world, Sir, there is no velvet in the Trumpian world; you simply show what you have, and you play to your capabilities.

Sandeep Unnithan: And that's where a Great Nicobar Island project becomes so important, a dual-use civil-military

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd):  I cannot understand why these people are heing and hoing about developing it, as I told you, we did a project report, we had recommended doing that, but that's okay, it's passed, but now that the government has revived it, I think the government should not dither and not get unnecessarily moved by these protests.

Sandeep Unnithan: So quickly, Brigadier Sehgal, what did your report suggest to the government, which year was this?

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): That was about 2018-19, so we basically said increase the coastal zones, make the coastal zone should not impede the development of railway lines, road projects in the main Andaman Nicobar and Great Nicobar Island. Our only recommendation was the size of the airfield, which can take the modern jets right up to 1800s, whatever distance, widebody jets.

Sandeep Unnithan: Right absolutely fascinating discussion again, Brigadier Sehgal. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for your time and your thoughts.

Brigadier Arun Sehgal (Retd): You found me useful to be on your show. Thank you very much, Sir.  

Sandeep Unnithan: Thank you, Sir.

Watch the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVFjkge9Lbo.

Arjun Dev Singh

Arjun Dev Singh has a deep interest in defence, security, and strategic affairs. With a strong analytical lens and a passion for military and geopolitical developments, Arjun strives to bring clarity and context to complex national and international issues.