Lingering differences of opinion within the defence services leadership over the structure of a theatre commands — which are among the major reforms that the Indian Armed Forces intend to implement — were in evidence at a tri-service seminar at the Army War College in Dr Ambedkar Nagar (Mhow), Madhya Pradesh, last week. Air Chief Marshal A P Singh cautioned against rushing the theaterisation plan, and stressed instead on creating a joint planning and coordination centre in Delhi under the Chiefs of Staff Committee to bolster ‘jointness’ among the three services. The next day, August 27, Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi said the Indian Navy is committed to integrating its command and control, communications, and combat capabilities with the Army and Air Force to align with the theaterisation goal. Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan, who is spearheading the theaterisation plans, pledged to address any “dissonance” within the services on the creation of theatre commands. The seminar, Ran Samwad 2025, has revived discussion on the biggest reform in operations and administration in the history of the Indian Armed Forces. The final structure of the proposed theatre commands is yet to be greenlighted by the government. What is theaterisation, and how will it change the current organisational structure of the services? The theaterisation plan seeks to integrate the Army, Navy, Air Force, and their resources into specific ‘theatre’ commands, for deployment under a single, unified command structure. Each command will be assigned a specific geographical region, combining the resources of the three services for operational roles. The Army and IAF currently have seven commands each, and the Navy has three. In addition, there are two tri-service commands — the Andaman and Nicobar Command and the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which manages India’s nuclear arsenal. There is also the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQIDS), which was created after the Kargil conflict to fulfil the need for an institutional framework for higher management of defence. Why is India attempting such an exercise? The exercise is being attempted as part of higher defence reforms in line with the changing nature of modern warfare. Taking a cue from other advanced militaries, the defence establishment believes that theatre commands will ensure integration among the three services, paving the way for them to fight future wars jointly, instead of individually without adequate coordination. Modern wars, which are expected to become increasingly multi-domain in nature, call for better coordination among land, sea, and air assets, as well as newer platforms such as UAVs and high-precision strike weapons, and domains like cyber and space. In the event of a future conflict involving drone and high-precision missile attacks combined with cyber attacks and land wars, the services would benefit by coordinating their planning and integrating their assets under a single command and control structure. However, there are differing views on whether creating theatre commands is the only way to integrate the three services and create jointness among them. The Army, Navy and Air Force have been taking other steps to promote jointness, including cross-postings among themselves, creation of joint logistics nodes, and ensuring jointness in procurement, training, and staffing through joint planning and integration of their requirements. When and how did the idea of theaterisation come about? In his Independence Day speech in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the new post of Chief of Defence Staff, saying the country’s entire military must work together, without a fragmentation of its prowess. This paved the way for discussions on theatre commands and their possible structure. That December, the Union Cabinet approved the creation of the post of CDS in the rank of a four-star general. In a statement, the government said the CDS would head the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) — to be created under the Defence Ministry — as its secretary. The DMA was mandated to: * Promote jointness in procurement, training, and staffing for the services through joint planning and integration of their requirements; * Facilitate the restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through the establishment of joint/ theatre commands; and * Promote the use of indigenous equipment by the services. What discussions on theatre commands took place in the years that followed? Since 2020, when Gen Bipin Rawat took charge as India’s first CDS, the proposed structure of theatre commands has undergone multiple iterations, and new models have been discussed. 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 eastern sectors. Gen Rawat was killed in a helicopter crash in December 2021. In view of the IAF’s objections to the initial plan, Gen Rawat’s successor, Gen Anil Chauhan, asked the services to look afresh at the proposed reform. The new plan proposed adversary-based joint theatre commands instead of four defined theatre commands. This would involve carving out from the 17 service-specific military commands operating under the three services, integrated theatre commands for 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. In the earlier discussions, the roles of raising, training and sustaining were assigned to the service chiefs, while operations would be entrusted to the theatre commanders. Later, the possibility of service Chiefs retaining some operational roles was also discussed. Since then, multiple deliberations, studies and tabletop exercises have been carried out by the services to examine the employment of theatres in various operational scenarios. Plans have been drawn up on the structure of the theatre commands, their operational areas, the location of their headquarters, the lead service under which each theatre command would operate, the reporting structure of the theatre commanders, and whether the Andaman and Nicobar Command and SFC can be subsumed into the existing commands. What are the challenges to creating theatre commands? The creation of theatre commands entails dismantling existing structures of the service-specific commands under the three services, which have been functioning for more than seven decades. The IAF has expressed reservations, primarily on the ground that it would further divide the scarce combat assets of the Air Force — even as it has maintained that it supports jointness and integration of the three services. Former IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria (retd) had contradicted the late Gen Rawat, saying that the IAF is not just a support arm, and that air power has a huge role. “We are totally committed to the theatre command, but we must get it right. And that is the focus area with which we are doing all our deliberations. And there are issues that are being looked at. There are deliberations between the three services with the CDS,” he had said. ACM Bhadauria’s successor, Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhary (retd), said the IAF is not opposed to the theaterisation process if the doctrinal aspects of the force is not compromised. Theatre commands should be future-ready to deal with emerging forms of warfare in the space and cyber domains; they should not increase decision-making chains from the existing levels, ACM Chaudhary had said. And last week, ACM Singh reiterated the IAF’s long-standing view in favour of bolstering jointness without dismantling existing structures. He cautioned against blindly following the example of militaries like that of the US in rolling out theatre commands. “Everybody has their own requirements. We need to think about what we need there, and then only we should go about it. Otherwise, we will go wrong,” he said.
