Indian Council of World Affairs

Mukesh Kumar:  Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Indian Council of World Affairs for this panel discussion on the theme, Weaponising Innovations, The Threat of Techno-Terrorism and the Future of Global Security. May I request you to kindly keep your phones on silent mode. Thank you. We will start today's program with the opening remarks by Chair, Lieutenant General Raj Shukla, Retired Indian Army Commander and currently a member of the Union Public Service Commission. Besides, we have three esteemed panellists today. Our first panellist is Group Captain (Dr) Rajiv Kumar Narang, Senior Fellow at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis. Dr Muddassir Quamar, Associate Professor, Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. And our final speaker joining us online is Dr Abhinav Pandya, Founder, Director and CEO of Usanas Foundation. The discussion will be moderated by a brief Q&A by the Chair. I will now request Lieutenant General Raj Shukla sir to deliver his remarks and conduct the proceedings.

Raj Shukla:  So, good evening and thank you very much. My fellow panellists, Group Captain Narang, Dr Muhammad Muddassir Quamar and Dr Pandya, I think, who will be joining us online. Friends, ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to this panel on the threat of techno-terrorism and the future of global security. When I got an invite for this panel, I was pleasantly surprised. This terror suddenly seems to be back in our mind space because we were all talking of big power competition and every morning President Trump takes us to a new reality. So, terror had somehow got distant in the mind space. But I was glad to receive this invite because as I began thinking of the subject and its consequences, I think many of them are extremely severe. So, we should debate on this subject. And in my view, the threat of techno-terrorism is not only real and pertinent but it is growing in complexity and sophistication. So, that is the pitch that I will make in my brief remarks before I hand over the stage to the panellists. And it is extremely relevant and practical. It is in fact relatable to contemporary reality. So just let me illustrate this, what I say, with a couple of examples. But before that, just a very short preamble. As we know, technology is driving geopolitics and national security like never before. And here I will refer to the legitimate tenets of national security, which is the monopoly of violence by the state. And in this domain, the AI and the associated storm of technologies have just revolutionised the character of war, the way we fight, the way we deter. In fact, if I may just quote General Mark Milley, the former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, he says he has seen the most profound changes in the character of war in recorded history. Recorded history, that's how profound it is. And not only is the way of war fighting changed, the entire business modelling, you know, procurement, the military-industrial complex has also changed. The entire taxonomy of conflict, if you see, is moving to unmanned systems, to AI, and to start-ups. It's no longer now the traditional primes. So that is how technology has spanned out in the domain of geopolitics and national security. And these trends are pretty visible. You look at Ukraine and Iran. If I may just point out, Ukraine was a country without an air force or a navy. Just think of that for a moment. And it has held, what shall we say, the number two or number three military power at bay for four years, just on the back of technological innovation. Iran, similarly, I mean, militarily it has been battered, shattered, trounced. Navy is finished, there is no air force and yet the Shahed has proven to be as potent as the Tomahawk. So you are getting lethality at low cost, extremely low cost. And look what's happening now. Open-sourced LLMs are now publicly, freely available. Qwen and DeepSeek are being customized by the Russians directly for military AI. So they have taken these open-sourced models, which are publicly available, given it to their own AI data engineers, and they are developing military AI and closing the gap. In this whole domain of AI, Russia was lagging behind Ukraine by six years. Now they have narrowed it down to two years. And why I'm telling you all this, because I link it to terror. Just two weeks back, the Russians have fielded, operationally fielded, so it's nothing in the laboratories now, a drone swarm of about 10 which are AI-enabled, fully autonomous and fully autonomous means they choose the targets, they select the targets and they engage the targets. So it's not human in the loop, human is nowhere. So you just see how terror is moving. It is democratizing, sorry, technology is moving, democratizing. It is going low-cost. It is freely accessible. Anyone can take DeepSeek and Qwen and do what it likes with it. Three frontier large language models, GPT 5.2, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 3 Flash were recently used in the United Kingdom at Oxford to carry out nuclear gaming. And these models displayed, and I'm quoting directly from the report, very sophisticated reasoning in terms of analysis, decision-making in nuclear crisis. Now nuclear postures are being remodelled in AI sensibilities. And who's doing it in the United States? Somebody like Eric Schmidt, the boss of Google. So the most lethal of technologies are democratizing, they are available cheap, they are accessible and on the trot, which means it's now not only AI, quantum, this, that and the other. It's a whole sweep of technologies from the commonplace to the exquisite. So it could be roadside bombs, it could be AI-enabled cyber. Just think of this. This is happening in the legitimate domains. And I shudder to think that if this is happening in the legitimate domains, what would be happening in the terror domain? I mean, why not a terror outfit? They have been pretty sophisticated in the past, terror proxies like ISI. What would they be doing? And I would, you know, venture to assert that the terror threat now is no longer about roadside bombs. At one time, roadside bombs were so pertinent, if you take General Soleimani, he was the father of the roadside bomb. About 2000 American soldiers in Iraqi freedom fell to the roadside bomb. And terror was so potent that Soleimani rose in the American mind space. He became such a threat that Trump took him out in Trump 1.0. Now, last, I think two weeks back, the American Air Force Base in Barksdale, which houses their Global Strike Command, B-2s and ICBMs, 10 drones were sighted for 10 hours. And the Americans couldn't decipher where these drones came from. So look at that. And they are striking their 10 drones over what should have been the most secure facility in the United States. If you take your mind back to spider web, drones hit the Russian inventory at a distance of 2,500 kilometres. So drones now, I mean, what are they, wedding drones with some explosives, they can traverse 2,500 kilometres.

