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Centre of Air Power published a book titled “Air Power & Emerging Technologies”.
This article is one of the chapter in the book.
It may be said that warfare has acquired a new phase – technological war. The kind and quality of systems that a nation develops can decide the battle in advance and make the final conflict a mere formality or can bypass conflict altogether.
– Gen Bernard Schriever
Introduction
The origin of warfare is coincident with the origin of living beings. Human beings have made it into a specialised art by applying the knowledge of science to it. The nature of warfare is constantly changing with advancements in technology. Warfare essentially has two facets, offensive and defensive. Offensive action is aimed at causing damage to the enemy and defensive action is to save oneself from the enemy offensive action. In the olden days of fighting with handheld weapons, swords were used as an offensive weapon and shields were used to protect oneself.
Airpower appeared on the warfare scene quite recently as compared to other domains of warfare. Aviation itself started about 120 years back however, within a very short time it made forays into warfare giving birth to a new service. Warfare since then has gone through a rapid change with the use of the third dimension of air and space. Air warfare also has two facets of offensive application of airpower and defensive actions to mitigate the enemy’s offensive air actions. In air warfare, the division between the offensive and defensive campaigns is not as simple as it seems. The two campaigns are intrinsically interconnected.
In the last decade, the Air Defence (AD) operations have undergone an extensive change with new technologies being employed. Research is already in progress on new technologies like Quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence, Hypersonic, Nano Technologies and unmanned systems etc. These new technologies will have a transformational impact on the AD as well. It is worthwhile to trace the historical evolution of AD operations over the years, take stock of the present situation and crystal gaze into the future.
Had an interesting Interview with well-known Mr Ashtosh Garg (Chairman, Guardian Pharmacy and Book Author – details at the end of the post) of “The Brand Called You’.
‘The Brand Called You’ is a Media Tech global platform that brings you Leadership Lessons, Knowledge, Experience, and Wisdom from leading personalities from diverse backgrounds across the World. These are individuals who have contributed significantly to making the World a better place.
The link to the video is below:-
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Ashutosh Garg, an MBA worked for ITC Limited for 17 years, leaving in 1995 as Managing Director of one of the ITC group companies, based in Singapore. Thereafter he spent 8 years in the aerospace industry. He founded Guardian Pharmacy in India in 2003 and grew it to the second-largest pharmacy chain in India. He also brought GNC as a partner to India. He exited the company he founded in August 2016.
Ashutosh served as a director of the GAVI Vaccine Alliance for 8 years. He is Chairman of Bizdome, a Startup Incubator of the Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak. He has also served on the Advisory Council of the Centre for Policy Research and continues to serve on the boards of several companies.
He was recognized as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, Switzerland. He is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and is the Chairman-elect for YPO Gold, South Asia for the period 2017 – 19.
He has written 5 highly acclaimed bestsellers titled “The Buck Stops Here – my journey from manager to entrepreneur”; “The Corner Office”; “Reinvent Reboot Rewire. Managing Retirement in the 21st Century”; “The Buck Stops Here – Learnings of a Startup Entrepreneur” and “An Eye for an Eye”. He writes regularly for various online publications like Times of India, Business Insider, Inc., Entrepreneur, The Quint, and Big Decisions.
An avid golfer, he plays the Indian flute and enjoys reading and listening to Indian classical and vocal music.
