‘Total accord among chiefs on theaterisation, differences only on its execution’: CDS Gen Anil Chauhan

Differences still exist among the service chiefs of the Army, Navy and the Air Force on the implementation of the process of ‘Theaterisation’ and the way to go about it, but there is no disagreement on the concept per se or the realisation of an imperative need for it given the growing complexity of modern day warfare, said Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Anil Chauhan.

“There is no difference among the three services on this particular concept. There is total consensus. It is a big thing because, in some manner, the authority of the service chiefs gets diluted. And they are ready to do it for the larger good of the nation. It is an important part, much important than the manifestation aspect,” said Gen Chauhan.

The CDS was speaking during an interaction on the sidelines of the second edition of the ‘Ran Sanvad’ event, a marquee tri-services annual event being held at Bengaluru.

“There are hundreds of connected questions relating to the manifestation, those issues on which there is still some kind of difference. But I think these issues can be resolved when we are implementing this concept.

“When we set up theater commands, we would be looking at joint headquarters which will subsume tasks like operations, intelligence, logistics, etc. The work of intelligence will also get changed and redistributed. There will be some dilution in military intelligence, air intelligence or naval intelligence; they will all contribute centrally to an organisation. So, we will converge a lot of capabilities and centralise them,” Gen Chauhan added.

The prevalent regional or geographical commands will also be reorganised under the theater commands in matters of operations but in matters relating to raising, training and sustenance, they will be looked after by the service chiefs, he pointed out.

Envisaged as a process to transform the Indian military into a modern force capable of pursuing India’s national interest across multiple domains including traditional and emerging one, ‘theaterisation’ is premised on laying a strong foundation of jointness and integration at all levels among the three services.

The office of the CDS was created on September 30, 2022, with the core mandate of theaterisation, promoting jointness and integration of the Indian military.

With theaterisation, a single commander in a designated zone will command all the assets and resources of all forces be it from the Army, the Navy or the Air Force stationed in that zone.

‘Theaterisation’ aims to create two parallel and complementary streams for ‘force application’ and ‘force generation’.

The ‘force application’ component will become the responsibility of the theater commander, whereas the service chiefs, in their transformed role will be responsible for what is colloquially called the ‘Raise, Train and Sustain’ (RTS) function.

This system would be much similar to the military system devised in the US in 1986 after the concept of ‘warfighting commanders’ being responsible for conduct of operations whereas service chiefs were removed from the operational responsibility with the top focus being on RST functions.