Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM
(Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi —an ex Naval Officer, possesses a multifaceted personality. He served as a Senior Advisor in prestigious Supercomputer organisation C-DAC, Pune. He was involved in various Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing projects of national and international repute. He has got a long experience in the field of ‘Natural Language Processing’, especially, in the domain of Machine Translation. He has taken the mantle of translating the timeless beauties of Indian literature upon himself so that it reaches across the globe. He has also undertaken translation work for Shri Narendra Modi, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, which was highly appreciated by him. He is also a member of ‘Bombay Film Writer Association’.
~ Intelligence versus intelligence… ~ 
Dear Esteemed Readers,
I’d love to share a paper on futuristic warfare built around an AGI-based hypothesis—an “intelligence versus intelligence” scenario and its possible implications for India’s future security.
You may like to take the thought forward, challenge some of the assumptions, or give it a strategic direction of your own. The exact scenario may be futuristic, but I believe the need to start thinking about this is becoming increasingly inescapable.
Would value your thoughts!
Warm regards
~Pravin Raghuvanshi
☆
Futuristic warfare built around an AGI-based hypothesis-an “intelligence versus intelligence” scenario and its possible implications for India’s future security”
I find the scenario both provocative and thought-provoking. More importantly, I believe it deserves to be taken seriously—not necessarily because every element of the scenario is likely to materialise exactly as described, but because the technological direction underlying it is already becoming visible.
I would, however, offer a few mild deviations from the hypothesis—not as a challenge to the thought process, but perhaps as an extension of it.
The central analogy with Operation Safed Sagar is particularly compelling.
In 1999, India was confronted with severe technological and operational constraints. Yet men and machines were pushed to their limits, and human ingenuity compensated for what technology could not provide. Innovation became a necessity rather than a choice.
The next transformation in warfare could be fundamentally different.
Then, it was essentially men using machines against men using machines.
Tomorrow, it could increasingly become intelligence confronting intelligence—with machines capable of sensing, learning, adapting, coordinating and making decisions at speeds beyond human reaction.
That, in my view, is the deeper significance of your hypothesis.
A small deviation from the humanoid assumption
I am not entirely certain that the future threat necessarily has to take the form of humanoids.
Indeed, there may be a reasoned argument for expecting something quite different.
A humanoid configuration has obvious advantages—it can negotiate terrain and infrastructure designed for humans and can potentially use existing tools and weapons. But it also introduces complexity, weight, power requirements, thermal signatures, maintenance challenges and manufacturing costs.
An adversary seeking military effectiveness rather than human resemblance may therefore choose a much simpler configuration: specialised autonomous ground systems, quadrupeds, tracked or wheeled platforms, aerial-ground swarms, or heterogeneous combinations of all of them.
In other words, the threat may be less “100 humanoids on the ridge” and more “100 intelligent autonomous systems adapted specifically to the ridge.”
Paradoxically, that possibility may be even more consequential because such systems need not reproduce the human form at all.
A second possible deviation: AGI may not be necessary
The scenario assumes AGI-level intelligence. That is certainly conceivable as a long-term possibility, but I wonder whether we should make the argument dependent upon true AGI.
A sufficiently capable specialised autonomous intelligence—trained for terrain analysis, target recognition, navigation, logistics, electronic warfare and tactical decision-making—could potentially create a formidable battlefield effect without possessing anything resembling full human-level general intelligence.
That distinction matters because the military threshold may arrive before the AGI threshold.
We may not have to wait for machines that can do everything a human can do.
Machines that can do a limited set of battlefield tasks extraordinarily well, operate continuously, coordinate with one another and learn from battlefield experience could already alter the character of warfare.
The communications assumption also deserves a small qualification
The idea of a post-quantum-secured swarm that is effectively immune to interception or jamming makes for a compelling scenario. But perhaps “immune” is unnecessarily absolute.
In warfare, very few technological advantages are permanent.
A more realistic—and potentially more dangerous—possibility is a communications architecture that is highly resilient, adaptive and difficult to disrupt, with systems capable of continuing to operate with degraded connectivity and making local decisions when communication with the central command is lost.