If I take your mind back to, I'm just getting you to all the possibilities, 2017, if you recall, there was a cyber attack on the London Health Services. It turned out that it was a cyber weapon, a legitimate cyber weapon developed by the American National Security Agency, which somehow got out of the system. It went to some North Korean hackers and in a long winding way, it was used on the London Health Service, which paralysed their health services for a week. Mustafa Suleyman in his book, The Coming Wave, says that with AI enabled cyber, a similar attack will be unstoppable. Because AI now has all ways of navigating through the patches. And now just see, if AI can be accessed by anybody, because it is democratic, it is cheap, it is accessible, and so can cyber, what will an AI cyber attack do? It can paralyse cities. These are the potentials. And if not by the terror outfit himself, certainly with terror based proxies. So I'm saying that all these possibilities are entirely within the grasp and capacity of terror outfits like the LeT and proxies. In my view, AI enabled terror is over the horizon. You can take it from open sourced AI, give it to a technology geek, connect them by an ideology. And what is the problem of finances, they can be generously financed. If you think it is an impossibility, in 2007, British intelligence said that Al-Qaeda was very much on the verge of becoming the first terror nuclear outfit. And they said that they had capacities of the Hiroshima, Nagasaki kind. And several dirty bomb scenarios were painted. I was then a colonel brigadier here in the military operations directorate. And nuclear terror was being discussed as these dirty bombs were being discussed. They had entered the lexicon of national security. And then I remember it was estimated that you don't need very great sophistication, but a fizzle, a partial fusion, small quantity of nuclear material, a faulty design could create such significant radioactivity that entire buildings in Delhi would vanish. Even a dirty bomb had that kind of potency. In fact, there's a very good book called Will the Terrorists Go Nuclear? By Brian Michael Jenkins. It is so wonderfully written, so realistically portrayed of all possible, in fact, the last chapter does a whole, it's a whole, what shall I say, a description of how a dirty bomb scenario in New York, Manhattan could plan out. If these things were being discussed that time and they didn't happen for whatever reason, consider how technology has got democratised. So it is my estimate, of course there will be no evidence, I am sure it is already happening in some garage somewhere, in some place somewhere. And in epic fury as Trump is busy getting hold of the nuclear dust and enrichment moratoriums, he should bother about these kinds of possibilities. If Iranians don't get a legitimate bomb, will some terror outfit associated with Iran not think of an illegitimate or dirty nuclear bomb? If it was a possibility in 2007, and I don't want to sound alarmist, but it would be equally foolish not to take at least note of these prospects and possibilities. And there is a whole range there, from a sophisticated roadside bomb, to a drone attack on any place in any city, to a cyber attack, to a dirty bomb scenario. I mean, there is just the whole domain. So I am saying that the tenacity, resolve and purpose that we are displaying to stop, what shall we say, state acquisition of nuclear weapons, kindly investigate the domain of techno-terrorism. In fact, if I may say so, in my view, terror would have moved from industrial terror to digital terror, which is even more dangerous. The game is moving to an entirely different level. And so, I mean, that is what I wish to say. And since the terror game is getting sophisticated, moving from industrial to terror, the counter-terror game has to get even more sophisticated. But I think the counter-terror game is still stuck in that industrial mould. Road side bombs and all they might well be terror challenges of the past and the current modern terror challenges, I see no reason, why some of these terror outfits are not working on it. If Al-Qaeda could have been working on this in 2007, even the terror domain would have matured greatly. So without sounding alarmist, once again, we must look at the prospect of a digital 9/11. It could be being planned at any place. If a 9/11 could happen, a digital 9/11 could also be around in the corner. And I have sketched for you all the kinds of possibilities. I think that is a good opening premise to begin with. And let me now turn over the floor to the co-panellists. We will begin with Group Captain Narang.

Rajiv Kumar Narang:  Thank you very much, sir. I think he set the stage for me to just follow his footsteps. We follow seniors and it's always difficult to follow his footsteps because he articulates it so well that for a person like me, it becomes very difficult. But one thing which I learned during the research was, I started studying drones more seriously. While I was studying drones, once our Jammu Air Base was attacked on 27th August 2021. And prior to that, I'd written an article on threat of armed SUS drones. SUS is a small drone, which is, if armed, what threat it can pose. And if it is launched from a place which is nearby, and that had really happened in India. And since then, there's no end to it. Every day around on our borders, we are seeing drones and those who follow news, we still see it every day. The advantage most non-state actors or probably pretending to be non-state actors have is they can anonymize those technologies. The drone which we catch can have a name removed and have a commercial component we put, but modified to the military precision. Now, that's a problem. Because your military excellence is being shrouded in the commercial domain, in the commercial terminology, where it is difficult to pinpoint on if you catch that equipment. So I think that is becoming more and more challenging for a country like India, where there is a active state sponsored terrorism is being shrouded in the techno-terrorism kind of states. There are many vulnerabilities which I've come to know in the last few years. If you see what happens in case of Hezbollah, where pagers were supplied, and one electronic component or the battery which had that ammunition in it was lying with them for quite some time till one day they decided to activate it. Now, that makes it difficult to really identify the threat which probably is lying amongst us and we may not be aware. I think that calls for even more seriousness in looking at the way we have to identify the threat which could be probably hidden in a small little supply chain so originating out of some of the Indian vendor but actually being developed somewhere else. So I think that poses even more difficult challenge.

If you look at what happened in case of this current war, first I'll go back to the Ukraine war. There were three phases. The first phase was when TB2 was a great drone. Ukrainians made a song on Ukraine and after some time Russia has found a way to neutralize it and since then we have not heard it. It is the same TB2 which played a major role in winning the Armenia war for Azerbaijan and thereafter came a second phase. If you just watch the newspaper cuttings, just two years ago people were talking about how commercial drones were doing wonders and then after some time that also died down because within that commercial drone Ukrainians have had died using the DJI drones and Ukrainian Vice Premier I think on 16th March 2022, gave a public statement calling him to stop contributing to loss of Ukrainian life. So there are many, many graves in this war and now you look at what happened in case of Iran. Iran is not a great power. It is facing all kinds of sanctions and yet it develops a drone called Shahed which is being imitated by the two great powers. US decides to develop a LUCAS and Russia decides to develop a Geran but before doing that Russia uses the Shahed first time and then develops a Russian version. So what does it indicate? Do they have to go for the best technology? No. They have to go for the technology which works for them and one more thing what they realized was even today Shahed's attrition is very high but it is able to stop the oil supply challenges, oil supplies of entire Gulf. It is able to create a threat to commercial energy resources of the entire Gulf despite having the best AD, so-called best AD of the US. In fact, the losses of the US were higher than the losses of Israel considering the kind of threat Israel was facing or is facing even today because Israel was better prepared. Israel was better prepared for this kind of asymmetric threat which US was not expecting. US thought probably it is substantive air power will be able to neutralize that did not work in its favour. Now put yourself in that situation and put that, create the scenario in India. Before that come to I'll tell you another case. It's not only the technology. Imagine Ukraine sent about 4 kilometre range drone to at 4,000 kilometre inside Russia to strike their strategic bombers. So that kind of capability comes not only with the technology, with the tactics, with the Espionage. So remember there are various greys which are adding to the complexity of the threat which emerges out of these emerging technologies. In case of India, we have clearly threat coming every day. We have a smuggling of arms. We have weapons. We have drugs. We have counterfeit currencies and many other things. And not only that, the drones are being used to smuggle in terrorists and North East we find another kind of support emerging in the recent past. Now in that kind of scenario, earlier we thought drone threat will be dealt by the military but today the border guarding forces are combination of military and the Central Armed Police Forces. Now not only that, because of low range or drone which is passing through one sector to another, earlier the CAPF or Central Armed Police Forces which are guarding our borders will just pass on that information to military and it will take on the aerial target. But today the target is a threat to them, not to the military targets. And now with the recent war showing that even civil targets are becoming a major attraction, are we ready for defending the targets which are within your cities? Is the police ready to neutralize those targets and kind of complexities of technology which can be hidden in various supply chains and the various sources and which is available within your cities, some of the commercial technologies. And now somebody integrates weapons into that and it becomes a very serious challenge. How do we address it? We need to create technologies and now there are new stakeholders within India. There is a military, there is paramilitary forces and now imagine the border, we also have the state police probably also facing the similar challenges. And now you have the commercial high value targets within the cities or deep inside our country. So I think challenges will be new. We need to get greater automation. And if you go to what happened in case of recent Op Sindoor, hundreds of drone came from Pakistan side and next time will be even more challenging. Your AD threats, the Americans are facing the cost challenge because the AD threats or AD system they use are causing drain on American exchequer. So we need to develop a cost-effective counter-drone system as the chair pointed out. We have new stakeholders, Central Armed Police Forces and now Industrial Security Forces and of course, do they have – now if I look at the way our Central Armed Police Forces are organized, do they have the technological verticals to really face these kind of challenges? Now they have to integrate with the AD network. If you remember how Akashteer of Indian Army was the backbone, now we need Akashteer for the Central Armed Police Forces and for that, do they have the technical vertical the way we have Army Design Bureau, do we need a technical vertical in the police forces which can really anticipate these challenges, create command and control structures and prepare them for the emerging threats on the border where let's say BSF is there or ITBP is there or the other threatened border states. Now these are the new challenges I think we have to prepare for. Even the recently CAPF bill which I faced, I was looking at it before coming, whether they created a technical vertical. I think it was not that specific but I think CAPF will have to look at what reforms are needed within their organization to prepare for these challenges. I think Indian Army has come up for a roadmap for unmanned aerial system. Why this roadmap--vertical is important is they are looking at the critical components. Let there be autopilot or GCS, ground control station, it has an electronic component which can be bugged. How do we prevent bugging of those scams? So I think every little vertical which this new challenge poses, I think we have to prepare for it. We need new, I think, templates where CAPFs have to reform, our police have to reform and I think last vertical which I want to say is our civil drone management system.

