NDTV World Summit: Ex CIA Chief's "Everything Changes" Warning As Drones Dominate Battlefields

Traditional manoeuvre warfare built around tanks, infantry, engineers, air defence and electronic warfare can no longer survive on the modern battlefield, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director General David Petraeus (retired) told NDTV at an interaction on Friday."Look, this is, as you just said, the most profound period of change in warfare in our lifetimes," General Petraeus, who previously commanded American and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said at the NDTV World Summit when asked what India should do about the changing battlefront."Every military in the world needs to recognise the urgent need for revolutionary institutional change," he said.General Petraeus highlighted the need to know the difference between a complete overhaul and routine defence upgrades."Institutional change is different from modernisation or procuring new weapons systems. This means everything changes and it has to start with the entire concept of warfare.