Challenges before India’s theatre commands

India’s effort to reorganise its armed forces is gathering momentum with plans to establish three theatre commands (TCs) being finalised at the Joint Commanders’ Conference in Lucknow last week. Reports suggest that the new adversary-based TCs on India’s western and eastern borders and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) could become operational by the year-end. Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan had wide-ranging consultations with all ranks of the Indian Army, Indian Navy (IN) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) before presenting the proposal to set up these commands in line with the concept of ‘One Border One Force’.

Major militaries such as those of the United States, China, Russia, and France have multiple TCs which are crucial for ensuring the interoperability of different services. The US, for instance, has half a dozen TCs with specific geographic or functional missions. Each of these has independent control of its domain and has all units of the defence forces — such as the army, navy, air force, and missile commands — at its disposal. Till a decade ago, China’s armed forces were slotted in regional commands like India’s, but Beijing undertook major military reforms in 2015 to convert them to theatre-based forces. Even Pakistan is now believed to be planning a similar reorganisation of its armed forces.

Integrated TCs are an important part of long-delayed reforms in the Indian military. The current structure allows the armed forces to achieve joint operations only at the tactical level. This robs the services of synergy in operations, planning, and logistics, which, in turn, affects their combat readiness. A single operational commander controlling the assets of all the services in a particular theatre would rationalise manpower, infrastructure, and resources, just as integrating training would result in shutting down many service-specific training institutes, saving funds. These funds could be diverted for the modernisation of weapon systems and capabilities, augmenting India’s military modernisation programme. Therefore, military planners rightly believe that theaterisation is the silver bullet for clubbing various units of the army, the IAF, and the IN under a single theatre commander to help them fight jointly as a unit.

The original idea was to merge the army’s existing seven single-service commands with the IAF’s seven commands and the IN’s three commands to form six or seven joint-service commands. But successive governments dragged their feet on the issue, and it was only in 2020, when late General Bipin Rawat became India’s first CDS that the concept of TCs was finally fleshed out. A separate Department of Military Affairs was established in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to help the CDS get the ball rolling on the reorganisation. As it happened, however, Rawat’s demise in a helicopter crash in 2021, and the subsequent inordinate delay in appointing a new CDS, slowed down the entire theaterisation process — until now.

The China-specific Northern TC will have its headquarters in Lucknow where the Army’s central command is currently located. The proposed Western TC, focused on Pakistan, will be based in Jaipur. The Maritime TC to safeguard India’s interests in the IOR is to operate from Thiruvananthapuram where it replaces the IAF’s southern air command.

While this looks good on paper, theaterisation in the subcontinent is easier said than done. There are many challenges including inter-services rivalry and clash of doctrines of the three services to be overcome before a final structural map can be worked out. A major headache could be hierarchical hurdles: it’s not uncommon for generals, admirals, and air marshals to vie for joint command roles in any new scheme of things.

The recommendation for the commanders of the TCs to be four-star generals (like the CDS and the three service chiefs) could become a bone of contention. For feathers would get ruffled among the top brass as the MoD cherry-picks some of the senior three-star officers for promotion to the four-star posts. Policy-makers would perhaps do well to borrow a leaf from the TC notebooks of some major militaries where theatre commanders are invariably four-star officers, even though it puts them at par with their service chiefs or CDS.

Another major challenge would be to tweak the operational philosophies of the three services since the shift to joint operations requires new training doctrines and protocols for inter-service co-operation. According to the blueprint announced by Chauhan, the integration of the three services is “a step-by-step process, beginning with cross-service cooperation, leading to a ‘joint culture’, and finally achieving integration of forces for conduct of joint operations”. After all, at the end of the day, what is important is for the men and women in uniform to fight as cohesive teams, rather than each fighting its own war.

Hopefully, the military planners will be able to iron out these wrinkles sooner rather than later. Only then can India’s armed forces be integrated under TCs to synergise their combat potential on the theaterised battlefields of tomorrow.

(Prakash Chandra is former editor of the Indian Defence Review. He writes on aerospace and strategic affairs.)

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