As enemies grow, India's urgency for theaterisation of Armed Forces grows too

The India-Pakistan border has always been a major concern and today the problem has escalated with the Chinese transgression along the LAC in eastern Ladakh

New Delhi, July 20: The death of India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, has left a huge void. The untimely demise came at a time when the military theaterisation drive was under way.

This became even more important considering the multi-fold threats the country is facing. The India-Pakistan border has always been a major concern and today the problem has escalated with the Chinese transgression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Both India and China have made very little headway along the LAC and the last round of talks held on Sunday did not yield the desired results. Added to this is also the problem of cyber warfare which possibly is the biggest threat that India faces.

Following the death of General Rawat, this issue had been on the back burner. However the subject has been reignited once again in the wake of the Chinese issue and also the ongoing war in Ukraine.

In the wake of this, it becomes extremely important to speed up the theaterisation drive which would boost the synergy among the Indian Armed Forces. Prior to his death last year, General Rawat had asked the three services to submit a comprehensive report on the theaterisation as well as the joint structure.

The Indian Army, Navy and Air Force have 17 commands together. The idea behind theaterisation was to set up four new integrated commands. They were the two land centric theatres, an air defence command and a maritime theatre command.

This exercise would ensure better planning, military response and would also bring down the cost in the near future. The cost may go up initially since all the theatres would have to be armed with ample systems. However, in the future the costs would go down as all the acquisition will be a unified one.

Officials OneIndia spoke with said that General Rawat's vision was to use the military resources to the best of its ability with an eye on wars of the future.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said during the Independence Day address in 2019, "Our forces are India's pride. To further sharpen coordination between the forces, I want to announce a major decision from the Red Fort. India will have a Chief of Defence Staff-CDS. This is going to make the forces even more effective."

Since the 1962 war with China, there have been 13 five-year defence plans and the major problem was that these plans would fall short due to lack of prioritisation.

With the CDS came a clear policy on defence diplomacy. The job of the CDS was to ensure that this is implemented. The jointmanship and visits of the higher military authorities are some of the issues that come under diplomacy and the CDS becomes a central figure to ensure that this process goes on smoothly.

Considering the challenges, these issues are extremely crucial in the event of a two-front war on the north-west and north-east borders. This would require a pinpointed military application.

The task ahead for the new CDS would be to speed up the military reforms and also chalk out the way forward in the wake of several developments including the Ukraine war.

The Department of Military Affairs (DMA) is headed by the CDS and handles matters including theaterisation and other reforms. The CDS is the permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) headed by the DMA. He is also the single point military advisor to the defence minister.

In addition to this, border disputes, overseeing issues relating to India's neighbours, monitoring developments in the Indian Ocean Region, West Asia, Afghanistan and South East Asia also come under the purview of the DMA headed by the CDS.