September 5, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan unpack the debate over theaterisation -- the buzzword that has divided India's armed forces for years.
Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh's recent comments about India not needing theaterisation right now have once again opened a debate that was meant to have been settled with the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff.
On this episode, Dev and Sandeep go from the origins of theatre commands in World War II, to India's 17 separate service commands, to the Air Force's worries -- and the famous committees (Kargil Review, GoM, Naresh Chandra, Shekatkar) that studied this reform to death.
The two explore:
- What is theaterisation and why does it matter?
- Why is the Indian Air Force pushing back?
- Did General Bipin Rawat's death stall the project?
- What role do decades of committees and bureaucratic delays play?
- And most importantly, does India actually need theatre commands for future wars?
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound Mix by Rohan Bharti
Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh's recent comments about India not needing theaterisation right now have once again opened a debate that was meant to have been settled with the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff.
On this episode, Dev and Sandeep go from the origins of theatre commands in World War II, to India's 17 separate service commands, to the Air Force's worries -- and the famous committees (Kargil Review, GoM, Naresh Chandra, Shekatkar) that studied this reform to death.
The two explore:
- What is theaterisation and why does it matter?
- Why is the Indian Air Force pushing back?
- Did General Bipin Rawat's death stall the project?
- What role do decades of committees and bureaucratic delays play?
- And most importantly, does India actually need theatre commands for future wars?
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound Mix by Rohan Bharti
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in Our Defense. Hello,
and welcome to Another Defense. Theaterization that's been the buzzword
in the Indian military ever since PM mosse announcement in
twenty nineteen that the Indian government would be setting up
(00:47):
the post the Chief of Defense Staff. That post went
to General Bipin Rabat, who was the first one to
be an office in that post, and ever since then,
there's been a lot lot of debate and chatter over
this concept and idea of theaterization and why the Indian
military was going towards that. There was a lot of
movement on that when General bipinabad was in office, but
(01:09):
he unfortunately died around two years after he took uh.
We took charge of that office and ever since then
that project has been sort of limbo essentially. This week
rather last week, debate on this topic was broached again
by the Air Force Chief Chief Marshall ap Singh when
he was addressing a seminar at the Ran Sambad, a
(01:32):
two day military conference that was held recently in India,
where in a rare instance of an Air Force officer
in public coming out against this idea, he basically said that,
you know, that is not something that was for us.
It's not something that we should import from the West
or from China, but you know, we should have our
own processes and stuff like that. His the basic idea
(01:53):
of his talk was that the Air Force was not
happy with the idea of theaterization. That's not such something new.
By the way, It's been known widely thanks to a
lot a lot of reporting. But this was I think
a rare instance where the FOS came out in public
about this. But what is this concept of theaterization? Why
do we even need it in the first place? Do
we need in the first place? To break this down?
(02:14):
I have with me Sunday to be back there.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What have you? Uh?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
You know, actually on this topic, I don't know who
better than have to do better than you, because back
in twenty nineteen December, I remember the date correctly, thirtieth December,
people in military circles were just waiting, waiting, waiting to
know who the CDs would be because this back then,
the retirement of General Raba, who was then the army chief,
(02:41):
was fast approaching. And at ten pm that night you
brought a tweet with the can of beer that said
Bira and a day later it was b Ra cool charge.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
H Yes, it's good you remember that. I mean I
had forgotten that.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
No, I remember because you know, we all of us
were closed following that, because announcement had been made a
few months earlier, and there was a lot of speculation
of who would be the first first CS and the
the yle was that if he retired, then perhaps somebody
else would take charge, and there's a lot of speculation basically.
So it was watching that with you know, very hawks eye,
(03:18):
and then that that week came of yours and it turned.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
To be true.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
So yeah, suddenly, before we get to the air chiefs comments,
before we get to the debate, and the interesting parallel
that you do right before we began recording this that
you know we're still talking about this topic. Uh, a
day after China held its eightieth Victory Day parade, where
it you know, where it's displayed some of the most
(03:42):
high tech weaponry.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Though we don't know if it's partly tested. But still
the comparison.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Is that it was an awesome show. I have to admit.
I mean, I'm no big fan of the Chinese or
Shi Jinping or Mao, but I have to say that
that parade was the most impressive military parade I have
ever seen. Possibly. I mean, if you look at historical parallels,
it would be the great parade that the Soviet Union
put up on the Red Square after winning the Second
(04:08):
World War. That would be the most spectacular parade of
all time, where you have Generals Zukov and Constantine Rokostovsky
on horseback inspecting the parade. They were cavalry offices. Of course,
the greatness of that parade, but this parade, Hi Jinping's parade,
in terms of sheer optics, I mean, this boggles the mind.