Now imagine we came up with the drone rules in 2021 and 2021 drone rules had said we will create a digital sky which will be real-time monitoring of our friendly drones. How does a friendly drone help you identify a rogue drone? If you identify a friendly drone and somebody which is not in that network, you know it's a rogue drone. And that is also helpful in the cities inside, that is also helpful on the border cities. So your civil military technology fusion will be the requirement for the times to come. And I think our Ministry of civil aviation along with the Ministry of Home Affairs where Central Armed Forces and the Ministry of defence and also probably some of the state governments will have to work in tandem to really counter these emerging threats and I think we will have to come up with the structures, policies, technology development ecosystems and technology initiatives. The single, I think, lesson which I take from Iran is Iranian military took the ownership of drone technology amid denial by everyone else, they did not have the best technology but they used the existing capabilities of their industry, whatever they could get it from international market, they used it but whatever they could develop it inside, they developed the capability, they accepted the losses, they catered for the losses and still caused enough damage that today America is really cautious about taking on Iran. 

Raj Shukla:  Thank you, Group Captain Narang, Professor Quamar.

Muddassir Quamar:  Very good afternoon, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to be here at ICWA and thank you, Chair, for very eloquently putting out the issue that we are going to be discussing today. What I have been asked is to give a picture of terrorism and technology with reference to the West Asia and North Africa region and then also see if we can have some policy recommendations or policy analysis that is relevant for India. So I'll try and see if I can do justice to this mandate. Now, if you look at the West Asia and North Africa region, there is no really point emphasizing that this region has faced terrorism in all kind of manifestations. It's not an issue that is recent development in some ways. If you look at globalization of terrorism, perhaps this region is at the forefront and this region has not only produced ideologies or groups that can be categorized as global terrorist organizations, but also has both a brunt of terror attacks or terrorist activities since 1990s more specifically, but in the last decade, especially since due to the rise of ISIS, it has been very, very significant. Now, if you look at the trajectory of terrorism and the current technological advancements that are going on and how these two have merged together, I think the example of ISIS is very, very important. It used many of the advanced technologies, especially in the digital domain, for three type of purposes. One was for recruitment. So social media, blogs, all kind of other dark web, and so on, was used for recruitment purposes. So its recruitment was much wider. It did not restrict to any specific territory. It was much global. So we saw that people from Europe, people from Americas, people from South Asia, other parts of Asia, were joining ISIS without necessarily physically being in touch with any of the recruiters. They were just using social media for recruitment. The second thing that ISIS was doing was for using technology, or again, the web, the internet, for creating content and then disseminating that content. So for propaganda purposes, the ISIS was using technology. And third was also in terms of using organized crime networks, smuggling, human trafficking, all kind of such organized crime networks which were already existing, using that for its activities. And we have seen how potent the ISIS was, the kind of destruction it created in Syria and Iraq, the migration crisis that it created, and so on. But if you look at the situation since then, I think there are a few analysis that can be arrived at as far as the region is concerned. And I'm talking about the entire WANA region. First thing is the first point, the first analysis is the blurring of difference between conventional and unconventional threats in terms of terrorist actors. So there is no longer, I mean, earlier, I remember in IDSA, we used to have discussions in the last, let's say, around 2016-17, when ISIS was really on the rampage. Mostly, the discussion was conventional threats and unconventional threats have to be looked at separately. I think we can no longer look at the conventional and unconventional threats differently. They have the technology as it has enabled, and it has become accessible. It has blurred the difference between conventional and unconventional threats. The second point is also, again, blurring of difference, but this is not about just the threat perception of the threat, but the difference between terror groups and armed non-state actors. So for a very long time, the discussion have always been around whether these groups can be defined as terrorist groups, or these can only be considered as armed non-state actors. I think in the current situation, given the way the situation is developing in the region, I think it is very difficult to really differentiate between armed non-state actors and terror groups, not only because, I mean, because everyone is using terrorist activities, I mean, that's a different issue altogether, but the group, let's say the catchment areas in terms of recruitment, and the areas where these groups may be interested in carrying out their activities are not different. So it is the same people that they target, both in terms of recruitment and in terms of their target, in terms of their attacks. So there is not much difference between armed non-state actors and terrorist groups. We have seen this, especially in the case of Yemen, Libya, also in the Sahel region, groups like Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, many would define groups like Hezbollah and Hamas also as terrorist groups, even though, I mean, many would not necessarily consider them as terrorist groups. So that is something that has to be taken into account. The third part, the third point that I want to make is the accessibility of digital technology or technology, high-tech technology, it has been very eloquently already been pointed out by both the chair and the other speaker, that it has become so easy for terror groups or armed non-state actors to access these technologies. They have become so accessible, whether it is ransomware, whether it is deepfake AI, generative AI, obviously dark web, and so on, or for that matter, UAVs, underwater, unmanned vehicles, and so on. And they are not only acquiring those technologies, but they are also acquiring and adjusting it to their requirement. So that is also something that one has to think about. It has become very, very accessible and easy comparatively compared from the past for a group of individuals, sometimes without any name, sometimes without any defined function and identifiable name and definition, to acquire such technologies and use it for their purposes. The fourth point is the nexus between organized crime and terror groups. If you look at financing especially, cryptocurrency, digital currency, different type of digital currencies, especially groups like Hezbollah and some of the groups active in Syria and Iraq or the Houthis in Yemen, they have been using organized crime networks, smuggling, human trafficking, sometimes even in high seas, especially for example Houthis, they have been using such networks to not only finance themselves, acquire finances, but also kind of carrying out their activities. So I think that part is also very, very important and that is also enabling the terrorist groups or the armed non-state actors to become very potent or to increase their potency as far as the terrorist activities are concerned. So from a policy perspective, I think one has to really become very, very innovative. The non-state actors, the terrorist groups are becoming innovative, they are very flexible, they don't really differentiate between where their money is coming from, where their finances are coming from, what kind of networks they are using, ideological variation is becoming blurred, even physical borders or maritime borders do not necessarily put them in a difficult situation. They are able to overcome such difficulties, natural barriers by use of technology, by use of high tech, and that is something that when we look at in terms of policy analysis, in terms of counter-terrorism, one has to become really innovative and think in terms of how these groups are thinking and what they might do, what they might not have so far done.

