The Sunday Story | New structures and nuances: Integrated theatre commands

In any battle, various components of the armed forces ought to operate in tandem and complement each other’s deliverables, towards a common objective. Outcomes and efficiencies can get severely compromised if the various elements work in ‘silos’, as unfamiliarity with each other’s capabilities, availability and constraints can lead to suboptimal results. 

The call for an ‘integrated’ approach becomes even more pressing with future combat scenarios entailing the additional battlefields — cyber, nuclear, space etc, along with the conventional set-piece arrangement of war. In short, ‘interoperability’ would be a force multiplier. However, the Indian Armed Forces have not structurally evolved to that ‘integrated’ approach, as professional forces of countries like the US, Russia or China have done earlier. 

The Indian Armed Forces were last tested in a full-blown (land, air and sea) conventional war in the Indo-Pak War of 1971, where they ran a successful campaign. Firstly, warfare then had not metastasised to the levels of complexity it sees today. Secondly, and very importantly, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw had bargained for time to launch the offensive. This gave Manekshaw enough time to place the diverse war elements and considerations into the perfect calculus, literally an ‘integrated’ approach. The dramatic speed of Pakistan’s capitulation had much to do with the planned jointmanship and overall strategy. However, to expect the availability of similar ‘time’ to decide future war reactions is imprudent. 

Today, with the advancement of technology, equipment, processes and doctrines, the understanding of any one arm, for instance, the Army, along with the understanding of nuances of the other (the Airforce or the Navy), has become even more alien and distant. Each force has cutting-edge capability and competence, but not the sort of formal ‘integration’ that could ‘force multiply’ operational efficiencies and kinetic abilities overall. 

With this view, the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) was created in 2001 to safeguard strategic sovereign interests, as an ‘Integrated Tri-Services Command’. There were invaluable learnings that were imminent, as jointmanship was structurally wired and ‘exercised’ together,  but it was still limited in territorial expanse, material composition, and therefore complexities.

Now with the geopolitical and geostrategic churn leading to the redefinition of China as the primary hostile power to address, whilst not discounting the perennial threat from Pakistan, an ‘integrated’ approach to achieve higher levels of operational impact has become critical. Therefore, arguably the most transformational structural change to the Indian Armed Forces is sought to be undertaken with the proposed integrated theatre commands. However, to fructify from a conceptual framework to practical functioning at the ground level, it requires immense strategising, planning and executive clearances, from the very top. 

Over time, thinking has evolved from the initial idea of five integrated theatre commands, as mooted by the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, to three now (China has five). The envisaged Northern Theatre Command, based at Lucknow, could be responsible for threats along the 3,488 km Line of Actual Control (LAC) spanning Arunachal Pradesh to Eastern Ladakhi swathes — directly fronting China’s Western Theatre Command (based at Chengdu, operational since 2016). 

The second could be the Jaipur-based Western Theatre Command, which would be Pak-centric, responsible for the restive Line of Control and Indo-Pak borders. 

The third proposed force could be the Maritime Theatre Command at Karwar — this force could be responsible for defending the territorial integrity of the vast coastline of over 7,500 km, including Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep on either side of the Indian mainland. 

This ‘theatre’ approach is premised on unleashing the joint potential of the armed forces, hence requiring due empowerment of key position holders in the new construct. Old shibboleths of keeping armed forces personnel under check by diminishing their status in the official Warrant of Precedence to safeguard against possible takeovers or coups, must be revisited. If the internal restructuring towards ‘one border, one force’ is not commensurate with the ready acceptance of eight four-star-ranked officers, then it weakens the purpose of integrated theatre commands. 

The creation of the post of CDS is a classic example of the potential risks involved in restructuring, as the same was subject to inordinate delays, politicisation, and then the diminishment from what was the earlier imagined power and position of the CDS. It became the Secretary to the Department of Military Affairs (along with 90 odd other Secretary-level bureaucrats in the Government of India). 

While the idea is not to militarily overexert in the national imagination, it cannot be a situation of marshalling mammoth resources and then heading the same with a leadership that is not similarly and suitably warranted. Age-old issues of politico-bureaucratic resistance to the emergence of what they fear as an alternative power centre will have to be shed, if the CDS saga is not to be repeated. This will test the dispensation’s appetite for bold reforms.

Equally importantly, the creation of theatre commands must be spared from partisan shenanigans and appropriations. There could be an ill-informed belief propounded that ‘theaterisation’ of the armed forces is the ultimate panacea for all security threats – it is not as simple as that. It is essentially an evolutionary institutional necessity to optimise performance. 

It must not be forgotten that two superpowers with ‘theatre’ wherewithal in two recent combat operations against a substantially inferior enemy could not achieve desired results — this does not indicate the futility of the concept, or conversely, the invincibility of the same. The United States’ Central Command (CENTCOM), whose theatre of responsibility entailed Afghanistan (including Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia) was pitted against the Taliban militia, and was outworn. The mighty ‘theaterised’ Russian Army, which promised a 10-day lightning operation into Ukraine, has been caught in a quagmire for over a year and a half. Theatre commands are important, but many other wartime imperatives are equally important.  

Ultimately, factors like the quality of the professional and motivated soldiers behind machines (where the Indian Armed Forces have considerable strengths), count too. Equally, other pressing and lingering issues facing the institution like upgradation and adequate quantities of warfighting material, munitions, technology et al, do not get subsumed by the ostensible benefits of ‘theaterisation’ – these would remain, and it is important to address them, nonetheless. These theatre commands would need to be sufficiently invested in to be self-contained and address the hypothetical scenarios of ‘two-front’ wars or mutated versions, thereof. 

Integrated theatre command is an idea with great timeliness and relevance. It needs expeditious and bold approvals of its various imperatives and proposals that should not be tinkered with. Lastly, it is critical to remember that it is a progressive and transformational step, but not a panacea that can solve all of India’s security concerns. 

(The author is former LG of Andaman & Nicobar Islands & Puducherry)