(04:30):
The fact that you're able to put on a parade
of this size, this scale, this scope. There were so
many messages rolled in that you know, and yes we're
talking about theaters six years after the Chief of Defense
Staff was announced, and of course he set out with
this task for the first two years. We still get
(04:52):
to see phase two of those reforms that were rolled
out in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
But for our listeners and viewers to be better able
to understan and this topic, I think it's best if
you first accept explains I'm sorry, the concept of theaters,
because it's it's a word that comes naturally to people
who cover this domain, people like you, people like me
who read a lot about this domain, the world of military,
in the world of national security and stuff like that.
(05:17):
What at the very basic level is a theater? The
concept of theaterzation, why do you even need it? And
you know, I think perhaps it goes back to World
War Two, where you had countries fighting in far off places,
far far away from where you actually are, and I
think people don't sort of understand the sheer vastness of
(05:37):
World War Two, where you basically had in the Russia
had several different armies. It wasn't one single army, several
different armies. That's the that's the amount of fighting that
Russia is.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A big country, I mean across eleven time zones.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So you know, if you for me, World War two,
I mean, if you were to look at it in
cinematic terms, it's saving private Private Ryan, the first visuals
the Norman Land. Yes, you had a ton of people
landing on the beaches on naval a sorry, warships with
air support. That's the theater, I'm guessing. So, but break
(06:10):
it down for us and what is theatization and why
do we talk about it?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, good points. And the fact is that you know,
theaters are of course the theater of war and it
has to do with warfare, war fighting. It's not about
you know, it's not about parades, certainly, it's not about
training or planning or acquisitions. This is about the sharp
end of the sword, that is the war fighting, which
is what militaries essentially are for. They are for warfare.
(06:39):
They're for war fighting therefore deterring conflict, there for protecting borders.
All of that comes down to theaters. And that is
where theaters are so important. And as you mentioned, they
became very important during the Second World War where you
had multiple theaters simultaneously playing out across the world, which
is why it was called the Second World War. You
had the Axis powers you had Italy, Germany, Japan versus
(07:02):
the allies who were Japan, Great Britain, the United States,
the USSR, several other countries, France, and this was a
war that was brought across multiple theaters simultaneously. You had
warfare raging in North Africa, then that moved to Europe,
and then of course it was raging in Asia as
well with the Empire of Japan. So it was a
(07:24):
simultaneous conflict spanning the globe six years, and that is
where really the concept of modern theaters emerged. What happened
after the Second World War is that militaries continued in
that fashion of standalone entities. You had primarily the three
armed forces. You had the army, the Navy, and the
air force. In this case of the you know, in
(07:46):
the army, it was the army, and you had the
Army Air Forces as well, like you had in the
United States. Japan had only the Army Air Forces of
course more recent in origin. That's the reason they were
part of the army in the twentieth century. But then
the realization grew that you need to have joint warfighting
structures that would integrate all the assets of various organizations
(08:09):
the army, the navy, and the air force and basically
fight together, plan and fight together. So it's actually at
the combat edge of conflict that theaters are they become
so important and countries that did not do this discovered
this to their peril, like the Japanese, for instance. You
had a very powerful Japanese imperial Japanese army, you're a
(08:32):
very powerful imperial Japanese navy. But they fought two different
conflicts in the same war. So the army had its
own strategy, the navy had its own strategy. And because
they didn't combine forces, they didn't think together, they didn't
plan together, they didn't train together, and they didn't fight together.
You saw their combat power being frittered away. And the
classic case is the Battle of Midway. They broke up
(08:55):
their forces. The navy was doing its own thing, the
army was doing its own thing. The name he said,
I will fight the ultimate battle at sea. I will
destroy the US Navy. The army said, I will do
the ultimate land invasion and all that. Whether they should,
you know, they could have actually combined their forces. I'm
not saying that would have won the war for Japan.
It would certainly have won that battle for them. It
would have because they had the advantage when the battle began,
(09:18):
the Battle of Midway, and when the battle ended. It
was the most catastrophic naval defeat, possibly since the Battle
of Sushima, where the entire Japanese carrier battle group was destroyed.
Four carriers were sunk in a span of a few hours. Right.
