Nato paper cites two Indian Army veterans 10 times, ex-General calls it landmark

What began as a study by two Indian Army veterans of how warfare is moving beyond physical battlefields has now found international recognition. A paper by Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) and Lt Col Pavithran Rajan (Retd) was cited extensively in a Nato-funded publication on hybrid warfare, prompting former Army chief General VK Singh to call it a landmark achievement.Lt Col Pavithran Rajan (Retd), (left), and Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) co-authored a paper that was cited in a Nato co-funded publication on hybrid warfare, an achievement highlighted by Gen VK Singh. (Images: Social Media, PTI)In what former Chief of Army Staff and Governor of Mizoram, General VP Singh (Retd), has described as a "landmark achievement for Indian strategic thought", a paper authored by two Indian Army veterans, Lieutenant General DS Hooda (Retd) and Lieutenant Colonel Pavithran Rajan (Retd), was extensively cited in an international publication on hybrid warfare co-funded by Nato.Hooda and Rajan had co-authored a paper titled, Beyond the Kinetic: Deconstructing Warfare in the Socio-Technical-Cognitive Battlespace, which was published by the New Delhi-based think tank, Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR) in January this year.The publication by the two ex-officers studied how modern warfare is increasingly influenced by not just the quantity and quality of troops and machines deployed by a military force, but also the flow of information within populations and institutions back home.It was this paper that would later be referenced several times in a study on the concept of Hybrid Warfare by a Polish scientific society that was funded in part by the US-led collective self-defence alliance, Nato. The significance of this achievement was highlighted by General VK Singh. In a post on X on Wednesday, Singh described the international recognition of Hooda and Rajan's work as a "landmark achievement for Indian strategic thought" in the hybrid, cognitive and technological domains."Delighted to see the pioneering theoretical framework by distinguished Veterans — former Northern Army Commander Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) & Lt Col Pavithran Rajan (Retd) — receive international recognition," Singh wrote. He noted that their paper had been "extensively cited" in Hybrid War: Threats to Power Grid Infrastructure, particularly in its chapter on AI and cognitive warfare, and congratulated the two veterans on the recognition.WHAT WAS THE PAPER BY DS HOODA AND PAVITHRA RAJAN ABOUT?The paper by the two veterans argues that the concept of modern warfare is no longer limited to just seeking out and destroying physical targets out on the field. Instead, Hooda and Rajan argued that modern day conflicts increasingly unfold in what they call the Socio-Technical-Cognitive Battlespace (STCB).As part of this concept, Hooda and Rajan contended that the way publicly available information, mediated by algorithms in digital platforms, shapes public opinion, can influence strategic outcomes the same way as armies in the field.A key argument of the paper was that cognitive warfare had become central to modern conflict. According to Hooda and Rajan, adversaries can influence the flow of information on platforms like social media to exploit pre-existing social divisions and information gaps. The objective, they argued, is not merely to spread false information, but to influence how people perceive events and make decisions.The authors also warned that the widespread proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could make such large-scale disinformation operations more precise and scalable by enabling personalised messages designed to exploit individual or societal vulnerabilities.They thus called for greater resilience through media literacy, stronger institutions, inter-agency coordination and scrutiny of foreign-controlled digital and social media platforms.To put it simply, the premise of Hooda and Rajan's paper is that an adversary does not necessarily have to defeat an enemy's armies on the field or level its infrastructure to oblivion in order to weaken its ability to fight. By influencing the information environment and shaping how people perceive events, adversaries can affect public behaviour, erode social trust and complicate a government’s ability to respond to a conflict.NATO-FUNDED PUBLICATION CITES HOODA AND RAJAN'S PAPERThe arguments made by Hooda and Rajan were subsequently cited extensively in a publication titled, Hybrid Warfare: Threats to Power Grid Infrastructure.The paper was written by Jarosaw Tomasiewicz, a professor at the University of Silesia, Michal Piekarski, an assistant professor at the University of Wrocaw, and Marcin Lipka, a serving lieutenant colonel in the Polish Army reserves. It was published by the Polish Association for National Security (PTBN), and was funded in part through Nato's Science for Peace and Stability (SPS) Programme.The report cites Hooda and Rajan at least 10 times in a chapter titled, "AI & Cognitive Warfare". The chapter was focussed on discussing cognitive warfare and the OODA loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act, a system through which military commanders assess and interpret a situation before taking the appropriate action.The Nato-linked report, citing Hooda and Rajan, argued that gaining what it called, "cognitive dominance", is not merely about completing this OODA cycle faster than an adversary, but can also involve disrupting the adversary's decision-making loop.The authors' analysis of the Russia-Ukraine war also found its way into the publication. Their discussion of Ukraine's use of privately operated satellite communications, particularly Starlink, is cited in examining how technology can help maintain operational resilience and prevent digital isolation during a conflict.The publication also cites Hooda and Rajan while discussing Ukraine's use of Clearview AI to identify Russian soldiers through social-media databases and relay information to their relatives in Russia.Hooda and Rajan's work is further referenced in the section examining attacks on power-grid infrastructure, where the publication links cognitive warfare, disinformation, psychological operations and AI-generated chaos to the erosion of public trust and disruption of decision-making.Their January 2026 paper is also formally listed in the publication's bibliography as Beyond the Kinetic: Deconstructing Warfare in the Socio-Technical-Cognitive Battlespace.- EndsPublished By: Shounak SanyalPublished On: Sep 11, 2026 11:46 IST