Army Chief Gen. Upendra Dwivedi Calls for ‘Military-Civil Fusion’, Praises Lt Gen Raj Shukla’s Book on National Power

By A Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI — Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi on Wednesday underscored the need for the armed forces to take a proactive role in strengthening civil-military cooperation, proposing that the concept be reframed as “Military-Civil Fusion” (MCF) rather than “Civil-Military Fusion.”

Speaking at the book release event of Lt Gen Raj Shukla’s Civil-Military Fusion as a Metric of National Power and Comprehensive Security at the United Service Institution (USI) in Delhi, Gen. Dwivedi said, “General Pande deserves credit for initiating this effort in 2023; the seeds were sown then. When I received the book, it felt familiar, almost like déjà vu.”

He added that after reading it, he realized the book should have been released earlier, as many of its ideas align with the Army’s current themes of the ‘Year of Reforms’ and ‘Decade of Transformation’.

Praising the book’s perspective, Gen. Dwivedi remarked, “Unlike earlier works that focused on gaps in civil-military relations, this book takes an asset-based approach, emphasizing strengths over shortcomings.”

Highlighting the evolving role of the military in national strategy, he said, “Moving forward, I prefer the term Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) because the military must now take ownership of advancing civil-military cooperation, rather than leaving it solely to the civilian side.”