Brig. Ravi Palsokar (retd)

Media reports suggest that the establishment of theatre commands is now a matter of implementation. It is reported that there will be three such commands, one for the western border with its headquarters based at Jaipur (Rajasthan), second for the northern China border headquartered at Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), and the third for the defence of peninsular India along with responsibility for oceanic and island territories, which would be based at Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).

The proposal has been in discussion for several years and a decision has been taken either in the face of bitter opposition or perhaps, having achieved a consensus. We do not know many details of the implementation of this scheme: the higher defence organisation to which the commanders in chief of such commands will report, the autonomy likely to be given to theatre commanders, their troops lists including the allocation of ever scarce air force resources. Whatever the answers to these questions, we need to examine the efficiency and thereby necessity of such theatre based, integrated unified commands in the context of the following factors.

• Will it enhance the strategic options and the operational efficiency of the armed forces as a whole, and as an instrument of national power?
• Its effect on operational doctrines not only for the defence of the national borders but also for offensive tasks beyond the borders under the shadow of the ever-present nuclear threat.
• Force modernisation and the introduction of state-of-the-art technology with a recognisable timeframe to become self-sufficient.
• Last but not the least, savings in defence expenditure, which is the need of the hour.

Strategic Options & Autonomy

Start with the basics. No country approaches such problems with a clean slate and without legacy issues. Our nation was born and immediately had to undergo a trial by fire when Pakistan launched a thinly veiled attack to regain Jammu and Kashmir. Since then, there has been a strategic stalemate along the Line of Control on the western border despite the wars of 1965, 1971 and the Kargil misadventure by Pakistan. The western international border from Punjab to the far reaches of the Rann of Kutch is more stable, but for some incidents of infiltration and smuggling. One major assault was by Pakistani terrorists from the sea into Mumbai in 2008, when lack of preparation and haphazard response allowed the terrorists to cause great depredations.

The situation on the Chinese border which stretches from Ladakh to the tri-junction with Myanmar in the east has progressively deteriorated with an uneasy standoff along the disputed border. The defeat in 1962 was bad enough but the Galwan incident of 2020 has been the turning point after which both sides have deployed the most modern weaponry and their soldiers in t