So from there a lot of the thinking emerged that, look,
we need to put our forces together. We need to
combine our forces so that we present a joint front
(09:40):
towards the enemy, and a particular theater of combat. Would
have the Army, it would have the Navy, to have
the air force all fighting as one. And now we
come to the Indian story, which is that we've always
spot separately from nineteen forty seven onwards. But during Kargill,
that was the turning point where they discovered that the
(10:00):
three forces were not on the same page. The Army
detected the intrusions, it started tackling the intruders on the
heights of Cargallen. It was the air force that entered
the conflict much later, a few weeks after the Army
had begun fighting. That went up to the politicians, and
then they had to finally ask the air force to
enter the conflict. The navy also entered much later, so
(10:25):
it was like a slow moving process of one force
coming in, then a second force, and then a third force,
and then towards the end you have something of a
united front. So the thinking at that time was that
could we not have fought this together? You have an
integrated theater over there. The theater commander then becomes responsible
for all the land and air forces in his area
(10:45):
of responsibility, in his theater of responsibility, and the Navy
would also be there along that Arabian seafront. Now the
thing is in India, over the years, we have thirteen
different commands. The air force has five commands, the army
has five commands, the Navy has three commands. And it's
so funny that if, for instance, if you were to
(11:08):
prosecute at war against Pakistan on the western front, how
many commands are you going to talk about? You have
one naval command, you have four army commands, and you
have three air force commands, all fighting this different the
same front. So you would imagine the amount of bureaucracy
that's going to go on that you will have multiple
(11:29):
battles being fought all across the the line of control
and the international border. So here are the solution that
emerged after several years of debates and discussions after post
twenty nineteen was that we need to have just three
or maybe four theaters, and the theaters will be headed
by a theater commander. He could be from the Army,
(11:50):
the Navy, or from the air Force, one of the
three services, and you would have just from thirteen single
service commands strung all across the country come down to
just three commands, three or maybe four commands. One command
facing China that's the Northern Command, one command facing Pakistan
that's the Western Command, and one command facing the ocean
(12:12):
that is your Ocean Command, the Maritime Command. And one
would that would possibly be headed by the Navy, and
the theater commander would have under him tri service that arepresentative.
You would have an Air Force component commander, you would
have an Army component commander, you'd have Navy component commander.
So in that sense, you know the debate about what
will enable commander know about air operations or what will
(12:36):
we know about army operations advice, Yeah, you have you
have a component command with that exactly like how it
functions in the Andermin and Nicobar command, where you have
it's a very small command. I mean, firstly, it is
not it's compared to the kind of commands that we
are in charging the theater command. It's a tiny command,
but it's a very important first step because you see
(12:57):
there you have the sincan who he's the command, and
under him he has three component commanders from the Army,
the Navy, and the Air Force. So you have the
Naval component commander who has the frigates, the patrol craft,
the naval assets. Under you have the Air Force component
commander who has fighters when they come there. He has
the helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, drones, and then you have
(13:18):
the Army component commander. So this is a This was
actually meant to be the laboratory, the test bed for
implementing the theater commands, and the Navy was very far
sighted in that sense. About twenty five years back, when
this whole thinking, this thought process began, after the Cargill
Review Committee, Navy said, yeah, we give you one of
our commands. Let's start the process over here. So in fact,
(13:42):
the Navy has been strangely, at the forefront of theaterization,
all the arguments, all the staff work for theater commands
under first General Rabat and then his successor General and
Chahan have been done by the Navy. A lot of
the planning has been done by So that's how we
see it in the Indian context. But this whole process
(14:04):
was to have happened two years back. I was there
in the College Army War College when the Air Force
chief said that, and my heart sank when he said it.
I said, oh my god, we're back to square one
a square. It's like I thought this debate was settled.
It possibly was until of Sindur. But I think what
(14:25):
has happened after Operations Sindur is that the Air Force
now believes that this is their moment, that you for
the first time have a political leadership that understands coercive
offensive air power. And they said, we cannot lose this momentum.
If we lose this momentum, we might get subsumed into
these theater commands and the Air Force will not be
(14:48):
what we are capable of, which is this fantastic arrow
space power that can strike across the globe, across India's
you know, my frontiers areas of influence and all that.
So that is where this entire debate is coming from.
And of course a Chief Marshall Apcing, I must tell
you they've is a man who speaks his mind. And
(15:10):
we've seen that. We've seen that, we've seen all of
this year twenty twenty five starting from January. There's never
a dull moment when the Air Chief is around. He
always speaks his mind and it's a good thing. We
do need service chiefs to speak up their mind, give
good professional advice to the government. And I'm sure he
has his reasons for what he's spoken out, what he's
(15:31):
very clearly articulated, But it is of course for the
government to take a columns. The ball is in the
Prime Minister's court.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But I do want to understand what at the very
core is the Air Force's issue with this, with this
idea and the concept. And to your point, yes, the
Air Chief is, you know, a person who speaks his mind.
But it's not as though these comments have not been
made before internally, because that's where reporters that you have
drawn your importing from to be able to tell us
that the airport is not really on board. And that's
(16:01):
something that we we've heard ever since this this topic
was browsing. The first first aspect though, what was seen
was that General Bipin Rabat was aggressive in that regard
and there was this there was this feeling that he
would be able to push it through. Yeah, he would
be able to get people on board. But to be
(16:22):
able to get people on board, you have to push
certain things to yes. But I'm guessing it didn't help
when he in a very famous interview to God Defend
Today UH said that the Air Force is just a
support arm of the Indian military. So comments like that
and guessing is what pissed the Air Force off a
bid And I think that's where the core objection comes from.