The second point in terms of analysis is there is a need for greater counter-terrorism cooperation across the board and in terms of intelligence sharing, in terms of sharing of expertise, in terms of sharing of knowledge, know-how, as to what these groups might be doing and what they might be working on. Especially with like-minded countries in the West Asia region, Israel. With Israel, India has a very robust system already with countries in the GCC, especially, I would say, UAE and Saudi Arabia. There is a need for greater consultations. And it is already there in place, but perhaps more needs to be done. And also look at the possibility of state, non-state actor nexus, especially with countries that may not necessarily always be in favour of India in terms of geopolitical issues. So that also needs to be taken into account. And my final point is that when we think about terrorism, we should always remember that terrorism does not necessarily is meant only for one target. What is happening in West Asia, North Africa region, while terrorist group might be looking at specific targets at one point of time, but the potency that they have acquired doesn't have a sense of direction. It can go west, it can go east. So I think from an Indian perspective, it is very important to look at the developments in the region, especially in terms of use of technology by terror groups, by non-state actors, and what kind of threat that it poses to India. I'll stop here and will be very happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  So thank you very much. If Dr Pandya is on the line, we'd like to welcome him. Dr Pandya, your remarks, please.

Abhinav Pandya:  Yes. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, ICWA for inviting. So first and foremost, let me just state that the non-state actors are not going to vanish. No, they're pretty much going to stay. And in fact, we see that right now we are going through a phase where non-state actors are having a kind of an interface or interaction with the great power rivalries. And we can see that in West Asia, the entire conflict that we see, it was primarily kickstarted by the Hamas attack, this October 2023 Hamas attack. And even in South Asia, Operation Sindoor happened because of the Pahalgam terror attack. Even before that, the Uri surgical strike and the Balakot strikes also happened because of the major action by non-state actors. In Africa, we see that the non-state actors, the ISIS, the local ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates are getting very, very stronger. They are spreading their area of operation, intensity of operations. Also, the modus, the technology which they're using in operations. So they're expanding. Even in Europe, we see that. I mean, we see a different kind of, I would say, terror networks working in Europe. These days, we see groups which are being orchestrated and guided by the Russian military intelligence, GRU. They're getting very active on the European soil with the involvement in terror activities, and also the groups which are controlled by Iran. Along with the terror groups, we see a new variant in this global terror landscape. That is the variant of militias. They're basically Islamist militias. And there are minor differences between a transnational terrorist organization like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, or an Islamist militia like the Iraqi militia, or maybe HTS. But there are a lot of overlappings also. I'm not getting into those details because I've been told that I have to speak more on the interface between technology and terrorism. So I'm going to focus on that, but this was just to set the background. So we see that over the last, I would say, few years, certainly ideology continues to be important, but the most important transformation that has taken place in the terror landscape is the centrality of technology. And because of that, the whole radicalization and the process, and also the planning, and to a large extent execution also, it has virtualized. So this process of the virtualization of radicalization and virtualization of the terror-related processes has led to profound impacts across the spectrum. First, they have generated the phenomenon of, I would say, strengthened the phenomenon of lone wolf actors. Now, these lone wolf actors, they mostly get radicalized through online portals. After the ISIS and Al-Qaeda got decimated, they started focusing on the idea of lone mujahids because they didn't have to give detailed instructions, and that didn't require strong logistical networks, which were very prone to being caught by the counterterrorism agencies. And also, the lone mujahids created a very right kind of a role model in the Islamist circles or the terrorist ecosystem. So that happened, and after that, we saw that among the lone mujahids, mostly they had a very strong exposure to the online radicalization, and that also led to the people with the mental vulnerabilities getting into it. Besides that, it also had an impact on the demographics. Because of the online radicalization and recruitment, we saw that females were getting into terrorism. Forty percent of the people who went to Syria and Iraq in 2010s, late 2000s, early mid-2010s, to join ISIS, they included women. Also, the people who were very young, the teenagers, started getting into this terror network because of the virtualization of the terror ecosystem. So these were the major changes.

And coming to the Indian side now. So, in India's case, terrorist organizations have always improvised over the last, let's say, three decades. Even when we go back to early 1990s, the terrorists coming from Pakistan, they were getting very advanced equipment, which was brought from the Afghanistan theatre that included Pika guns, RPGs, you know, and also the terrorists coming from the various quarters of the globe. After that, also, the weapon systems improved, the communication systems improved, they started getting sat phones. But particularly, like, after this abrogation of Article 370, we see a very, I would say, intense focus on the online part of the use of internet and emerging technologies in terrorism. If you look at the new groups like PAFF and TRF, they're very high on narrative. If you look at the way they're bringing out their posters, images, their propaganda, that's very high quality stuff. And besides that, they're also recording, they're also shooting the incidents in which their terrorists are killing people. So, that is, they're to create a very high quality impact on the people. And so, this is continuing in this process. And even in late 2008s and 2007, when the stone pelting started in Kashmir, that was also due to a major technological intervention. They started distributing the cassettes of stone pelting incidents which were happening in the Middle East, in West Asia. So, those cassettes were distributed in Kashmir, and that again impacted the people at the very large level. The drone part, I'll take up later, but I'm focusing on the other parts of the technology which they're using. So, nowadays, the focus of the Pakistan-sponsored terror groups is mostly on recruiting and hiring people who are really good at the technology. I mean, we saw in this Delhi Red Fort blast module, they focused on hiring very highly educated doctors, and they included people who could work with explosives, who were really great at computers. So, the focus is different now. Previously, they had very organized professional terror training camps. They are still continuing, but this is a new innovation that has taken place. We've also seen the phenomenon of hybrid terrorists which are coming to Kashmir. That is also largely possible because of the virtualization of the radicalization process and the recruitment process. So, now you see the whole gamut of terror structure has undergone a major transformation in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly after the abrogation of Article 370. Government of India made it very difficult to just have those routine terror financing exchanges in the conventional methods. It was very difficult because we unleashed a major crackdown on that. So, because of that, they started new methods of recruitment and radicalization. So, in the present scenario, you'll find that someone sitting in Pakistan, some major or captain sitting in any ordinary, let's say, random place in Pakistan, would be in touch with 80 to 100 individuals in Jammu and Kashmir with a fake identity and through anonymous encrypted portals. They will be assigned a task that you have to go and pick up your weapon from so-and-so place where some totally new young boys and girls would be hired as OGWs. They'll be distributing the weapon. That person will use that weapon to accomplish the task assigned to him after that weapon will be disposed. And then that person will resume his normal duties, like maybe as a professor, maybe as a coaching teacher, or as a worker in some government department. So this is a hybrid terrorist. This is also strongly because of this online virtual radicalization. And if you see, this is like a process. Actually, getting a hybrid terrorist from across the spectrum in society, you need a support base for that kind of ideology and for that sentiment. Previously, it didn't exist. But Pakistan employed a very nice tactic to do that. So if you see, after the killing of Burhan Wani in the encounter by the security forces, a lot of local boys started joining militancy in Kashmir. We started calling it indigenous terrorism or home grown terrorism. And when they joined, they used to declare that on social media applications, mostly Facebook, with their big size pictures and very glamorous photographs with a gun in a hand. So that impacted society at the mass level. And that resulted in the decentralization or democratization of the idea of separatism, idea of Islamist extremism. So that prepared a fertile ground. Also, that also led to a massive police, I would say, response in terms of rounding up people, booking people under PSA. That again had its impact and its repercussions. The young generation started falling for these terror masterminds who were hailed as heroes in society. So that created a background to recruit people from various, I would say, parts of the society. And today, now the situation is fertile to such an extent that Pakistan doesn't need to really operate a large-scale army of physical OGWs and all. And with the help of online operations, they can execute a lot of tasks in a very easy manner.

