While the initial plan was to create four theatre commands — an air defence command, a maritime theatre command and two land-based theatre commands (one each for the western and the eastern sectors) – the services decided to take a fresh relook on the proposed reform after the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan asked them to do so, considering the IAF’s objections to the previous plan.

One of the top proposals being considered is to create joint theatre commands based on India’s adversaries in the neighbourhood to begin with, as against the four defined theatre commands planned earlier.

This involves initially carving out an integrated theatre command to take care of the northern and eastern borders with China, another for the western borders with Pakistan and a third maritime command to tackle threats in the maritime domain, from the 17 service-specific military commands operating under the three services at present. Visakhapatnam, Jaipur and Lucknow are among the possible locations being discussed for their headquarters.

Also under discussion is the creation of a joint training command. Three joint logistics nodes had already been operationalised until 2021. India has two joint services commands at present – the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) and the Strategic Forces Command (SFC).

An official said efforts are on to ensure that the process of creating the theatre commands does not have a long “settling period” given that there’s alway the possibility of a conflict on the horizon.

The previous plan had envisaged keeping out the Army’s Northern Command and the IAF’s Air Officer Commanding Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh from the theatre commands and these were to operate independently.

The IAF had raised objections to the previous theaterisation plans – these were spearheaded by the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat – and stated that it would divide their fighting assets.

Over the last two years, multiple studies were carried out by top officers of the three services to examine the theaterisation process, but the plans lost pace after General Rawat was killed in a helicopter crash in December 2021.

Meanwhile, the services continued their deliberations on the proposed reform with a few table-top exercises held to examine employment of theatres in different operational scenarios.

The plans picked up pace again after the current CDS, General Anil Chauhan, took over in September last year.

According to officials, the services were asked to individually study and check the feasibility of adopting a new and separate approach to the Indian military’s theaterisation plans. In the last three months, multiple meetings have taken place within the three services – and between the three service chiefs and General Chauhan on the theaterisation plans.

Officials privy to the latest developments said the plan is expected to be finalised shortly, which would be discussed, examined and accordingly fine-tuned further in consultation with the CDS.

They emphasised that the existing plan is still fluid and may undergo additional changes with more internal deliberations, and inputs from the government.

Last year, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari had said that the IAF is not opposed to the theaterisation process if the doctrinal aspects of the force is not compromised by the creation of the new structures.

He had also said that while the theatre commands should be future-ready to deal with the emerging forms of warfare in the space and cyber domains, they should not increase the decision-making chains from the existing levels.

Last month, former Army chief General M M Naravane (retd) said that unless a national security strategy is in place, talk of theaterisation is “actually putting the cart before the horse”.

Army chief General Manoj Pande told the media last week that there is a need to get the right tri-service structures in place and the services are in the process of deliberations on issues related to theatre commands.

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The model of integration adopted by India’s armed forces must be future-ready, reduce levels of decision-making and lead to an organisational structure best suited to India’s conditions and geopolitical imperatives, he told an annual news conference ahead of the Air Force Day on October 8.

Chaudhari acknowledged that the IAF has “reservations” about certain aspects of structures proposed to be created under the tri-services integration plan but made it clear the force supports the overall move to ensure synergy between the army, air force and navy.

 “We are not opposing any process of integration and any process of theatre commands. We have certain reservations in respect to the structures,” he said while responding to a question on the plan for creating theatre commands by integrating assets of the three services.

“We are fully supporting the integration process, it is only the methodology and the kind of structures that need to be future-ready, is what we are insisting on,” he said. “Each service has a doctrine. The doctrinal aspects of the IAF should not be compromised in any way by the new structures.”

Chaudhari said in his opening remarks that no single service can win wars on its own and “this holds good even for the future”. He noted that air power has the “unique capability” of undertaking independent strategic operations as well as operations coordinated with sister services.

He added: “We understand the imperativeness of joint planning and execution in future wars and are keen on integrating the efforts of the three services. We believe that the model of integration that we adopt must be future-ready, it must reduce levels of decision-making and capitalise on the strength of all three services. We need an organisational structure that is best suited for Indian conditions and our geopolitical imperatives.”

The army, air force and navy currently have separate commands spread across the country. The theaterisation process aims to bring together the assets of the three services under theatre commands that will be responsible for tackling security challenges in a specified region. Such commands will be led by operational commanders.

IAF has expressed its reservations about the process in the past too.

The country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat, was leading the theaterisation process but the implementation ground to a halt following his death in a helicopter crash in December last year. The process is now expected to gain pace following last week’s appointment of Gen Anil Chauhan as the new Chief of Defence Staff. In the initial stages, an air defence command and maritime theatre command will be created.

Chaudhari said IAF recently updated and revised its doctrine to remain relevant. “The next step would be to use our doctrines and well-trained manpower to evolve employment philosophies and concepts of operations. This would require joint planning and joint execution of plans,” he said.

New structures should be created while keeping in mind future challenges in the cyber and space domains, and there must be clarity in the decision-making process, he said.

Chaudhari also said the IAF is being transformed into an aerospace force. “We see space as a natural extension of the air medium and we understand the need for exploiting this domain…Space-based assets significantly enhance the potency of air power and therefore our strategy is to fully integrate our air and space capabilities to have a common picture of the aerospace medium and to enable optimum force application,” he said.

“Traditionally, wars were fought on the land, sea and in the air. Today, newer domains like cyber and space are increasingly affecting the conduct of operations even in the traditional realms,” he said. “To absorb these changes, the IAF is on the path of transformation so that we can fight and win tomorrow’s wars.”

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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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While the next India and China military commanders’ meeting is due to be held on Monday, the PLA is continuing its build-up along the 1,597km Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the western sector. After the India-China foreign ministers meeting on September 10 in Moscow, a decision was taken to ask the military commanders to implement a total disengagement and de-escalation agreement on the ground. It is understood that the meetings at the Corps Commanders level will restrict itself to disengagement of forces post-April, and the Depsang Bulge issue will be taken up at a separate Divisional Commanders level meeting.

Western Theatre Command Fully Mobilised

According to a report in Nikkei Asian Review, the PLA has mobilised its Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea; Northern Theatre Command, which overseas the Korean Peninsula; and the Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees arch-rivals Japan and Taiwan. The paper said that just like the Chinese annexed Tibet in the 1950s against the backdrop of its intervention in the Korean war, the present mobilisation was a distraction for a real stand-off in the Karakoram-Zanskar ranges of the Himalayas. For the Ladakh operations, PLA’s Western Theatre Command has been fully mobilised with the military districts of Xinjiang and Tibet fully involved in the aggression.

The Korean war in the 1950s also turned out to be distraction for the Jawaharlal Nehru government and Indian diplomacy as they got involved in sorting out the North Korea issue, leaving their own flanks in the western and eastern sectors open to the Chinese military in 1962. The PLA chose to attack India in 1962 when the entire world was diverted towards the Cuban missile crisis.

While India is engaging China through both military and diplomatic channels for resolve the current stalemate, the military commanders are prepared for the worst on all the borders and the sea. They know that distraction, diversion and deception are part of Chinese information warfare with psychological operations playing the lead role before the flag goes up.

By deploying three military commands against the US from South China to East China Sea and test firing both the DF-26 also, called the Chinese Guam Killer, and DF-21 D, also called the Carrier Killer intermediate range ballistic missiles, in the last week of August, the PLA is sending a message that it capable of taking on both the US on its eastern and India on its western flank. The missile firing was to showcase the Chinese capability to taken on the exercising USS Navy’s super carrier Ronald Reagan and Nimitz around the Chinese nuclear submarine base at Hainan Islands in the South China Sea.

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