Army Chief Points to Donald Trump's Behaviour as Example of ‘Volatility, Uncertainty’ In World

New Delhi: In unusual remarks on the head of a friendly state – namely America – army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said that US President Donald Trump's behaviour is an example of the “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity” or VUCA that pervades the world.

Drawing on the VUCA acronym used in business and military circles, General Dwivedi said: “If I were to put it to you in simple terms, then you and I are at a loss as to understanding the days ahead. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. What Trump ji is doing today–in my opinion, even Trump ji does not know what he will do tomorrow.”

“So what I mean to say is that challenges are coming so quickly that by the time one tries to address an old challenge, a new one emerges. And the same security challenges are facing our military,” he added while addressing students at the TRS College in Madhya Pradesh's Rewa on Saturday (November 1).

The general's remarks come at a time of tension in Indo-US bilateral ties, part of which involves Trump's repeated claim that he precipitated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May by using trade with America as leverage, an assertion that New Delhi has denied.

Relations have also been tense over India's continued purchases of Russian crude oil, in response to which Washington in a purported effort to end the Russo-Ukrainian war imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods, over and above an identical levy in light of the US's large trade deficit with New Delhi.

Alongside this has occurred a revival of Washington's engagement with Islamabad, as a part of which the Trump administration has signed a rare earth export deal with the Shehbaz Sharif government. The president has also called Pakistani army chief Asim Munir his “favourite field marshal”.

Meanwhile, Trump over the weekend again claimed to have ended India's four-day-long military conflict with Pakistan.

In an interview with broadcaster CBS on its ‘60 Minutes’ programme, Trump vowed to end the Ukraine war before pulling out a piece of paper from his suit pocket containing a list of the conflicts he claims to have ended in his second term.

“I brought just a little list of–look at this–wars. How many did I solve? … Cambodia-Thailand. Kosovo-Serbia. The Congo and Rwanda. Pakistan and India. That was going to be a beauty. They shot down seven planes,” the president said in the interview aired on Sunday.

While Trump has never specified which side the ‘seven planes’ belonged to, Islamabad has claimed to have shot down seven Indian aircraft – up from its previous figure of six, which Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan had denied – during the May conflict.

Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh has said that India hit four or five Pakistani fighter jets on the ground and shot down five fighters from the air during the conflict.

New Delhi has also rejected both Trump's “ceasefire” terminology as well as his claim of having brought it about, describing the conflict's end as only a temporary cessation of hostilities.

India maintains that the pause followed a request from Pakistan's military, not US mediation.

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