Second is virtual directions. So this whole, I would say, process of giving virtual directions with the usage of technology started with Anwar al-Awlaki. So Anwar al-Awlaki, he was a famous terrorist, and he was based in Yemen, Al-Qaeda fellow. He started guiding that 2009 Fort Hood terror attack in which Major Nidal Hassan was involved and a couple of other terror attacks in the US. But later on, ISIS really specialized in this using, I would say, virtual methods to plan and to execute terrorist attacks in various parts. And ISIS had a range of virtual operators who were involved in recruitment, radicalization, planning and operating terror attacks. In case of India, there was a fellow named Shafi Armar who was involved as a main virtual recruiter and a planner of terror attack. He was involved in 2015 Hyderabad bombing and also he was involved with plotting IED blasts in Srinagar and Calcutta which somehow could not happen. It is said that he was in touch with 800 individuals at a time in India in those days. Even the Pulwama episode, you know, the use of virtual methods was really very important in the Pulwama Fedayeen attack. Later the investigations by NIA revealed that the entire communication had taken place on WhatsApp. We could finally retrieve those WhatsApp chats because the burnt phone was recovered by J&K police in one of the encounters and those WhatsApp chats basically opened the entire story. Once those WhatsApp chats were with the NIA, they didn't have to do anything. It was everything. All the pictures, the methods used, employed to collect the explosives and chemicals and also recruit people, they were all there. Also, the information about the infiltration, the batches who were coming to Jammu & Kashmir in those days from Pakistan, the Jaish cadres, every information was there. WhatsApp was used. Like WhatsApp, terrorists also use other applications like Discord, Session, Enigma, Matrix. Some of these applications are not available on Google Play Store and they are highly anonymous and they are also maintained. Their servers are maintained in friendly countries, countries who are friendly to, I would say, Islamist entities. For example, the Kashmir-based terrorists were using this application called BIP. Its servers were in Turkey and we know what kind of relationship Turkey generally maintains with the Islamist terrorist organizations across the spectrum, their linkages with the IS and also their sympathies for Kashmir-based terror operatives and also the Bangladesh-based terror operatives. So, these are again the issues which are very important and must be highlighted while analysing the role of technology in the terror domain.

Now, coming to the drone part, first time it was in the year 2016 when Jammu & Kashmir's CID branch sent some generic reports that the terrorists in Kashmir are going to use drones. Finally, by 2018, 2019, 2020, we started seeing that they were using drones particularly to smuggle weapons, cash, fake currency and later on, we saw a lot of drone usage on the Punjab border and the Jammu region. Basically, they were using Khalistani terrorist organizations, their entities based in Lahore and Germany to coordinate those drone usages and they were mostly using commercial drones, I guess Chinese Mavic, some DJI Mavic classic drones they were using and it has the capacity of a few hundred grams to six kgs and most recently ISKP, Islamic State Khurasan province has given instructions to focus more on the commercial off-the-shelf drones, COPT drones. They are easily available in the market. It's not difficult to find them. They have a low noise signature and they can be easily customized for military uses or for the terror uses. So that's again a big danger. Besides that, another threat that we face particularly in the Indian context is that Pakistan's close ally and strategic partner Turkey has a global, I would say, the world's finest expertise in building drones, particularly their Anka-S TB2 Bayraktar and the other one, I'm not able to remember the name. So these drones are like medium, long-range, mid-altitude, low-altitude drones and they can carry large amounts of payloads, they can be used to drop IEDs, they can be used for recce surveillance. They're doing that and they can be used for all kinds of, I would say, damaging, all kinds of damaging effects. Swarm drones can be used for launching multiple attacks on the forward deployments of the Indian army in case if there's a war-like situation on your civilian and military installations, on your, let's say, other infantry movements. Recently in the Operation Sindoor also, Pakistan sent huge quantity of drones and reportedly they mapped the entire Jammu and Kashmir and they have provided immense amount of data to the terror masterminds in Pakistan. Now, in the future, if there's any war-like situation, these terror groups with access to such state-of-the-art technology can act as force multipliers and they can work with these low-cost drones, use the swarm drones technology to massively damage our conventional military assets and the military moves. So that's, again, a challenge. And regarding the drones, I would like to emphasize that particularly these commercial drones which are available in the market, they can be used in the other parts of India also. As we see that there's a massive spread of transnational terror groups like IS and AQIS in the Indian hinterland also. They're finding the right kind of environment right now because of the polarization and many other things. So they can find people, particularly youngsters who are interested in new technological gadgets and they can use these, I would say, the small petty drones, commercial drones for either for spraying chemicals or for dropping minor amounts of explosives. So that's a big risk, a big challenge.