(16:44):
But apart from that, the larger core objection of the
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
But you know, yeah, I mean the Chief of Different Staff,
the late Gen Rabat, has made these comments. I mean
I've been previous in fact, one of the first discussions
with him UH after he becomes CDs, because he said, oh, well,
the Air Force is a support arm and they're all
meant to support the army. And see, you know, I
see that where he comes from because and This is
(17:08):
the tragedy that the Air Force is always considered itself
outside the pale of the other armed forces. And we've
all been fighting, like I said, like the Japanese, we've
been fighting. The Navy's fighting its own war, the army
has been fighting its own war. Uh, the air force
fights its own war. But the integrated war fighting is
what we need to look at now. And I think
(17:29):
uh General Robert's comments might have, you know, triggered off
some concerns, some anxiety amongst the Air Force brass where
they the Air force is paranoid about being subsumed by
the Indian Army. He said, Look, we don't want to
do the army's tactical war fighting, you know, we don't
(17:49):
want to be destroying one bunker or one small target
or destroying a bridge. We have to do the largest
strategic planning. We have to do the strategic war fighting,
which is to hit the mean his reserves prevent him
from mobilizing. And we saw that in operations Indur. In
less than thirty minutes, you paralyze the Pakistan Air Force,
You destroyed his air defense network, his air defense cover.
(18:11):
And that's the reason that they went to the United
States and said, listen, make these GUIDs stop, because that
those blows that were struck were very, very swift, they
were very resolute, and their impact was devastating. So that
is how the air force and the airpower and all
that function. But having said that, the air force has
(18:31):
some very key arguments against air power. And if you
read what the air chiefs have been saying, what they've
been writing, senior Air Force brass have been talking about,
they say that, look, we anyway just have less than
thirty squadrons, thirty fighter squads. If you put us in
penny packets among all the different theater commands, you divide
us among all these theater commands, we're going to have
(18:53):
very little to fight with. And their concept is air
power is indivisible. You cannot it's one country, it's one
air force, it's one aerospace. So you know, that's the
kind of approach that they've been looking at. But you know,
critics of that will argue that why have five different commands?
(19:14):
Then why have five different Air force comans? So now
here's why I worry now is that the compromise formula
they might work out is a single aerospace command. You know,
let the Army have one command, that the Navy have
one command, and the Air Force have one command. So
you divide what you have right now, so you're coming
down to that, and the only reform would really be
(19:36):
that it will be theater commanders in charge of each
of these theaters. The Army will look at the Northern
Command and possibly the Western Command, the Air Force could
look at the Aerospace come and the Navy of course
as the maritime theater command. But you know, this defeats
the purpose of an integrated approach. You know, where you're
(19:57):
looking at the theater commander who fights, he needs to
have all the resources at his command and he doesn't
have to dial someone for you know, whatever he needs,
you know, And I think this argument also their force
is making that you're going to divide it into penny
packets and they're not going to another country, right, They're
all within your country, and those resources will be at
(20:18):
the level of the Chief of Defense Staff where it
will be decided here in Delhi as well, that look,
this is the way we're going to fight this war,
and this is how we're going to prosecute it, even
if it's a two front war. The first day of
the thing you obviously can't fight simultaneously. Can hold one
front and you know, move in on another front, and
those plans exist for how they will fight a two
(20:40):
front war. But all of this will be done in Delhi.
It is not that you will have the scenario of
one theater commander saying, no, I refuse to part with
any of my assets and you know, I'm not going
to give you any squadrons or something like that. It's
not going to become like a two too, mamma, as
is being widely feared. But you know, the foss point
is this, and they've repeated articulated this that they're opposed
(21:02):
to theaterization. They don't want their squadrons to be integrated
into these various penny packets. And I was reading one
of the force retired officers who wrote recently, it's like
breaking a sword into three parts. You can't have, you know,
three parts of a sword. You need to have one part.
So that, in a sense is what the Air Force's
(21:23):
arguments against theater commands are. But you know, we've been
through all of this day. I mean it's been six
years now. We've debated, we've discussed, there have been committees.
In fact, interestingly, one of the air chiefs recommendations was
that we need to have a committee thro side, you know.
So that's the great Indian you know, committee trick. Yeah,
(21:48):
to make sure that something always gets you know, pushed,
the can get skicked further down the road. But we've
been through all of this, it's been twenty five years.
