Force integration for India’s future wars

There is no two ways about it. India needs integrated theatre commands (ITCs), where all assets and manpower of the Army, Navy, and Air Force are placed under a single operational commander for specific geographical regions or tasks. The much-delayed move will ensure a unified, cost-effective, multi-domain war-fighting machinery by demolishing the existing service-specific silos. Similarly, the country also requires full-fledged tri-service commands to handle the crucial space and cyber domains, the new frontiers of warfare that now influence – and can even determine – the outcome of traditional battles of land, air, and sea.

The political leadership’s abdication over the years to fully own and drive such meaningful systemic reforms has meant that the long-pending creation of ITCs has moved at an excruciatingly slow pace, with the three services fighting their own internecine battles to protect their respective turf. There are, however, strong indications now that the final nod for the creation of ITCs is in the offing before the present Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, completes his already extended tenure on May 30. But even after the Cabinet Committee on Security’s formal approval, it will take another 12-18 months for the ITCs to take concrete shape on the ground.

It’s better late than never for this most radical military reorganisation envisaged since Independence. The dire need for integrated structures, instead of ad-hoc arrangements, in the defence establishment has been repeatedly stressed by top-level committees right since the 1999 Kargil conflict, which exposed deep divisions among the military brass and the inability to provide “single-point military advice” to the government.

Finally, after much political dilly-dallying for almost two decades, a four-star CDS was appointed on December 31, 2019, as the ‘first among equals’ with the Army, Navy, and IAF chiefs, to resolve inter-service doctrinal, planning, policy, and operational issues by ushering in much-needed synergy among the three services.

The creation of ITCs, however, stalled when the first CDS, General Bipin Rawat, who was spearheading a top-down approach, died in a helicopter crash in December 2021. General Chauhan, who was brought out of retirement to be appointed as the next CDS in September 2022, has adopted a more consensual, but slower, bottom-up strategy.

As per General Chauhan, work has been fully underway on 196 specific initiatives under eight key verticals to push integration and jointness, with some lessons learnt from Operation Sindoor in May last year being incorporated into the model for ITCs. This implies that the IAF’s strong objections to ‘theatrisation’ appear to have been addressed through tweaks to the overall architecture as well as command-and-control structures for multi-domain operations, especially the employment of airpower.

There are, of course, complexities and technicalities that require clarity. For instance, will the theatre commanders-in-chief and the vice CDS be four-star generals like the CDS and the three service chiefs? Will the all-powerful bureaucracy accept four more four-star generals, who rank above Union government secretaries?

To whom will these theatre commanders report – the political leadership, the CDS, or the Chiefs of Staff Committee? Will the role of the service chiefs be restricted to ‘raise, train, and sustain’ or will they retain some operational responsibilities too? Then, there is also the question of India requiring an overarching National Security Strategy that lays down long-term national and geopolitical objectives in the face of expanding security challenges, especially from the now fused and collusive threat from China and Pakistan.

Restructuring is imperative

While the exact contours of the proposed restructuring are awaited, the original plan was to have two adversary-specific ITCs – one for the northern borders with China, with its headquarters at Lucknow, and the other for the western front with Pakistan, at Jaipur. The Maritime Theatre Command at Thiruvananthapuram, in turn, was proposed for the Indian Ocean Region as well as the larger Indo-Pacific.

The transformation is clearly needed. India currently has 17 single-service commands – Army 7, IAF 7, and Navy 3 – led by three-star generals (Lt Generals, Air Marshals or Vice Admirals), which lack the requisite synergy in planning, logistics, and operations. There are only two joint commands, the ‘geographical’ Andaman and Nicobar Command set up in 2001, and the ‘functional’ Strategic Forces Command to handle the nuclear arsenal in 2003.

Around 70 countries have a CDS-like post for integration in military planning and operations. Over 30 countries, from the United States and Russia to China and Germany, also have integrated or joint commands to boost synergy and maximise resources. The US brought in the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 to fundamentally restructure its armed forces – despite stiff resistance from them – to bolster joint military operations and civilian oversight. It has 11 unified combatant commands, six of them to handle different parts of the globe and five to handle the nuclear arsenal, special operations, space, cyberspace and mobility. They report directly to the Secretary of Defence. The America-first Trump administration, of course, is now planning another major restructuring to reduce overseas commitments from Europe to West Asia.

China, in turn, restructured its People’s Liberation Army into five theatre commands a decade ago to sharpen combat capabilities with better command-and-control structures. While its Western Theatre Command handles the entire 3,488-km Line of Actual Control, India has four Army and three IAF commands for the same.

The bottom line is that there should be no more hand-wringing in setting up the ITCs to enhance India’s overall combat capability within budgetary constraints. With the defence budget continuing to hover just below 2% of the GDP, instead of being hiked to at least 2.5%, there is no room for inefficiency. To be future-ready for multi-domain operations, India must transition to having a lean, mean, and integrated land-air-sea-space-cyber war-fighting machinery.

(The author is a senior journalist who writes on defence and strategic issues)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.