Now, regarding the use of AI by terrorist organizations, they're using AI in creating propaganda, materials like nice images, posters and articles in multiple languages. They're using AI to create deepfakes, also deepfakes which includes videos of fake atrocities, statements by politicians who spread misinformation. They can also use AI and the blockchain technology, AI powered blockchain technologies to raise a lot of funds through cryptocurrencies. And they can use AI to integrate with the drones and then those AI integrated drones can be used very efficiently with those autonomous navigation systems and for the target acquisition and they can create immense amount of damage. Besides, AI can be used by terrorist organizations for spoofing, they can be using AI powered bots, they can easily bypass KYC procedures in the banking and open fake accounts. So these are some of the areas where terrorist organizations can use AI very successfully. But as of now, particularly in India, the usage is not very advanced. It remains minimal and they prefer conventional technologies. Even regarding drones, we can see that the terrorist groups in South Asia are not using drones at the same level at which the terror groups in Middle East or maybe some parts of North Africa are using. This is because there are a few reasons for that. First is the cost part. The commercially available drones which they have access to, they cannot carry very huge amount of payloads. But the high quality drones like the drones used in agriculture or the drones for the military use, which can carry a larger amount of payloads, they are very costly. So cost is an important part. So if you do a comparative analysis, they can execute high intensity terror attacks using conventional methods like firing or IED. Once they are able to access drone technology at cheaper rates, certainly they're going to use it. Secondly, in South Asia, the use of drones also depends on the strategic and tactical ambitions of the organization. For example, TTP uses drones in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to attack those military bases and posts which cannot be accessed by ground, by ground movements in a normal way. So drones are useful in those cases. So they use a mixed, a set of mixed methods which includes drones and normal routine shoot and scoot attacks and everything. But yes, in general, I can say that the future of terror is certainly going to be getting much more deeply intertwined with technology. And the latest Brookings report say that in the future, the power of the terror group will not be analysed based on the territory under its control or its control of the manpower. But the kind of technology it controls and the amount of data that it has access to. Terrorist organizations can hack your smartphones, they can cut off the electricity and water supply in cities, they can just halt the traffic signals, and they can bring the banks to a collapse. With 3D printers, they can create weapons which are highly advanced, and they don't need to smuggle weapons in those cases. So certainly, technology definitely is going to be a major, I would say concern for all the counterterrorism agencies, and they need to update themselves. In India's case, I must say that the entire intelligence culture needs a complete overhaul, which at the moment doesn't look very hopeful, because we see that in the current setup, most of our intelligence apparatus is manned by, it's a very police-centric apparatus. We see that some person who is posted as, let's say, SP or DIG in some random district managing a protocol for the minister is sent to IB or RAW next day and sent to postings in Jammu and Kashmir, where he has absolutely no clue about a terrorist organization. He cannot even differentiate between the various ideological strands of a terrorist organization. For example, what's the difference between Deobandi and Barelvi? He wouldn't know, because he's not been trained to do that. So I think we really need to pull up our socks and, you know, factor in the diverse aspects of the complexities that are emerging in the global terror landscape, with its impacts on the terror theatre in South Asia. Thank you very much.

Raj Shukla:  So thank you, Dr Pandya. Thank you. I think now we are open for questions. So any questions, comments? Yeah, please. There's the lady first. Just please give your name and if you could name the person to whom your question is addressed.

Sugandhi:  Good evening, everyone. My name is Sugandhi. I'm a research analyst at the Council. Thank you, panellists, for that insightful discussion. My question is posed to Professor Muddassir. Sir, you've talked about how terrorist outfits like ISIS use technology for recruitment and propaganda. My question is, how have these groups like ISIS have seeped into the online gaming realm? And what kind of regulations are needed to counter it, since it directly affects children and teenagers, and there's a lot of ambiguity and anonymity related to it? Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  Yeah, we'll take a bunch of questions and then we'll, yeah, please.

Sripati Narayanan:  Sripathi, I'm with the Council. My question is more towards the east of India and not to the west, where in the west you find largely state-backed directly or indirectly state involvement in the entire drone space. And also, as the chat said about cyber attack, there is a suspicion of the state involvement. Whereas in Southeast Asia, you find that it's becoming a major hub for non-state actor in terms of scam centres, you have found instances of Starlink communication being used for smuggling of narcotics and a lot of narcotics that enter Indian waters from the sea end up using the Starlink and also given the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, we have found that the rather rudimentary ethnic armed groups being pretty good in getting their drones to operate in those areas which is way beyond their normal area of operations. So given that fact and where you find the entire dynamics in Southeast Asia being far more sensitive but not adequately paid attention, do you think that is going to be the next lab rat or place where the next generation of technology--being multiple technologies being married and you find serious security, the next generation of security concerns evolving from that? Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  Yeah, the lady here. And then we'll come here and then there's one question.

Azra:  Good evening, everybody. I'm Azra. I'm a research intern at the council. My question, I'd like Chair sir to answer my question. So the question is how AI and technology are influencing narrative building during war. As in case of Iran-US confrontation, both the power have built parallel narratives of victory and both claim that they are not losing the war. So we have seen AI and technology penetrating into military purposes as in manifestations of AWS and drone systems. But do you also now see it penetrating into the psyche and brains of global civilian population through creating perceptions? Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  Yeah, here, please. Either of you.

Anand Tripathi:  My name is Anand Tripathi and I am from the Jamia Millia Islamia. My question on the state regulation on the AI, for example, sir said that terrorists are using ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek to propagate terrorism. So my question is, these are the platforms which can be regulated by the state, like in case of DeepSeek, you will see it will not give the answer against the China. So when the state can regulate it, why the state is not regulating it in order to prevent the use of terrorism? Because the use of AI need a huge finance and more research, and the non-state actor do not have such type of technologies and finance. They are mostly provided by the state. For example, in case of Pakistan and India conflict, everyone knows from where they get their drone. So when state propagate it to the non-state actor or actor that is not responsible, then it goes to the non-state actor which use it. And for example, sir said they use social media platform to propagate their propaganda. It can also be regulated. For example, in 2018, Twitter has banned or deleted a Donald Trump tweet. But after that, you know what happened to Twitter. So all these things can be regulated. So my question is whether the state want to regulate it or they do not want to regulate it. For example, Europe has a tight policy for the AI. On the other hand, US is using open policy for the AI. So it wants to build a million, billion, trillion dollar companies so any can use it. But they do not regulate it for their purpose.

Sachin Yadav:  Good evening, esteemed panellists. My name is Sachin Yadav and I'm a research intern at the Council and a Ph.D. scholar at Jamia Ahmadiyya. My question is for Narang sir. Sir, recently, a few days back, we both were attending an event organized at the Air Force Auditorium by CAPS, which was focused on additive manufacturing and indigenization of Indian Army manufacturing. And today we are again discussing weapon modernization. Sir, in the backdrop, what has happened is India approved a $25 million modernization package which includes importing of modernized technologies from various countries. In this context, how safe is this importing of modernization technology is? Because these technologies can also be used by many non-state and state actors.

Raj Shukla:  Okay, last question. There was somebody here asking.

Raunak Kumar:  Good evening to all of you. My name is Raunak Kumar and I'm a student at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University. Sir, my question is to Raj sir. Sir, I want to ask how far the deployment of electronic warfare domes at critical border zones acts as a deterrent and what are the challenges to it? Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  Okay, so what we'll do now, I'll just request the panellists to answer whatever questions you think are relevant, and also your closing comments. So we'll wrap up, and please not more than three minutes.

