India, Aug. 28 -- Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said that India must stay prepared for short and long wars as new technologies have transformed the nature of warfare and it is hard to predict how long a conflict can drag on, adding that precision-guided weapons and real-time intelligence were among the factors that have emerged as the cornerstone of victory.

Wars, he said, could stretch from a few months to years, and the country needs to rethink how it will fight in the future.

"In today's era, it is very difficult to predict when a war will end. We must be prepared for every situation. We must be prepared so that our surge capacity is sufficient. If any war stretches for two months, four months, a year, two years or even...