“Space is being used to enhance combat capabilities in other domains – land, sea, air and even cyber…The military applications of space is the dominant discourse from which we cannot remain divorced,” Chauhan said at the Indian DefSpace Symposium 2023 jointly organised by Indian Space Association (ISpA) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

He said the invasion of the space domain by commercial enterprises as seen during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the intense race towards the militarization of space had resulted in expansion of battlespace, with the nature warfare being on the cusp of a major transformation.

“The aim for all of us should be developing dual-use platforms with special focus on incorporating cutting-edge technology and we must expand our NavIC constellation, provide agile space-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), and ensure secure satellite-assisted communications,” he said.

NavIC, or Navigation with Indian Constellation, refers to a regional navigation satellite system established by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Chauhan’s comments came days after Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari called for building offensive and defensive space capabilities to safeguard assets, while stressing that the race to weaponize space had already started, and the day was not far when the next war would be fought across land, sea, air, cyber and space. The IAF chief said India needed to capitalise on its initial successes in space and prepare itself for the future.

The CDS spoke about the need to explore the field of miniaturization of satellites and reusable launch platforms to mitigate cost, challenges and accelerate the pace of augmenting India’s space-based capabilities. “The populating of space domain and the emergence of dynamic threat environment to our space assets also demands that we enhance our space situational awareness capability. There’s also a requirement to safeguard our assets with counter space capabilities. We must build resilience and redundancy in a space-based infrastructure.”

He spoke about the need to build offensive and defensive space capabilities in the context of strides made by Russia and China in the sector.

DRDO chief Samir V Kamat said the organisation has sharpened its focus on the space domain, including space-based surveillance, situational awareness and protecting space-based assets.

“Space is the next frontier that requires our attention. We have mastered basic space technologies, but the number of satellites must go up significantly as we are far behind China on this front,” Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), director general, Centre for Air Power Studies, earlier said.

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The proposed missile command will be responsible for deployment of missile and rocket regiments against any hostile adversary and will be manned by commanders of the three services in rotation. This means that conventional missiles like BrahMos and Akash as well as Pinaka rockets will be placed under one command for rapid deployment against any adversary. The proposal to set up a missile command has been moved in the aftermath of the May 2020 East Ladakh stand-off with the PLA and the use of rockets and missiles in the Ukraine theatre by the Red Army. The PLA has deployed rocket regiments in the depth areas of occupied Aksai Chin with missiles in the hinter in Tibet and Sinkiang region. The missile command will be on similar lines as the tri-services cyber command and the space command as the future wars will hardly have any contact between troops unless used for capturing enemy territory.

While the Modi government is moving towards military theatre commands, it does not want to take any military reform in a hurry and without proper conceptualization at the doctrine and commander level as well as integration at the lowest level of formations. Given that India has a land frontier of over 15,000 kilometers and coastline of over 7,000 km, the army will be the priority on land as Navy will be on sea.

For optimum operational results, India needs to rethink its offensive doctrines as the tri-services command has a role in taking the war to the enemy and not while defending its own territory. There is no point splitting up scarce military assets among various theatre commands if the threat is coming on India’s land frontiers or sea frontiers. The functioning of the tri-service command at Andamans and Nicobar Islands has sobered up the military reformists as the Navy has a spearhead role in India’s island territories and not the Army till such time India does not adopt the expeditionary forces concept. The Air Force cannot be limited to air defence of Indian airspace but also in launching offensive against the enemy by taking down or degrading its war machine.

Before embarking on the military theatre command charter, Indian national security planners will have to game war scenarios where the tri-services can be optimally utilized and best fit.

With Narendra Modi government appointing India’s second Chief of Defence Staff in Gen Anil Chauhan, his task will be to listen to the three armed forces chiefs on their views on theatre commands and rapidly operationalize the cyber and defence commands.

Gen Chauhan’s task also will be to wean the armed forces from its British Imperial Legacy, as exemplified in PM Modi’s Paanch Prans, as the Indian military is still human resource oriented and not tech oriented. Even today, a whole lot of money is spent on building new military messes and golf courses rather than developing counter-offensive capabilities in cyber-war or developing smarter missiles.

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According to the plan, each of the theatre commands will have units of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and all of them will work as a single entity, looking after the security challenges in a specified geographical territory under an operational commander.

“This exercise is in progress. While there are areas of convergence and common understanding among the three services, there are some issues that still need to be addressed. That I suppose will have to be taken up for resolution at the appropriate level,” General Pande said.

The Department of Military Affairs headed by the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, had asked all the three services last year to carry out independent studies on the theaterisation plan for its rollout.

“In so far as the studies which the Army was required to undertake for the land theatre commands, these are in the final stages of completion and will be submitted in due course,” General Pande said.

“But at the end of it, I must reiterate the Indian Army’s commitment towards achieving this objective of theaterisation. I would want to state our full commitment and that we are prepared to sort of cooperating and taking the lead in any manner towards making theaterisation a success,” he added.

At present, the Army, the Navy and the IAF have separate commands. Initially, a plan was firmed up for the creation of an Air Defence Command and a Maritime Theatre Command.

The theatre commands are being planned to integrate the capabilities of the three Services and ensure the optimal utilisation of their resources.

Integrated Battle Groups

The Indian Army is in advanced stages of putting together Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) by reconfiguring its combat formations.

General Pande said the plan is to have one in the northern sector and another on the western front. “It is in the final stages of compilation,” he said.

“Consultations with all stakeholders are more or less formalized and are now in the process of final compilation. Once this happens, we will see how we can take this forward and apply to perhaps other formations of the Army,” the Army Chief said.

The IBG, which aims to integrate different components of the Army into the new formation, will include artillery guns, tanks, air defence and logistical elements.

“The purpose of restructuring our existing formations was to have forces which are lean, agile and tailor-made that would afford the commanders the flexibility and more options for their deployment,” the Chief of Army Staff said.

The IBGs add punch to the ground forces by combining the strengths of each formation. The Army has already carried out extensive test-bedding of the IBG concept.

“We have identified a holding formation on the western front and a strike formation in the eastern or northern borders for the IBGisation to commence,” said Gen Pande.

Once IBGs are rolled out, these will be comparatively smaller formations but will be able to execute their operations swiftly. They will add to the options of the theatre commanders. The IBGs will be bigger than a brigade (3,000-3,500) but smaller than a division (10,000-12,000).

In the first go, of the two IBGs planned, one is coming up under the 9 Corps mandated to operate on the western borders with Pakistan.

The other one is being raised under the 17 Corps raised as the sole strike corps to operate along the northern borders with China.

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