Muddassir Quamar:  Yeah, yeah. Thanks. There was one or two questions related to what I said. I think the point about use of online gaming, that is very valid. What has happened is that many of these groups, including ISIS, was doing it. But I think from there on, the online gaming space has become much more advanced. It has become much more popular also in terms of penetration and among the youngsters. For example, I'll give you an example. In Saudi Arabia, many youngsters have started speaking Japanese because they are almost addicted to the Japanese online gaming systems. So that has also been or can be used by terrorist groups, so very valid point. Additionally, many of the groups are also using Telegram channels and other such social media handles to target their recruitment. There was a point about state regulation that you were mentioning. I think there is a problem there. There is a difference between regulating or banning what can be used by terrorists. And at the same time, you have issues of freedom of expression. You have issues of human rights. You have issues of such ideas. I mean, if you look at the WANA region, many countries have very stringent laws against such social media use. But there's always two sides of the coin. So we have to see how we go about it. Thank you.

Rajiv Kumar Narang: Thank you, sir. I think as regards to threat from the east and west, as I said, the threats are going to increase from east to west as well as from inside. So the two and a half front scenario which we say, and the new threat which is going to come from inside is more challenging because somebody passing equipment or a component which has come from outside, and you cannot validate the vulnerability. Your technological structures, let's say certification, validation, which is a very technical issue, but you need to create that. I think that is where the major worry I have. Second is the integration of various stakeholders. Now, while at the human level, we have mechanism for integration, it is that technological integration will be a challenge because military is reasonably technologically evolved, but bringing the civil drone networks or the civil command and control networks which can monitor and then CAPFs bringing them along and having some sort of interoperability, vulnerability assessments and integration. I think these three parts will be a major challenge. In terms of import vulnerability, I think I'm less worried about imported component being vulnerable. Import has a different aspect where you are dependency problem. You have somebody not passing you the details, not passing you the spares or not giving you supplies when you need them most. Generally, such kind of vulnerabilities are minimal. And first of all, your choice of partners are such that you expect less such vulnerabilities. So my vulnerability is more from the one which is acquired from open source or acquired from open market, which probably, until you go to their origin, can have greater vulnerabilities. Those are the greater vulnerabilities I think.

Raj Shukla:  Dr Pandya.

Abhinav Pandya:  Yeah, I can, but I don't think there was any question directed to me.

Raj Shukla:  Okay. Any final thoughts if you have, if there are any final thoughts?

Abhinav Pandya: Final thoughts, yes. I just forgot to mention about this, the gamification part. So I guess Professor Muddassir mentioned about that and here also I would like to highlight that the terrorist organizations are creating very immersive online environments in which you have provided a simulation for the whole trajectory of, I would say, radicalization, planning, executing operations. So that's one point which I wanted to make. And this online thing has particularly, I mean, basically shortened the duration of radicalization. Previously, when terrorist organizations worked, there was a process. You had to bring in someone through a proper OGW or an on-ground operator. That person would come through a very strong, robust check. And finally, when that person would come, he would be subjected to ideological training, physical training. And then finally, at some stage, the act of terror would take place. But in the current scenario, this whole online thing has completely disconnected or completely removed all those steps. There's no need for proper offline meetings, ground-level meetings. There's no need to keep all those checks. It's completely faceless. You get exposed to extremist content 24/7. And then the whole process of radicalization is very fast. And once you're not the part of organization, in that case, you don't have to take permissions from your hierarchy, from your superior officers, or I would say you don't have to follow any strategic guidelines also. You can just go and commit the attack. So that's one point which I wanted to make, particularly in the context of terror and technology. But just as a sum up or as a conclusion, I must say that the terrorist organizations, non-state actors are going to play a very critical role in the global geopolitical theatre. They will be acting as a force multipliers and we see that the wars are becoming more and more asymmetric and hybrid in nature. Even the bigger powers are getting decimated, they're getting reverses by the much weaker powers because of the asymmetric edge that they have over the superior powers. So in this whole scenario, I think these proxy actors will be very critical. And India's position, particularly in this context, is very vulnerable as Mr Narang rightly pointed out that we have this internal theatre also, so we have to face the proxy actors on the Western theatre, on the Eastern theatre, and also internally. So that makes us extremely vulnerable to the challenge of non-state actors and accordingly, we have to make our policies because we are also looking at a 2047 future where we'll be a developed country, but only if we are able to manage these security challenges because security comes first. Thank you.

Rajiv Kumar Narang:  I just want to add a few more points because I thought, first of all, what we saw in this Iran war was the MQ-9s or the Hermes which were probably MQ-9 or the Predator was fanboy, which had fanboys, they were neutralized by the Iran. The vulnerabilities were exposed. So which so far it had a free run, American drone will go and shoot, kill terrorists, is not going to work. So we will have to really reorientate our development strategy. The vulnerabilities have to be clearly identified. Secondly, efficacy of drones. Let's not exaggerate the capabilities of drones. All heavy payloads were dropped by the manned aircraft while they provided an edge when you are cornered. And secondly, high technology, they were able to neutralize damage to the F-35, but against 10,000 sortie, that's not a major loss. So, the media exaggeration should not influence our critical thinking. As regards to the counter threat, I think this AI, if it is empowering the terrorists, it can also empower us if we take a decision to harness this capability. Let's say if I get a swarm of drones, I don't have to use a patriot class of missile, I have to use what systems I have. And I believe if I am able to get a one shot, one kill with the entry drone capability, whether I use AI, whether I use better technologies in terms of ammunition or whatever, I think same technology can also help us in building our capability. So let's not take only one way of it. I think we need to do an honest assessment of our capabilities, in various capabilities and our existing public-private sector entities and our start-ups. Remember start-ups have their strength, but they need strength of the larger players to really scale up, to also go to the higher technology. So I think let's not denigrate public against private or start-up against everything. They are all part of our ecosystem. We have to harness strength of each and then I think we will be able to prepare better. And remember ownership. Ownership as I have been saying it again. Ownership, somebody has to raise his hand and say, okay, we will do it and we can do it. And a lot of our technologies often, just close to the threshold of success, we just go silent on it, whether it is drone capability or a counter-drone capability. There are a lot of pending projects which if they are going slow, I think we need to wake up and we also look at the future, kind of unmanned system we have to develop. So remember our existing threats, the kind of multi-dimensional threats we face, we have a lot of indigenous systems. We have a HTT-40, we have a LCH light combat aircraft, we have advanced light combat helicopters, light combat aircraft. Our indigenous system should be integrated with counter drone capabilities because different variants, slow speed threats, they can be a great enabler if we integrate our existing counter drone capabilities and I think we will be better prepared. Thank you.

