New Delhi: As deliberations over theatre commands continue, the three services at a day-long tri-service conference on Monday discussed how ‘jointness and integration’ were essential for the transformation to joint structures.
In his opening remarks, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan underlined the need for developing a joint culture for the armed forces.
He said that while respecting the uniqueness of each service, the culture ‘distils the best of each service to give a de-novo approach to traditional concepts’. It was important to integrate the capabilities of each service by creating structures that increased the efficiency and enhanced the war-fighting ability and interoperability, the CDS added.
Through theatre commands, the three services are looking at reorganisation of the Indian military so as to be able to pool in all the resources to face an adversary by launching a better joint military response.
Once theatre commands come up, there are likely to be three commands based on geographical boundaries — two land-based and one maritime. With planning underway, it is likely that these commands would be headed by four-star officers.
As reported by ThePrint earlier, while the work on formation of theatre commands is ongoing, the apprehensions in formation of theatre commands are more ‘administrative than operational’.
Apart from the three geographical commands, there will be others for purposes such as logistics, training, cyber and space, missiles and intelligence, which will be headed by three-star officers.
The idea of formation of theatre commands was recommended soon after the Kargil War in 1999. It was, however, after General Bipin Rawat’s appointment as the Chief of Defence Staff in January 2020 that concept was deliberated upon. The initial plan was to raise joint commands within three years.
While the Army and Navy have been onboard with the formation of theatre commands, the Indian Air Force has repeatedly expressed its reservations.
IAF chief Air Chief Marshal V. R. Chaudhari has said several times that while the air force is fully supporting the integration process, the methodology and the structure need to be future ready.
He has called repeatedly for shorter decision making, reduction in the ‘layers’ of command and control as well as synergising the core competencies. The doctrine of the air force should not be compromised by the coming of the new structure, the IAF chief has asserted.
In fact, Chaudhari’s predecessor R. K. Bhadauria had strongly rejected CDS Gen Rawat’s statement of the air force being the ‘supporting arm’ and asserted that air power had a huge role to play.
The air force had raised this issue during internal discussions as well.
While planning is still ongoing, as reported by ThePrint earlier, plans to set up two integrated theatre commands against Pakistan and China are being planned with a maritime theatre command also underway.
Jaipur, the Army’s South Western Command, will be the headquarters for the theatre command that will look after Pakistan. The other theatre command to take care of the borders with China will come up in Lucknow, which is currently the headquarters of the Central Command. Further, the maritime theatre command to look after India’s maritime defence will come up in Karnataka’s Karwar.
Currently, all the three services together operate 17 commands — seven each of the army and the air force and three of the navy. Apart from these, there are two existing tri-services commands — the Andaman and Nicobar Command and the Strategic Force Command. The latter is responsible for management of India’s nuclear assets.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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