In fact, in another couple of months is going to
be two twenty five years since we first heard theater
commands and the Chief of Defense Staff way back in
two thousand and one. The group of ministers that went
(22:09):
into the Cargo Review Committee, they recommended all of this, right,
So every time you keep coming back to square one,
you go down a certain path, you implement Phase one
of the reforms, the Chief of Defense Staff. That was
one of the most, not one of the most, it
is the most significant reform of the Indian military since
nineteen forty seven. The Chief of Defense Staff, the Department
(22:32):
of Military Affairs, the chief of Staff, he wears three hats. Basically,
he's the secretary, he's the advisor, and he's also the
chairman Chief of Staff's committee. So that is the most
significant military reform. Phase two is what we are talking about,
which is theaters. And I have a sense that the
Prime Minister could announce that when he has that Triple
(22:54):
C the Combined Commander's Conference in Kolkata in a few
weeks from now, and if he doesn't say it now,
my fear is that the momentum that you've built up
post of Sindur, they've that kind of is going to
get frittered away. There could be arguments against that to
say that, listen, we can't reform under fire. We have
(23:17):
an ongoing military operation that is Sindur. Therefore we need
to hold the reforms like this because if you go
into theaters right now, then you know, we risk distracting
the Indian military. All of those arguments will be needed
against that. But finally, like all other countries of the world,
they've that. I mean, you you can argue that we
can't import Western concepts, you can't import Western you know,
(23:41):
theaters into the Indian context. But in every single country
in the world, it has always been the political executive
that said, go do theaters, make them happen. They have
over ridden all their military's objections because military is hate
change everyone. Right. Yeah, here in India today, I was
(24:04):
here when all those furist debates took place about integrating print,
digital and television into one media plex, and those debates
were settled theater, one theater, a single theater where those
debates were settled more than thirteen years back, when India
today shifted here to Noida and media plex. And who
can argue today that this should have been the way
(24:27):
it was in the past, where every organization was on
its own. You had print on its own, digital on
its own, and television on its own. So I mean
that is of course a very very small aspect of this.
Theaters are doing much much bigger stuff. They're defending national borders,
they're protecting India and its people. But the point is
(24:47):
that people hate change and dam forces are no different
from this. At the end of the day, it's all
about tough, it's about forces, it's about protecting the unique character,
it's about protecting billets. Forget that when theaters come, a
whole of a lot of very senior appointments are going
to collapse and disappear. And who would want to be
(25:10):
known as a particular service chief in whose tenure this happened.
This was the particular chief who allowed this to happen,
and therefore this particular service lost a lot of billets,
It lost you know, appointments and all of that. So
I think there's a lot playing on in the mind
of the service chiefs. But like I said, it is
(25:32):
going to be a political call. It was Ronald Reagan
who flagged off the Goldwater Nichols reforms. When the reports
were came in, the armed forces refused to get it,
you know, implemented. They said, we can't allow this to happen.
A whole lot of service chiefs were sacked, and finally
the theater has happened, and the United States, of course,
is where it is today because of that. This is
(25:54):
not to say that we should copycat what the US did,
because what the US does with theaters is very, very
different from what we and research. We're looking at theaters
on our own soil, right, looking at our own interests,
our own borders, facing our immediate geographical neighbors. We're not
planning to fight in South America or in Antarctica, or
capture Greenland or something like that. Right, we are geographically
(26:17):
contiguous within our borders. We are trying to get our
armed forces give the best bang for the buck for
India's defense and security.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, I mean, I mean I quite get the idea
because I think this is something that would resonate with
many of our listeners. Of you, is that within a company,
when you have all the teams reporting that single boss,
they kind of come together, right, And when you have
to work with the teams who are reporting to a
different boss, even though your end goal is the same,
(26:46):
even your overall company's KR is the same.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
There will be friction.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yes, they will be debates, and they will be like,
at the end of the day, boss, I don't report
to you or your boss. I will go to my
boss and ask him.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
But we pull in resources. Yes, we do that exactly.
So that's what the concept also is that and you know,
I think the downstream effects of theaters is going to
be tremendous because what you have when you're fighting as
a single service is that you will start making requirements,
projecting requirements that will be aligned to your services way
(27:18):
of war fighting. Yes, so if you ask the Air
Force what do you need, he's going to say, I
need forty two s coadns of forty five scadns. I
can't fight without forty five squadrons. If you ask the Navy,
he'll say I need three aircraft carriers. The Army he'll
say I need five thousand tanks, or you know, I
need five offensive strike course. But when you integrate all
(27:38):
of these into one, you realize that And this came
to me from General Rabert himself. He said, you know,
I never knew that a Sukhoi thirty could carry like
more than five tons of ordnance. That's a lot of
combat power. And he says, I discovered that very late
in life. Wow, you know, And for him to make
that honest admission is a problem for our system as well,
(28:00):
that we've probably not trained our commanders enough to look
at the fighting potential of other services. When you integrate
all of this, you can possibly see that you possibly
met not need forty or fifty fighters cordons. At the
end of the day, it is all about ordnance on target, right.
It doesn't matter if that ordinance comes from an aircraft,
(28:21):
it comes from a warship, or it comes from a
ground based launcher or a horse cart. Even as long
as it's ordnance on target, the enemy can't do anything
about it. He's overwhelmed. It doesn't matter how it's delivered.
That's one aspect of looking at it, of course. So
these kind of solutions will now come in when you
(28:42):
integrate the assets together, and then the force commander realizes
that these are the fights, these are the forces that
I have at my command. This is how I can,
you know, swing the battle. It's all about war fighting, really,
I mean, I hope it never comes down to that.
The fact that India fighting endless wars like several other
(29:03):
countries in the world. The aim is to create a
military like this that will deter conflict, that will force
the Pakistanis or maybe the Chinese to think twice before
saying that, listen, there's going to be a quick victory.
