Beyond Theatre Commands And Towards Networked Battle Units

Context: India’s defence establishment must not squander rare opportunities to leapfrog our armed forces into the future.

Background on latest CDS and theaterisation reform: 

• In 2019, GoI initiated the defence structure reforms by appointing a chief of defence staff (CDS) and assign to him the task of restructuring India’s armed forces into integrated theatre commands.
• The proposed theaterization plan is shaped by circumstances of counter-insurgency, a proxy war along the borders and the Himalayan challenge posed by China.

Further reforms to be undertaken in the defence sector

• Moving implementation of the concept of theaterisation: Theatre commands optimise the structure for jointness and optimise for shorter response times, or what analysts call the ‘OODA loop’.
  • Recommended by the Kargil Committee two decades ago.
  • Given that actors, threats, and the environment will change in uncertain ways, the structure must be simple, flexible and adaptable.
  • Ideal solution for India is to have four geography-based theatres—Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western—each equipped to use land, sea, air, space and cyber power to handle all threats in their areas.
• Command for overseas military operations: India must raise a small but effective expeditionary command for overseas military operations.
• Organisational restructuring:
  • The chain of command should run from the Cabinet Committee on Security, through the defence minister, directly to theatre commander, with CDS and the defence secretary in the loop but outside the chain.
  • Like in the United States, this entire structure should be covered by parliamentary statute, not merely by executive decisions.
  • Purpose-driven structure: A joint war-fighting doctrine must be in place first in line with “Mantrapurvah sarvarambha” (policy must precede action), according to Kautilya. 
• Moving from big hierarchical formations to many small networked brigades: the US implemented this from 2003; a modular force structure “is superior to the division-based structure in terms of “deployability, employability, and sustainability.”
  • This is a good time to shift the Indian Army out of domestic counter-insurgency and separate the Coast Guard from the Indian Navy.
• Relooking modernisation agenda: Modernisation shall aspire to reduce the size of battle units, equipping them better, networking them intensely, and vastly improving their mobility.

Conclusion

• India has a unique opportunity to leapfrog into building not only integrated but networked forces. 
  • The watchwords for this transformation are empowerment, lower echelons, smaller units, specialist roles, interoperability and reconfigurability.
  • This does not necessarily need bigger budgets, nor is it about cutting-edge technology and equipment. It is about mindsets and adopting new ways of thinking.