Technology versus troops

Modern battlefields have forced the convergence of land, air, sea, cyber, space, and electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) into a single, continuous loop. In Ukraine, decentralised targeting networks seamlessly stitch together satellite imagery, cyber reconnaissance, and heavy artillery to deliver near-real-time precision strikes. Regionally, India’s deployment of the Divya Drishti artificial intelligence (AI) surveillance matrix and the Sahastra Shakti laser-directed energy weapons demonstrate how rapidly state actors are linking advanced sensors directly to frontline shooters across domains. Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and unmanned systems are the definitive kinetic drivers of modern MDOs. Since the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022, Ukraine has expended roughly 60,000 PGMs, while Russia has sustained a barrage of over 25,000 cruise and ballistic missiles — inflicting infrastructure damage exceeding $100 billion, according to World Bank/Kyiv School of Economics damage assessment reports.

Some examples of proliferation of PGM are as follows: In the Ukraine conflict, Russia has fired at least 35,698 attack drones at Ukraine since 2022, causing widespread damage to energy grids and civilian infrastructure. Under Operation Spiderweb in June 2025, Ukraine launched 117 drones in a single strike, destroying 10-13 Russian aircraft and damaging 20 more across five airbases, according to Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)/satellite imagery records. The cumulative infrastructure damage in Ukraine from PGMs and drones is estimated at $100+ billion, with direct military losses in the tens of billions. In North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) exercises, AI-enabled loitering munitions like the Helsing HX-2 demonstrated 15 kills in Lithuania during Project Flytrap 2026, showing the tactical value of autonomous strike drones under electronic warfare conditions, according to a US Army/Axios/Defence Express report in June 2026. Yet the result is a stalemate and negotiations for a peace deal struck primarily over territory between the two warring sides.

In Gaza, Israel’s intensive deployment of micro-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and loitering munitions has systematically disassembled nearly 40 per cent of the urban fabric, while Hamas uses low-cost FPV (first person view) drones for high-leverage tactical disruptions. India’s induction of the Nagastra-1 loitering munition reflects this shifting reality, providing precision strike capabilities in challenging, high-altitude border environments.

India’s development of high-power microwave (HPM) systems, capable of neutralising drone swarms within a 5-kilometre (km) radius, mirrors autonomous interceptor milestones tracked across Nato operations.

The most decisive, yet majorly ignored, theatre of modern warfare is waged across the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectrum control, algorithmic processing, and network resilience dictate the operational tempo of physical forces long before the first round is fired. India’s defence production has risen 174 per cent since 2014 to ~1.54 trillion, with defence exports expanding 34-fold to ~23,000 crore, much of it in electronics and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems.

The organogram at the right captures the extent of this factor in likely future battlefield scenarios.

Without persistent spectrum access, the data links, satellite telemetry, and secure radios that bind modern military units instantly collapse. This will have a dire impact on the sensor-to-shooter link and the command and control networks. The EMS has to be made robust to ensure that it survives the enemy effort to degrade it and, at the same time, deny the ability of the adversary to use the EMS.

AI is fundamentally changing how command structures acquire, analyse and exploit information. By synthesising oceans of ISR data instantly, machine learning compresses the observe and orient phases of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, and act) loop. However, this introduces a profound vulnerability: When data processing accelerates to machine speed, it threatens to outpace human cognitive capacity, squeezing the time available for ethical, escalation-aware decision-making. This will have a great probability of miscalculation and accidental escalation of the conflict right up to the nuclear domain. For example, historically, nuclear weapons have prevented major wars since their first use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, low-level conflicts have occurred frequently. Today, however, the precision revolution means an adversary can employ ultra-fast conventional kinetic strikes to disable a state’s nuclear command loops, early-warning satellites, or retaliatory launchers. Consequently, if a nuclear-armed state believes its strategic deterrent can be conventionally neutralised, the pressure to ‘use them or lose them’ intensifies dramatically. In such a scenario, conventional weapons may inadvertently encourage first-use nuclear strikes.