Raj Shukla:  Okay, so I will just wrap up by making a few points in addition to the wonderful points made by the panellists. So if you look at the terror threat from this whole chaos and instability around Myanmar and Bangladesh, it is very potent. It is not only drugs, it is these scam centres, it is rare earths, this whole kind of thing is coming together. In fact those EOs, ethnic armed organizations, they are operating entirely in this grey zone and I have some knowledge of it. What really surprised me was that there is a whole special representative of China outside the designated ambassador who looks at that grey zone, so he engages with them, what can be done, how to push out Indian interests. So I am inclined to say that this whole threat from the east, the kiosks in Myanmar, Bangladesh, in terms of drugs, camp centres, EEOs, is a new national security reality. Coupled with drones, it is deeply sophisticated, albeit it has dialled down a bit because of the change of the nature of the regime in Bangladesh. If say the Jamaat and all had come to power, this would have been very potent. And so this is how the whole threat is going and we have to really understand this. There was a question about regulation. Now see, regulation will work, but monitoring is better. Actually it's not really regulation. If the terrorist is agile, can the government be equally agile? Regulation doesn't work. You took Trump out of Twitter, he became president. That's the way it's happening. He got Elon Musk to buy Twitter. Regulation is a weak response. Why can't the government be equally agile? So you should have your people monitoring those same webs, your people monitoring the same nets and the problem here is while the terrorists are digital natives, much of government is digitally illiterate if it's not a strong enough word. So we have to step up our game. Somebody took up social media. All this fakes and all is okay. Why not do what China did? What is TikTok? TikTok is of course a lovely social media app where you can do all your photography, this, that. Do you also know that it is a strategic tool controlled by the CCP to manipulate digital audiences? They controlled opinion in Gaza. So I'm saying India now, and I keep making this point, we are the fourth largest economy, soon to be third largest. Lowy says we are third in terms of comprehensive national power. We are a big power. Who's above us but China and USA? Why don't we step up our game in all these dimensions? That's the larger argument I'm making. We should not be reactive to the terrorists. We should be far ahead in the game. And here, see, I'll tell you why the terrorists will always win. Because he thinks digitally. He knows what silos we are. He knows that we will not be able to sort out the police, CRPF, Army, Navy silo for the next 10 years. There lies the advantage. And digital thinking cannot be responded to by industrial thinking. So the common sense is collapse your silos. We should have done it as of 10 years back. While this theatre command debate is a debate of the 1980s. The world has moved to cross-pollination. And in national security, in this terror game today, see, who's the partner of Space Com? It is Elon Musk. We were talking of, Group Captain Narang was saying, that we must not overestimate dronery, we are not overestimating dronery. I am saying why can't we be as agile? You heard of Palmer Luckey, six years back he was playing with VR headsets. This year he has turned out AI enabled near stealth unmanned platform in 568 days. So whether we like it or not, the taxonomy of terror, national security is moving to unmanned systems and to stealth. So PSUs, of course they would be welcome, but the PSUs must become as efficient as the Chinese SOEs, they are also PSUs, BYD is a PSU but BYD beats Tesla. So the problem is not with the PSUs, the problem is with their lazy performance and there is a reason there. Let me speak in defence of PSUs, HAL, you appoint a director at 58, he retires at 60, what will he do in aviation which is a 15 year time horizon, you have to get somebody young at 40, give him a chair for 15 years? So it is these kind of changes that we need and they will also be in terror. The terrorist knows how slovenly the response of government agencies will be. So the government agencies instead of regulating must become agile, even how has Israel taken care of terror? They have created 2 units, 8-200, 9-300 which have young technology geeks and what are the options given? You can stay for 2 years, you can stay for 5 years, you can stay for a lifetime. If you leave after 2 years, you go to Silicon Valley, they maintain contacts with you. And today they have developed this penetration that they did of the Iranian regime, is amazing. It comes from offensive ISR, means such capacities in technology. So I am saying go pre-emptive with terror, that they knew every night when Nasrullah was sleeping since 2010, they took him out only on 30th September 2024. How is this by way of response? Look at what has happened if you think, I mean if, I am not commenting on the morality, if Maduro was a crook, see how they took him out. The pattern of life competencies, they put all these technologies together, they knew exactly what he did in the last 72 hours and therefore what he would do in the next 48 hours. So they knew the points of entry and exit, where he is, when he will go to safe house. And now with this Maven and Claude, they gave natural language queries, what is the best time to pick him up? Should we attack by day or by night? What is the asset combination? If India is a big power, look at the way the game is moving. So we should operate there. In the context of Pakistan, if Pakistan is a terror threat, if they are financing terror, why should we not have the military capacities to lift Hafiz Saeed? So I am saying create the capacities, expand the political options. It is not military jingoism. If it is a decision. If there are terror threats to us, why can't we do decapitation strikes of the kind that Israel has done? So I am making this whole argument that India is a responsible state, we will never misuse our technology and military power, it will be calibrated, restrained and you are lucky, you are in a country where your military is under total civilian control. The decision has to be of the politician. So how about going along this path? The way the terror threats are moving, may I suggest that this would be a better option. I would like to make one final point about dronery. In 2017 or 18, when I was Director General Perspective Planning here, drones first hit two artillery units in the Armenia and I was a gunner, all gunners said, sir, this is not possible, how they can kill artillery? Today, shall I tell you what is the reality? They have created a digital killing web and it is sophisticated. You read it. It is Delta system, AI enabled Gotham software done by talent of the kind of Alex Karp. It is such an AI enabled web that from detection to kill, the time is six minutes. Now look at the outcome. The outcome is that artillery has had to eat humble pie. The Ukrainians are buying eight million drones more than the artillery they fired last year. Enemy artillery has got pushed back by 80 kilometres, outranged. Tanks don't move. Infantry soldiers are taking hits of the order of 20,000 a month, Russians. And the Russians have hit back. In AI, they were lagging by six years. They've narrowed it down to two years. It is dronery, dronery, dronery all the way. Ten years back, combined arms was infantry, armour, engineers. Today it is four soldiers on a golf cart because they can't travel by tank. They've got such facial recognition that tanks are taken out from any angle. So four soldiers on a golf cart, two surveillance drones to protect you on top and six surveillance drones behind. What Narang was saying, this attack on the nuclear stuff, it is new, it is right from close air support to strategic air power. Now does it mean that air power has gone? Certainly not. Look what air power did in Epic Fury. So I am saying that we have to dissolve our silos, get into the digital space, upgrade our technological capacities. And if we do that, they will apply agnostically in the world of terror, in the world of conventional deterrence, and even in the world of nuclear deterrence. So I think my principal argument is to step up the state's response in terms of enabling technology so that they expand your options. So I think we'll end with that. We've had a lovely discussion. I must thank ICWA and my panellists, Professor Quamar, Group Captain Narang, and Dr Pandya for their very valuable contributions. And of course, to the audience, today in Delhi it is easier to get speakers than to get people to listen. So we are extremely grateful that all of you came to listen to us. Thank you very much.

Mukesh Kumar:  Thank you, sir. There is no doubt that today's discussion was insightful and thought-provoking. On behalf of ICWA, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the distinguished chair and all the panellists. I would also like to thank the audience for their engagement and everyone who made this event successful. Thank you so much, and please join us for high tea in the foyer. Thank you.

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