The Future Warfare Course concluded at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi on Sunday, closing four weeks of tri-service instruction with a ceremony presided over by Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen N.S. Raja Subramani.

Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), which runs the course, said in a statement that the four weeks of lectures, expert interactions and exposure to emerging technologies had reinforced the case for agility and readiness across the Services as the character of warfare keeps shifting.

How the Future Warfare Course Concluded Its Longest Run

This was the fourth edition, run under HQ IDS and coordinated by the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS). It opened 3 August.

The course had brought together officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force alongside representatives from government departments, academia, industry and strategic think tanks, a mix HQ IDS has kept deliberate across every edition so far.

What This Year's Curriculum Covered

The syllabus this year ran wide. Geopolitical developments sat alongside artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and cyber, cognitive and information warfare. Autonomous systems had their own sessions, as did grey zone operations and the harder question of tying together land, maritime, air and space operations rather than running them in sequence. Multi domain operations and what organisers term technology enabled warfare rounded out the list.

A Two Day Look at Cognitive Warfare

A dedicated two day module on cognitive warfare ran from 18 to 19 August, bringing journalists, strategic thinkers and subject matter experts into the Manekshaw Centre to examine how information, perception and narrative now function as instruments of conflict.

Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CISC) Air Mshl Tejinder Singh sat through the module and engaged directly with the visiting speakers and with officers on the course.

Senior Officers at the Closing Ceremony

Sunday's closing ceremony was attended by the CDS, the CISC and other senior officers, HQ IDS said. Photographs released from the event showed Gen Raja Subramani walking through the venue with a group of senior tri-service officers, among them Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, who moved from the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff (Strategy) appointment to serve as Military Adviser at the National Security Council Secretariat earlier this year.

HQ IDS tagged the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and CENJOWS in its announcement of the closing. No fifth edition dates were mentioned.


Four Editions, One Growing Course

The course has grown steadily since 2024. FWC-2 ran three weeks in May 2025 and, for the first time, brought in representatives from private defence startups and MSMEs. FWC-3 ran from 2 to 25 February this year in two phases, adding a Hyderabad leg on critical and rare earth elements and counter unmanned aircraft systems.

FWC-4 extended the run to a full four weeks, its longest span since the programme began as a five day pilot in September 2024, and carried the series' first dedicated cognitive warfare module. HQ IDS and CENJOWS have been retained as organiser and coordinator across all four editions to date, a continuity the course has not departed from since its inaugural run.

HQ IDS closed its announcement by saying the interactions across FWC-4 had reinforced the imperative for the Armed Forces to stay agile, innovative and future-ready.