Hyderabad: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has said that a country can’t become a global power if it can’t manage its internal security and that it is the police which has to fight and win this battle.

He believes wars have become ineffective tools for achieving strategic and political objectives and there is no guarantee of success even if the enemy is weak.

Stating that the challenges for the internal security will increase in coming times, he advised police officers to win this battle by winning the hearts and minds of people.

Doval was speaking at the passing out parade of 67th batch of Indian Police Service (IPS) officer trainees at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Police Academy here on Saturday.

As many as 141 probationary IPS officers including 26 women have completed their 46-week training. Fifteen officers from Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives also underwent the training.

The NSA pointed out that in the post war period, 37 countries have degraded or failed and out of them 28 degraded themselves or failed as they could not manage internal security.

He said Pakistan could not handle people in East Pakistan and even superpower like the erstwhile Soviet Union failed.

Doval said despite the best force, technology and everything, the US had to face defeat in Vietnam and the erstwhile Soviet Union could not achieve strategic and political objective in Afghanistan.

“This war can’t be won by armies. This is the war of policemen. If you win, the country wins and if you lose, country loses,” he said.

Doval said this war was not for land, terrain or a hill but a war for civil society and people.

He advised the police officers to become intellectually, emotionally and spiritually strong and use the skills and knowledge they were imparted during training to win this battle.

He also asked the probationary officers to become master of the technology to deal with the biggest challenge posed by futuristic warfare, organised crime, saboteurs or foreign power meddling into internal affairs.

He underlined the need to become master of technology for effective discharge of their responsibilities from normal policing to crime detection, organised crime to management of borders or dealing with challenges to cyber security and banking fraud.

NPA director Aruna Bahugana said the officer trainees were not only trained in jungle survival, weapons, operations but were also sensitized towards the issues and problems of various segments of the society.

The trainees were also given broad exposure to key issues by organising lectures of eminent personalities from various walks of life.