We can move in over here or in that sector.
It's going to take India several days to react. Whereas
if there's a theater commander over there and he has
(29:26):
his orders and he immediately strikes without waiting two weeks,
three weeks or something, that it's the minute he gets
the signal, he goes in and strikes. That's it.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah. And also I'm guessing that is what you just
said right now about of the answer to my long
standing question of why does the Army and the Air
Force both have a set of attack helicopters. Why can't
they be just under one single service and then be
used accordingly? Right, we'll talk more about this, but a
quick break.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
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(30:21):
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Speaker 3 (30:42):
So, you know, Dave, that point you've made about attack
captors before the break was spot on because you're looking
at you know, when a service believes that he cannot
get the other services to pitch in or pull in
when there are no theaters coming, then everyone tries to
create his own parallel structures. So you will have the
(31:04):
Army looking for attack helicopters, You'll have the Air Force
looking for special forces at commandos. You'll have maybe looking
for creating an army and an air force. So you know,
that's how a lot of duplication takes place, and all
of this would be obviated when they come together. They
plan together, they train together, they put up requirements for resources.
(31:28):
They think jointly. I think jointmanship is the keyword over here,
and when the services sit together, they will come up
with joint solutions.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
A tiny tangent overa here because it may be a
question that people within the forces, of people sitting in
senior positions may think it's a bit stupid, but I
still wonder that do you think of a factor in
this debate also is the structure of our military, which
is very loyalistic. In fact, you have loyalties dating to
(32:00):
the squadron they were part of in the NBA, in
the I m A, in the I n A, in
the Air Force Academy. You have you have instance of
seeing office is still recalling, Oh he's from that spotron
of the NBA, so he's my arriving. So my question,
the progression where I'm going towards is that is there
a worry also that when you have a theater commander
from the army, When you have a theater commander from
(32:21):
the Navy, the that the Air Force person under him
or her would be like, you get to ultimately to
side layer, Yeah, do you think that is also there?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Th Yeah, that that is there. And and it's a
very very valid worry they because you're looking at something
the after effects of something like almost nearly eighty years
of this single service approach, which you know, some former
chiefs have called tribalism. They have a point there, it's
almost tribal this kind of thing. It's it's extremely good though.
(32:53):
I must tell you that when militaries fight in the
in the field, for instance, the army fights, they're fighting
for the honor of the battalions. That's a very very
powerful motivating cry because when he goes into battle, he
has to, you know, perform to an extent that no
one in his battalion should ever have to question him
or anything. So he's fighting not just for the country,
(33:15):
but for the e earth of his battalion as well.
So that's a very powerful motivating factor. But all of
this you should shed once you're above the rank of
a colonel, once you start getting on your first star
and your second start as you go up the hierarchy,
you should shed some of these inhibitions. Then you should
start looking at the bigger picture. And I think that
(33:35):
is going to be a very crucial aspect of the theaterization,
where you need to create a carter of officers who
think jointly, who train jointly, who plan jointly. And that's
going to be the big challenge. And this is not
going to happen overnight. Now. It's taken us twenty five
years to come to where we are today. In twenty
twenty five, right, my hair is gone white report this story.
(34:01):
It'll probably vanish. At the rate at which we are going,
I'll lose all my hair by the time we see
those theater commands. But you know, the thing is that
it is going to be a big challenge for planning.
Training joined me precisely the reasons you've mentioned that from
the beginning, you've been regimented in a certain way to
(34:22):
think of, you know, your squad and your unit, your battalion,
your regiment. It's very intense in the Army and of
course in the Air Force as well. It's not as
much in the Navy, uh, you know, but these are
some of those big practical hurdles, and it's again, it's
not very unique to India or the Indian Armed Forces.
It's been the thing globally. Uh. They've been intense battles
(34:47):
in the United States also between the you know, various services.
I mean, I've met US Air Force officers very rile
by the fact that, you know, US naval aviators are
the toast of the world because of two movies, right,
Officer and a Gentleman and top Guns, and so they
haven't recovered from that. And within the US Navy as well,
(35:09):
you have the Marine Corps, right, which is part of
the United States Navy, which fights jointly with the Navy,
but is a separate service, and there's a lot of
rivalry there as well. So these kind of things, it's
all human nature, are they But finally it is for
the person at the top to take the ultimate call
that do we need it in the national interest? Does
(35:31):
it serve India's national interest? And it does. Every study
has shown you that that this is the need of
the r and if there is that. I was talking
to a former two star friends and he said, you know,
the sad part of this is that theaterization all these concepts,
(35:52):
they don't win you votes. They are not election issue.