That would make the swarm dangerous not because it is literally unjammable, but because jamming it may no longer be sufficient to stop it.
That is a subtle but important distinction.
Where I completely agree is the question of scale
This, perhaps, is the most consequential element of the scenario.
The real revolution may not be the humanoid itself.
It may be the possibility of cheap, intelligent, reproducible and rapidly deployable military systems.
The traditional equation of warfare has often favoured exquisite and expensive platforms—fighter aircraft, tanks, ships and missiles.
Autonomous systems could introduce a very different equation:
mass + intelligence + low unit cost + continuous learning.
I would therefore hesitate to put a precise ratio such as “one fighter equals fifty humanoids.” The actual exchange ratio would depend on mission, terrain, sensors, weapons, logistics and survivability.
But the underlying proposition is compelling:
«A relatively inexpensive intelligent system could potentially impose an effect disproportionate to its cost.»
That could fundamentally alter the economics of warfare.
Do we have a doctrine?
Here, I believe the question being asked is entirely legitimate.
India already has significant activity in defence AI, autonomous systems, swarm technologies, robotics, electronic warfare and advanced communications. We therefore should not frame the issue as though India has not begun preparing.
The more important question is whether these capabilities have yet been brought together into a single, coherent warfighting architecture.
What is not publicly evident is a unified tri-service doctrine specifically addressing a large-scale autonomous ground threat of the kind envisaged here.
If a hundred or more autonomous systems were simultaneously deployed in Ladakh and the North East, the questions would extend far beyond technology:
Who owns the response?
What are the rules of engagement?
Who controls the kill chain?
How are autonomous systems authenticated and distinguished from friendly systems?
How do we detect, deceive, disrupt or destroy them?
And what happens when communications with them—or with our own forces—are degraded?
These are questions of doctrine, command, technology and institutional ownership simultaneously.
The institutional question may therefore be more important than the technological one
India has DRDO, the armed services, AI initiatives, technology agencies, startups, academic institutions and several ongoing programmes.
The challenge is that autonomous warfare cuts across all of them.
Perhaps what is required is not another institution, but clear mission-level ownership—someone accountable for integrating AI, robotics, communications, electronic warfare, manufacturing, doctrine, testing and deployment.
In other words, we need to ensure that no part of this emerging threat falls into the gaps between institutions.
And perhaps the biggest lesson from Safed Sagar
In 1999, we demonstrated that India could innovate under extreme pressure.
But the next challenge should ideally be approached differently.
We should innovate before the pressure arrives.
We should not wait for the first autonomous swarm—or the first intelligent ground system—to appear on a Himalayan ridgeline before asking how to counter it.
A mission-mode programme could therefore be considered—not necessarily centred exclusively on AGI, but on the broader objective of autonomous defence and counter-autonomy.
It would need to combine:
– autonomous platforms;
– counter-swarm and counter-autonomy technologies;
– AI at the tactical edge;
– resilient communications and advanced cryptography;
– indigenous compute, data and manufacturing capacity;
– realistic testing in difficult terrain;
– and, equally importantly, doctrine, human control and escalation management.
Because the ultimate question is not merely:
“Can we build intelligent machines?”
It is:
“Can we fight alongside them, fight against them, control them and continuously evolve faster than an adversary?”
That, to me, is the real strategic question embedded within your hypothesis.
The 1999 experience was a contest of men and machines.
The emerging contest may become one of machine intelligence against machine intelligence.
And perhaps the nation that gains the decisive advantage will not simply be the nation that builds the first intelligent machine.
It will be the nation that develops the ability to build, deploy, counter, replenish and continuously improve intelligent systems at scale.
So, while the exact humanoid scenario may be hypothetical, I believe the underlying warning is entirely legitimate.
The question is not whether the future will arrive exactly as imagined.
The question is whether we will be prepared for it if it arrives in a form we did not imagine.
☆
~Pravin Raghuvanshi
© Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM
≈ Founder Editor – Shri Hemant Bawankar/Editor (English) – Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM ≈