Consider a hypothetical case study: During a simulated operation — let us call it Operation BADLA — a western adversary reportedly comes close to convening its nuclear command authority. In this scenario, control of nuclear weapons is temporarily assumed by a senior military figure, symbolising the gravity of the crisis. The incentive to alter their C2 mechanism stemmed from the national leadership’s overriding concern: Preserving the sovereignty of Pakistan and safeguarding its people. This human dimension — leaders wrestling with existential choices under immense pressure — underscores how fragile deterrence can become when conventional precision threatens nuclear survivability.

The next leap rests on quantum computing — specifically for un-hackable cryptographic networks and rapid battlefield optimisation. India’s defence establishment is actively piloting indigenous AI command interfaces and quantum-secure communication backbones to preserve decision sovereignty. Specific Indian initiatives are: National Mission on Quantum Technologies & Applications (NMQTA) launched by the Government of India in 2020 with ~8,000 crore funding. Its focus areas include quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum sensing, and cryptography. Defence applications have been especially included in the mission. Similarly, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Quantum Communication successfully demonstrated quantum key distribution (QKD) over a 12-km fibre link in Delhi. This was India’s first indigenous quantum communication experiment, proving the feasibility of hack-proof military communication channels. DRDO is now scaling this for long-range secure defence networks. Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) satellite-based quantum communication in 2021 demonstrated free-space quantum communication over 300 metres (mm), a precursor to satellite-based QKD. The aim is to establish quantum-secure satellite links for military and strategic communication, ensuring resilience against cyber and electronic warfare. India is positioning itself as a ‘quantum nation’, with leading institutes like Indian Institute of Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and Indian Institutes of Technology working on quantum algorithms, AI integration, and battlefield optimisation models.

Despite the digital and electronic layers of MDO, territorial control remains the ultimate metric of strategic outcome. Some recent and ongoing conflicts that validate this preposition are discussed below. The opening phases of the full-scale invasion led many to believe that the future of warfare had arrived, driven entirely by silicon and autonomous flight. The skies over the Donbas are continuously crowded with a hyper-dense ecosystem of UAVs. FPV loitering munitions hunt individual soldiers, while strategic drones penetrate hundreds of miles past international borders to strike energy infrastructure and logistics hubs.

Yet, this saturation of high-tech surveillance and precision strike assets has not catalysed rapid, sweeping manoeuvres. Instead, it has produced a paradox: Total battlefield transparency. Because both sides can observe enemy movements in real time via thermal imaging and aerial reconnaissance, the element of tactical surprise has been effectively neutralised. Any concentrated assembly of armour or infantry is detected and targeted within minutes. Stripped of the ability to mass forces for lightning breakthroughs, both armies have been forced backward in time, digging into the earth to survive.

The resulting gridlock has transformed a 965-km frontline into a landscape that strongly echoes the Western Front of 1916. In areas like Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and the forests of Kreminna, military operations are defined by multi-layered trench networks, subterranean bunkers, and sprawling minefields. 

Infantry units endure weeks of sub-zero winter, mud, and sweltering summer dust inside these dirt fortifications. Troops must dig deep simply to mitigate the lethality of modern fragmentation weapons, proving that the basic human requirement for cover remains unchanged. Behind these defensive networks sits the true arbiter of the attritional struggle: Heavy tube and rocket artillery. While advanced systems like the US-supplied Himars (high mobility artillery rocket system) or Excalibur precision-guided shells capture headlines for their pinpoint accuracy against high-value command posts, the daily rhythm of the war is dominated by unguided mass fires.