Why would the politician stick his neck out and you
know call for a theater or announced theaterization if it
doesn't winin votes, I said, but then you have to
spin it in such a way that it translates into
national security objectives. It meets national security aims. The fact
(36:14):
that you've created a far more efficient Indian military force
than what previously existed is something that should be made,
you know, a key priority for our politicians and they
should understand that. Look, this is not something that you
know that like they say, war is too serious to
be left to the generals. Certainly not. And it's issues
(36:37):
like this that we should debate more in India. Given
you know how important the armed forces are for us
and the kind of threats that we face along the
northern and the western borders. This needs to become a
political discussion point and it should translate into some kind
of you know, political achievements for the government. Whoever you know,
(37:00):
implements this. And there are plenty of committees. It has
bipartisan support across governments if you look at it. It's
only the nature of the appointments that made you know, vary.
The UPA had one set of you know, thought process,
which said that they wanted a permanent chairman chief of Stuff.
They didn't want a Chief of Defense Staff. The NBA
(37:21):
says that, look, we need a CBS, but I think
on the issue of theater commands, I think both governments
would agree, and there is bipartisan political support for this.
So it needs to become a part of our political debates.
The opposition also needs to have a say in on this,
and you know, finally we need to get the military
that we you know, so badly need. Yeah. So a
(37:45):
couple of final points.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
One is that if you look at it, if you
like you said, you've reported on this for a long time.
So if you look at it, do you think there's
actually any more space for debate left? Because you know,
you're talking about committees. I mean I would call it
the dance of the committees. So after the Cargile War,
you have a Cargo Review Committee. The report of this
(38:08):
review committee was reviewed by a group of ministers in
two thousand and one and then they give out a
report which was then you had the Narration Tantra Committee
in twenty eleven to see if this particular group of
miniatures report was implemented and if not, then what could
be done to of committees? Yes, and in twenty sixteen
you had the Shikaga Committee, not exactly in this line
(38:30):
of committees, but it was also around this topic of
joint jointness and some other minor things. So you've had
all these committees. They must have had had their debates.
So do you think there is any space left for
a debate or do you think the debate is just
happening because that call is not being taken? For example,
are we now still debating with the media CDs was
(38:51):
the CSC We are not because that call was taken.
India will have a steadence apparently. I think it was
your reporting. Even the services were taken by Price that.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
He bent out in his speech.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
They knew it was coming, but they weren't expecting him
to annown make that announcement from the independence from the It.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Was it was only going to be a permanent chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee, which everyone had anticipated, including us,
and I think we were taken by complete surprise in
twenty nineteen when he announced the Chief of Defense Staff
and when the you know, the appointee. The appointment was
made and General Robert took over. You know, I remember
(39:29):
looking at him and his uniform and he said, what
are you looking at? So I said, you know, I
never believe that I would ever see a Chief of
Defense Staff in my lifetime. So you know, it could
took everyone by surprise. And you know that was the
heartening thing for me because here you had the entire
system saying, yes, we need the Chief of Defense Staff.
(39:50):
So many committees have recommended it. But let's go for
a you know, permanent chairman of the Chief of STUF,
which is one run lower card. Well, consensus, let's go
for the consensus. Okay, let's not take any harsh decisions.
You know, a few people might feel hurt and stuff
like that. So I think the government of the day
(40:10):
in twenty nineteen Prime Minister More they made that call.
They announced the CDs, but we've stopped short of announcing
the second phase of reforms, the most crucial aspect, which
is going to be creating the theater commands. And that
is entirely the present Chief anil Chahan's responsibility. And he's
maneuvered it. I mean, he's temperamentally very different from General Ravat.
(40:34):
You know, Joern Rabath was very aggressive, and you know,
he was a bit like a you know, more bullish
on a lot of issues. And you know, in all
my interactions with him, he used to tell me, look,
I'm only implementing what every single committee has recommended. I
have a cupboard full of committee reports. I'm just pulling
out committee reports. Okay, said they've already recommended this, Let's
(40:56):
do it. He says, I'm a doer. Jen Johan is
a nice person. He's uh, he believes in consensus. He
has a different work style. I mean equally effective, but
a very different work style. He believes in taking people
on board. And we'll have to see. Now he's got
literally this year and next year to you know, implement
(41:17):
the theaters and that's going to be a very very
key reform. And he's in charge. He's the man of
the moment. So it's actually two people now, it's the
Prime Minister, it's the Defense Minister Rajnat Singh, and of
course it's the Chief of Defense Staff than Johan.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, right, right, last point then, and going back to
the air chiefs comments from that two day confidence is
one argument that he made that to a lay person
like me, felt trittle logical. He said, Look at Absindur,
everything was hunky dory, everything was rosy Pamil Pakistan. Uh
(41:54):
so great, So why do you need theater tradition when
we have this close coordinating And that is what he's
pitching for, his pitch for Alli level, national level close
coordination center that would have all these three services coming right.
So it seems like a valid counter Sandep.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
What if Sindura had ended differently? Okay, that's my counter
to that. I mean, how do we know it was
entirely unpredictable what happened on the ninth for instance, I'm
sure the fact that you had a political leadership that
was mature enough to work out an escalation ladder, that
was not deterred by Pakistan's drone attacks on Indian civilians
(42:35):
and cities, that very calmly worked out an escalation ladder,
and then slowly started climbing up that escalation ladder to
a point when they authorized air strikes against Chaklaala and Sargodha.
