'If you want peace, prepare for war': CDS Chauhan says India peace-loving, not pacifist

Chief of defence staff Anil Chauhan

India is committed to ensuring peace in the region but the stance should not be mistaken for being pacifist, said chief of defence staff general Anil Chauhan during an event in Madhya Pradesh, signalling the country’s readiness to hit back whenever required.

"India has always stood on the side of peace. We are a peace-loving nation, but don't get mistaken, we cannot be pacifists. I think peace without power is utopian. I like to state a Latin quote which translates, 'if you want peace, prepare for war'..." Chauhan said at the Run Samwad in Mhow.

#WATCH | "India has always stood on the side of peace. We are a peace-loving nation, but don't get mistaken, we cannot be pacifists. I think peace without power is utopian. I like to state a Latin quote which translates, 'if you want peace, prepare for war'..." says CDS General… pic.twitter.com/auyHR1fgWw

— ANI (@ANI) August 26, 2025

The top military leader also said that the country needs to become independent in not just in technology but also in ideas and in practice and there is a requirement to increase the awareness on all fragments of our society on “doctrinal and practical aspects”.

"As a Viksit Bharat, we also need to be 'Shashastra', 'Suraksit' and 'Aatmanirbhar'.

Moreover, Chauhan reiterated that Operation Sindoor is “still on” and India learnt valuable lessons from the conflict with Pakistan, adding that all the crucial learnings from the war with Pakistan was under “implementation”.

The general highlighted four essential trends that is likely to be visible in modern conflicts going ahead. First, he said, nations now have an “increased propensity” to use force and that’s because political objectives can be achieved by short duration conflicts. Second is the lack of difference between war and peace. “…this particular era, which we knew in the past of declared wars, I think that's all over. Contemporary warfare today is a kind of continuum of five C's- competition, crisis, confrontation, conflict and combat, between wars,” he said.

“The third important thing is importance of people... In the past wars, because of territory and ideology, people and soldiers were sacrificed... The fourth important trend I think we can debate is the matrices of victory and how we perceive victory.”

“In the past, matrices of victory were probably defined by losses inflicted in terms of men and equipment. In 1971, we had 95,000 Pakistanis captured... But in today's warfare, probably the new matrices of warfare or victory are the speed and tempo of operations, effects of long-range precision strikes," Chauhan said.

India and Pakistan were engaged in an intense battle in May, following a terrorist attack in Pahalgam that led to the death of 26 civilians. The conflict ended after Islamabad requested for a ceasefire, which was accepted by New Delhi.