The Aakhya Weekly #60 | The Integration of India's Armed Forces

Aug 11, 2023

We are in the midst of yet another session of the Parliament. Like clockwork, once again, we are treated to the theatrics, the screaming, the sloganeering and the oratorical assault – the effervescent but brutal dance of Indian democracy. Behind all the acrimony and chaos, however, slipping by unseen, was the passage of one of the most significant Bills in Indian military history through parliament.

Currently, India’s three armed forces – the Army, Air Force and Navy – operate as independent, insular structures. They are governed by three distinct Services Acts – The Army Act, 1950, The Air Force Act, 1950 and The Navy Act, 1957. The new Bill – the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023 – allows the creation of ‘inter-services organisations’, or entities that combine service personnel from the three forces. Officers commanding such organisations, after its enactment, shall officially have the power to administer and discipline personnel from other services.

At the very least, the bill lays the groundwork for greater integration of the forces. More significantly, (although Defence Minister Rajnath Singh specifically clarified that any talk of it was premature) to much of the commentariat, the Bill shall lead the way to a deeper metamorphosis – the drawing up of theatre commands.

The path dependence of the Indian military

India’s military framework is, to a great extent, a hostage to its past.

The Indian armed forces evolved out of the colonial British forces in India. These, however, were forces meant to create order within India, not protect India from the outside. While the British relied on a large, professional land army, the British Indian air force and navy largely played a minor, supportive role - only coming into their own by the end of the second World War. This was the set up the newly independent Indian Government was entrusted with.

The early political leadership of independent India was focused on securing civilian control over its armed forces. Perhaps this was reasonable. The country has survived as a shaky but resilient democracy, even while several of its neighbours have succumbed to military dictatorship. Nevertheless, this dominance was secured through a trade-off. India separated its three forces all the way to the top, refusing to create any permanent coordinating body between them. The three forces would report, separately, to a wholly civilian administration – the Ministry of Defence. By design, there was no single point from which the forces could provide a single concerted, coherent input. Incoherence came to be at the very heart of India’s national security policy.

The case for Theatre Commands

The Indian armed forces currently function through a web of 17 service-specific commands – seven each from the Army and Air Force, and three from the Navy. Until recently, the three forces operated in silos, with the work of synthesising inputs and coordinating actions lying with the Ministry of Defence.

In a world that appears increasingly likely to plunge into chaos, it is important that India is equipped for its next major conflict. India’s primary adversary, China, has a single command for the entirety of the 3,500 kilometre Indo-China border. India, in contrast, operates out of seven.

A theatre command shall unify the three forces across a geographical area. Its commander shall have at their disposal resources from the Army, Air Force and Navy to direct, as a situation may require. Increasingly, the three shall be trained to work together as a cohesive unit – much like infantry and artillery operations work in tandem in most modern militaries. The level of integration can differ – from the three working together closely while maintaining their independent identity and functioning, to complete integration, where the three may be enmeshed together into a common hierarchy.

With better coordination, the three forces are likely to operate in a closer-knit and more coherent fashion. There is significant duplication of work across the forces, which can be eliminated through integration. Merging these commands shall also ensure that the forces are more efficient in the use of their resources, by pooling together all which is common across the three. These benefits have spurred major militaries of the world – from the United States, to the United Kingdom, to Russia, to China – to reorganise their forces into theatres.

The Road to Theaterisation

There have been vestiges of cooperation between India’s three forces since the beginning. The National Defence Academy, which trains officers for all forces, was the first tri-service academy in the world. Over time, the forces have built up joint educational infrastructure where officers at various stages of their careers come together. The armed forces medical establishment, too, has been integrated since its inception. Beyond this, however, cooperation between the forces has been limited to specific, goal-oriented tasks.

In the winter of 1998-99, Pakistani troops crossed the LOC to occupy critical positions in Kargil. From here, they could severe the link between Kashmir and Ladakh, and push India to withdraw from the Siachen glacier. Although the war to dislodge these troops was a stunning military achievement, it was crucial for India to understand how such circumstances could ever come to be. India set up the ‘Kargil Review Committee’ to study the lapses that led up to the war.

The Committee’s report, popularly called the ‘Subrahmanyam Committee Report’, gave scathing indictments of India’s many failures. It laid the blueprint for many subsequent changes to India’s national security policy, including a revamp of its intelligence architecture. It also pushed for unified operations between different services. During the Kargil war, several crucial days were lost in deploying air assets, due to confusion between the ranks. Better coordination was essential. These recommendations would be echoed in subsequent reports, including a 2001 report by a Ministerial group.

