Future conflicts will reward the force that connects faster than it deploys and decides faster than it fires. Seamless communications, resilient data flows, and an indigenous digital backbone able to survive disruption will determine operational advantage. Time, not mass, will be the decisive currency.
Seen in this context, the Indian Army’s decision to designate 2026 as the Year of Networking and Data Centricity is not a routine annual focus. It reflects an acknowledgement that decision superiority now underpins combat power. Its relevance extends beyond the Army. It signals the need for India’s armed forces to move toward true tri-service net-centricity as the basis for multi-domain operations.
Evolving character of war and connectivity
The character of warfare has undergone a structural shift. Future multidomain conflicts will be fought across land, air, maritime, cyber, space, and the information domain at the same time. These domains are no longer sequential or loosely linked. Actions in one domain now produce immediate operational effects in others. Combat effectiveness, therefore, rests on the ability to connect sensors, command and control systems, fires, and logistics into a single, functioning decision chain. If fragmented, combat power degrades, regardless of the quality of advanced platforms.
From platform focus to decision control
India’s military evolution has historically been service-centric. Each service developed deep competence within its own domain, and this model delivered results in earlier conflicts. That environment has now changed. Long-range precision weapons, persistent ISR, electronic warfare, cyber disruption, and information operations have compressed time and operational depth. Decision windows have narrowed. The margin for sequential coordination has disappeared.
In contemporary operations, advantage accrues to the side that closes the loop from detection to engagement first. Platforms matter, but only to the extent that they are connected, cued, and employed in time. Forces that depend on sequential reporting, manual fusion, and layered clearances surrender tempo. Once tempo is lost, recovery is unlikely under modern conditions.
The Army’s focus on networking and data centricity in 2026 reflects this operational reality. The intent is to shorten decision loops, connect sensors directly to shooters, and provide commanders at every level with a shared, current picture of the battlespace. This marks a shift away from platform-driven employment toward operations shaped by information flow. Data is no longer a supporting function. It is a core element of combat power.
Insights from Operation Sindoor
Operational experience from Operation Sindoor reinforces these conclusions. Where surveillance, intelligence, precision fires, and command elements were networked, response times reduced sharply and effects multiplied. Where information remained compartmentalised, operational momentum slowed despite local success.
A central lesson was that network-centric warfare is no longer an enabling concept but the baseline for modern military operations. Sindoor revealed both progress and limitations: networked elements delivered decisive outcomes, but gaps in real-time information fusion, cross-domain visibility, and joint command interfaces constrained full exploitation. Delays in integrating intelligence across services and agencies reduced the speed with which commanders could transition from detection to decisive action.
The operation also exposed the growing overlap between kinetic and non-kinetic action. Cyber activity, electronic warfare, information operations, and space-based support were not adjuncts; they shaped the operating environment before first contact and continued to influence outcomes during physical engagement. The direction of future conflict is unambiguous. Initial moves will target networks, data integrity, and decision systems. Forces that cannot fight through disrupted or contested information conditions will forfeit initiative early.
Sindoor also made clear that jointness cannot be assembled on demand. Crisis-time coordination, however effective, is not a substitute for permanent integration.
Why tri-service net-centricity is non-negotiable
Multi-domain operations require land, air, maritime, cyber, and space effects to be planned and executed as a single continuum. This is impossible without a unified communication and data backbone. Legacy service-specific networks, however robust individually, cannot support theatre-level operations where decisions must be synchronised in near real time.
Operational friction is already visible. Integration of air defence systems, sharing of UAV feeds, harmonisation of software-defined radios, and establishment of joint logistics nodes continue to face avoidable delays rooted in network fragmentation. These are not technological failures. They are institutional ones.
Concerns about security differences between service networks do not withstand examination. Encryption standards are comparable, and cyber threats target the force as a whole rather than individual services. Fragmentation, in fact, increases vulnerability by creating seams that adversaries can exploit. Partial trust in joint operations equates to operational risk.
True net-centricity requires moving beyond federated systems stitched together at limited interfaces. It demands a single operational fabric where data is discoverable, prioritised, trusted, and acted upon according to mission and role, not service affiliation.
Data centricity and theatre commands
The move toward Integrated Theatre Commands makes this requirement unavoidable. Theatre commanders cannot operate effectively if situational awareness is filtered through service-specific systems. Command authority without data authority is inherently constrained.
Future conflicts will generate more information than traditional headquarters can absorb or process in time. Data must be filtered, fused, and acted upon close to the point of decision. Systems that assist correlation and prioritisation are therefore essential to command effectiveness. When employed correctly, they allow commanders to act before situations harden rather than react after options narrow.
The Army’s emphasis on indigenous networks and sovereign data control is strategically sound. Control over code, encryption, and data paths enhances resilience against cyber-attack, jamming, and deception. Sovereignty, however, must be matched by standardisation. Indigenous systems that do not interoperate across services merely reproduce legacy silos with new technology.
Architecture before acquisition
Achieving tri-service net-centricity does not require wholesale new procurement. Existing infrastructure, particularly the Network for Spectrum, provides a strong foundation. The challenge lies in migrating all services onto a common architecture, establishing shared data frameworks, standardising encryption and access protocols, and enforcing joint governance.
Unified network monitoring, role-based access control, common identity management, and integrated satellite resource allocation must replace service-specific practices. At the tactical level, common radio waveforms validated under contested electromagnetic conditions are critical.
Equally important is clarity of ownership. Net-centricity cannot remain a distributed responsibility. It requires a single empowered authority with the mandate to design, implement, enforce, and evolve the tri-service communication and data ecosystem. Without clear accountability, integration will continue to drift.
The human dimension
Technology alone does not deliver an advantage. A networked force requires leaders who understand data, trust joint systems, and can operate under degradation. Training, evaluation, and promotion systems must reward integration and information literacy rather than reinforce parochial expertise.
The Army’s 2026 initiative provides momentum, but culture will change only when reinforced across the joint force. Theatreisation, network integration, and data centricity must advance together. Progress in one without the others will create new constraints rather than resolve old ones.
Conclusion
The decision to designate 2026 as the Year of Networking and Data Centricity is an operational imperative, but it will matter only if it drives irreversible change across the joint force. India will not fight future wars as a series of service-specific efforts. It will fight a single conflict across multiple domains, under constant contestation of information and networks. Entering that fight without integrated data and decision systems is not a shortfall; it is a self-imposed constraint.
(Note: The author was part of the 2024-2025 Indian Army Study Team for Technology Induction for Future Warfare)