During peak periods of fighting in the Donbas, Soviet-era systems like the BM-21 Grad and traditional 152 millimetre (mm) and 155mm howitzers have fired tens of thousands of shells per day. The conflict has exposed deep vulnerabilities in modern Western defence industrial bases, which were optimised for low-intensity,

counter-insurgency operations rather than industrial-scale conventional warfare. Victory in these artillery duels relies less on technological sophistication and far more on raw manufacturing output, supply chain logistics, and the sheer volume of high-explosive steel pushed to the front

If there is any war that can be compared to the Indian environment, then it is by far the Russia-Ukraine War. Therefore, it is in the interest of the Indian armed forces to derive maximum lessons from it. The human toll of this positional stalemate is immense. To break through heavily fortified Ukrainian lines, Russian forces have frequently relied on ‘meat grinder’ tactics — sending successive waves of infantry, often composed of moderately trained mobilised personnel, to identify and exhaust  enemy firing positions.

During prolonged, high-intensity operations like the multi-month sieges of Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and subsequent pushes toward Pokrovsk, Russian casualties have routinely approached or exceeded an average of 1,000 personnel killed or wounded every single day (although this figure is an approximation, it can be assumed that the casualties are very high). Similarly, based on interactions with some experts, Ukraine too is facing problems with boots on the ground, with their median age of its population rising to 41.8 years with a 1.43 per cent growth reported in 2026 by Worldometer. In addition, the country is suffering from huge human casualties on the frontlines.

In a conflict marked by conflicting propaganda and complex electronic warfare metrics, the physical reclamation of sovereign territory remains the only unambiguous measure of victory. The limits of pure attrition are best understood when contrasted with successful operations that achieved clean geometric results. These include: The Kharkiv Breakthrough (September 2022): Exploiting a depleted and overstretched Russian flank, highly mobile Ukrainian forces executed a classic combined-arms manoeuvre. In less than a week, they liberated over 6,000 square km of territory, including the critical logistical hubs of Kupiansk and Izium; and The Liberation of Kherson (November 2022): Rather than launching a costly frontal assault against a heavily fortified city, Ukrainian forces used precision artillery to systematically destroy the bridges spanning the Dnipro river. By choking off the Russian garrison’s supply lines, they forced a massive, humiliating retreat from the only regional capital Russia had managed to capture since the start of the invasion.

These operations demonstrated that while high-tech tools can shape the battlefield and degrade an opponent’s logistics, the ultimate political and military objective of the war remains stubbornly classic: Holding, clearing, and securing physical ground. 

Iran’s formidable geopolitical influence derives almost entirely from its control over critical maritime chokepoints, most notably the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has skilfully weaponised this geographic advantage. It holds international energy markets hostage and deters even superior conventional naval forces by leveraging asymmetric capabilities and the inherent defensibility of the terrain.

A prolonged disruption at the Strait of Hormuz would immediately sever nearly one-fifth of global energy supplies, triggering sharp price spikes, supply chain breakdowns, and a potentially severe economic crisis worldwide. This stark reality has consistently incentivised the US to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran rather than direct military confrontation. The US now recognises that naval or aerial operations alone cannot guarantee the safe passage of commercial shipping through the strait. The Iranian coastline flanking the waterway is rugged, populated with caves and folds, and exceptionally well-suited for defence. It provides the ideal cover for mobile missile launchers and concealed drone deployment sites that can strike swiftly and relocate before effective retaliation. Military planners have long understood that permanently neutralising this threat and securing reliable transit would necessitate a large-scale, combined-arms ground operation to seize and hold the dominating coastal terrain.

The scale of such an endeavour explains US’ strategic caution. Assessments by US Central Command (Centcom) and the broader intelligence community have consistently indicated that securing the Iranian coastline would require a force of approximately 200,000 troops — exceeding the initial deployment for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wargames such as the Pentagon’s Millennium Challenge, along with subsequent evaluations by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), project that confronting an entrenched adversary employing swarming asymmetric tactics in this terrain would result in heavy losses, potentially exceeding 15,000 US casualties in the opening phases alone. Faced with the prospect of a bloody and protracted land campaign along a fortified, mountainous littoral, US leadership has repeatedly chosen the path of diplomatic containment, sanctions, and negotiated restraint over a prohibitively costly military solution.