Working on the report’s recommendations, the Government set up an ‘Integrated Defence Staff’, a body tasked with creating synergies between the forces, in 2001. India’s first tri-services command, the Andaman and Nicobar Command, came up in the same year. Soon thereafter, in 2003, it set up its second such command, the Strategic Forces Command, to manage the country’s nuclear arsenal. Over time, however, the zeal for integration petered out.

More than a decade later, in 2016, the same recommendations were echoed in the Shekatkar Committee report. This gave the work of reform renewed vigour. To bring the forces under a common umbrella, the Government created the Department of Military Affairs. This organisation was tasked with promoting ‘jointness’ in India’s defence forces. It would look for synergies between the three forces in operations, logistics, transport, training and more. To head the body, it created a new post – the ‘Chief of Defence Staff’ (CDS) – to be held by a four-star general. The CDS would wear three hats: he would advise the defence minister, head the Department of Military Affairs and would chair a committee of the Chiefs of Staff of each of the forces. The IDS was mandated to advise and assist the CDS. Three new integrated services were created under the IDS: the Defence Cyber Agency, the Defence Space Agency and the Armed Forces Special Operations Division.

General Bipin Rawat, then the Chief of Army Staff, was made India’s first CDS, and was tasked with accelerating the theaterisation of the military. He took to this with zeal, proposing a structure with anywhere between two and five theatres. This, he believed, could be achieved within three years. An ‘Air Defence Command’, which would consolidate the air operations of the military, was lined up as his first project. Tragically, however, General Rawat passed away in a helicopter crash in December 2021. With his death, work on defence reform came to a standstill, with the CDS office remaining vacant for the better part of a year.

Lately, however, the reforms have resumed. In September 2022, the Government Appointed General Anil Chauhan as the country’s second CDS. The Indian Air Force, that was previously hesitant about the changes, endorsed theaterisation soon thereafter. After a flurry of meetings, last month, the three forces reached a consensus on three theatre commands, shelving the idea of the Air Defence Command. The bill, now, creates a legal instrument for parts of this plan to be operationalised.

What the new structure may look like

With changes at the apex of the three forces, the division of responsibilities between the military and the civil-political establishment can be rationalised. The civil-political establishment shall be responsible for military policy, while the military shall be responsible for military strategy. The two shall work in synergy – policy defining the goals that strategy shall strive to achieve.

Reportedly, India is looking to set up three theatre commands. One, headquartered in Jaipur, shall look over the Pakistan border. Another, headquartered at Lucknow, shall take care of the entire China border. The third, a maritime command, shall be based out of Karnataka’s Karwar. The first two shall alternatively be headed by three-star generals of the Air Force and Army on rotation, while the third shall be helmed by a three-star general of the Navy.

Theatre Commanders shall take over some of the operational responsibilities currently performed by the Chiefs of Staff of each of the forces, though the division of responsibilities is unclear. Chiefs of Staff may have a somewhat diminished yet important role in planning, procurement and resource management. Many of their decisions may be taken jointly, under the umbrella of the IDS. This shall ensure that the operations of the three forces are coordinated from the very top.

A long road ahead

Much needs to be done before integration and theaterisation can work in practice.

For one, to serve a real purpose, theaterisation must be in service of a larger strategy. The structure evolved through the process must actively contribute to how the military wishes to operate in the future. As former Army chief, General MM Naravane has stressed, pursuing theaterisation without a National Security Strategy is to put the cart before the horse.

Such an exercise shall demand an overhaul of how our entire military runs across the board: from operations, to communications, to logistics. Structures that have survived for many decades must be remoulded to accommodate new personnel and pursue new purposes. Many of these may be incompatible with their counter-parts from the other forces, and will Initial steps in this direction are underway. For instance, the army is setting up joint logistics nodes across the country, that shall service all three forces. A joint training command is under discussion as well.

Even if one could effortlessly revamp the entirety of India’s military organisation, however, the imperatives of each of the forces shall pull them in different directions. Their integration shall also be a severe human resources challenge. Our military education currently does little to train officers in joint operations. The forces have their own work cultures, their own reporting mechanisms and hierarchies. Hasty attempts to push them together may backfire.

Behind the scenes, the Government has been trying to foster collaboration between the forces. Off-late, combat exercises have attempted to boost operational synergy between the forces. Recently, Major and Lt Colonel-level officers have been cross-posted to other services.

Despite all that is yet to come, there is only one way to eat an elephant – one bite at a time. With the passing of the Bill, the Parliament has just taken a massive bite.

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The Aakhya Weekly