In the final analysis, geography continues to serve as the ultimate multiplier of strategic power. Iran’s custody of the Strait of Hormuz illustrates how terrain and chokepoints can shape great-power behaviour far more decisively than raw military superiority alone. Any serious geopolitical calculus must therefore account for these enduring physical realities when weighing options across deterrence, diplomacy, or the calibrated use of force. Syria’s war is a candid reminder of how sovereignty lives or dies on terrain. When Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) surged across nearly 100,000 square km, the Syrian state’s authority shrank to a shadow. Villages, towns, and highways slipped away, and with them, the regime’s claim to legitimacy. It was only through grinding land-centric campaigns — backed by Russian airpower and Iranian militias — that Syria clawed back geography and, with it, the semblance of survival.

The Israel-Hamas war has once again driven home a fundamental military reality that soldiers and strategists ignore at their peril: Technology provides tactical superiority, but true strategic victory — the kind recognised by both one’s adversary and the world — ultimately belongs to land-centric operations and the physical domination of terrain. Israel possesses one of the most advanced militaries on the planet, with systems like the Iron Dome, precision munitions, algorithmic targeting, persistent drone surveillance, and sophisticated intelligence fusion.

Yet, in the dense, subterranean urban battlespace of Gaza, even this overwhelming technological edge faces severe and persistent limitations.

Whatever the outcome of the current talks, Hamas has sustained a powerful narrative of strategic endurance simply by maintaining physical presence across its vast underground network. Credible assessments place the total length of this tunnel system at between 500 and 700 km — an extraordinary ‘Gaza metro’ of command bunkers, weapon caches, supply routes, and infiltration passages woven beneath civilian areas. By refusing to abandon this subterranean domain despite sustained aerial and technological pressure above ground, Hamas neutralised much of Israel’s tactical advantage through sheer physical persistence and asymmetric resilience. The Iron Dome has achieved impressive interception rates, often between 85 and 90 per cent against rockets threatening populated areas. Algorithmic targeting and aerial dominance excel at degrading visible infrastructure and leadership targets. However, they cannot clear entrenched fighters from a labyrinth of tunnels, shafts, and fortified positions embedded in one of the world’s densest urban environments. Hamas fighters use these networks to survive bombardment, reposition rapidly, launch surprise attacks, and re-emerge to contest ground —  classic guerrilla tactics amplified by modern engineering. This forced Israel to commit ground forces for the dangerous, methodical work of locating, mapping, and systematically dismantling the tunnels. Such operations demand infantry, combat engineers, specialised subterranean units, and sustained physical occupation of key areas. Hamas projected ‘survival’ and continued resistance precisely because it retained underground strongpoints from which it could still operate, shaping global narratives around a protracted conflict rather than outright defeat. Resolute resistance by Hamas led to a deal under which Hamas ceased operations.

For modern armed forces facing hybrid threats in urban or complex terrains, like India, the takeaway is unambiguous. Investment in cutting-edge technology must go hand-in-hand with robust doctrine, rigorous training, and sufficient ground forces capable of decisive land manoeuvre and occupation. Geography, terrain, and the gritty reality of physical presence continue to outweigh pure technological asymmetry when determining who prevails in the eyes of the adversary and the world. This is not a rejection of innovation — it is a reminder that the human dimension on the ground remains irreplaceable in achieving lasting strategic success.

For India, the defence of the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control proves that deterrence is fundamentally physical. India’s subsequent reinforcement of these borders with persistent surveillance grids, high-altitude positions, and continuous patrols underscore a permanent strategic truth: Deterrence ultimately relies on the physical presence of soldiers holding the ridgelines. Multi-domain operations have changed the way wars are fought. Today, battles are shaped by drones, cyber strikes, satellites, and precision weapons. These tools decide the tempo and create new layers of complexity. But when it comes to the final outcome, victory is still about who controls the land.