Now these are two targets. Again, I never thought I
would see them being struck in my lifetime. I've spoken
to a lot of my friends in the Air Force
and across the services. They said, Look, we had been
(42:57):
rehearsing these scenarios for decades. We never ever thought that
time would come when someone would authorize the strike on
these targets. But it did happen. What if Obsindur had
gone differently, would the air force then change its appreciation?
Would you want for a wake up call, a very
(43:18):
very rude shock like sixty two, nineteen sixty two, when
I would argue the most significant Indian defense reforms took
place that was in the heat of a defeat, a
very bad, embarrassing body defeat in the war with China,
which then spurred off a whole set of reforms. And
we saw how the Indian services performed just nine years
later against Pakistan. The fact is that Obsindur worked out
(43:43):
well despite all the narratives and the spins that are
being given to it by Pakistan and then of course
our new best friend China. You know what if it
had worked out differently, would you then only reform if
you were shocked? Cargill Also, I mean nothing to cover
ourselves with glory. I mean we missed the intrusions for
(44:04):
whatever reasons. We missed the Northern Light Infantry sneaking across
the line of control, occupying our posts. We didn't appreciate
the size and scale of the intrusions. And then finally
when they were detected, it was you know, the three
services saying, oh, should we employee a power? And then
finally the political thing it was very slow. My sense
(44:27):
is that wars of the twenty first century we've seen
that eighty eight hours. Ops indoor unfolded in eighty eight hours.
Do we have the luxury today of having three separate,
five disparate commands or six commands and then you know,
asking everyone to build up a consensus, going to a
committee and saying this is what we need to do
(44:47):
and all that. Or do you want a force commander
who's there, who's got all the assets under him, and
he's the single point of you know, authorizing the kinetic
strikes or launching the kinetic strikes. You're actually looking at
a meaner, meaner military that will strike in hours and
not in days. So this is the scenario that you're
looking at, and this very changed ops indoor conflict scenario
(45:12):
where again eight eight hours, that's how long the entire
conflict lasted.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, right, I think we ended there and I think
like you were talking about while, like you said before
we began recording, that ultimately this is going to be
a political decision, just like the appointment with the CDs was.
To take my point forward. It was a raging debate
until the appointment was made. Yeah, after that, everybody has
sort of fallen in line, has accepted that CDs is
(45:39):
the new normal, and everyone's very happy about it as well,
so you don't see any complaints anymore. So perhaps it's
about ironing all those final wrinkles and just taking that
plunge that may or may not happen very soon. So
we'll keep tracking and we'll discuss when we know all
on this topic. Thanks and the day Chat has always
has always did, and thanks to our listeners and viewers.
(46:01):
That's it for this week's Defense Stores For more, tune
in next week. Till then, stay safe and not pross
any boundaries with the classport
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in Our Defense. Hello,
and welcome to Another Defense. Theaterization that's been the buzzword
in the Indian military ever since PM mosse announcement in
twenty nineteen that the Indian government would be setting up
(00:47):
the post the Chief of Defense Staff. That post went
to General Bipin Rabat, who was the first one to
be an office in that post, and ever since then,
there's been a lot lot of debate and chatter over
this concept and idea of theaterization and why the Indian
military was going towards that. There was a lot of
movement on that when General bipinabad was in office, but
(01:09):
he unfortunately died around two years after he took uh.
We took charge of that office and ever since then
that project has been sort of limbo essentially. This week
rather last week, debate on this topic was broached again
by the Air Force Chief Chief Marshall ap Singh when
he was addressing a seminar at the Ran Sambad, a
(01:32):
two day military conference that was held recently in India,
where in a rare instance of an Air Force officer
in public coming out against this idea, he basically said that,
you know, that is not something that was for us.
It's not something that we should import from the West
or from China, but you know, we should have our
own processes and stuff like that. His the basic idea
(01:53):
of his talk was that the Air Force was not
happy with the idea of theaterization. That's not such something new.
By the way, It's been known widely thanks to a
lot a lot of reporting. But this was I think
a rare instance where the FOS came out in public
about this. But what is this concept of theaterization? Why
do we even need it in the first place? Do
we need in the first place? To break this down?
(02:14):
I have with me Sunday to be back there.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What have you? Uh?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
You know, actually on this topic, I don't know who
better than have to do better than you, because back
in twenty nineteen December, I remember the date correctly, thirtieth December,
people in military circles were just waiting, waiting, waiting to
know who the CDs would be because this back then,
the retirement of General Raba, who was then the army chief,
(02:41):
was fast approaching. And at ten pm that night you
brought a tweet with the can of beer that said
Bira and a day later it was b Ra cool charge.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
H Yes, it's good you remember that. I mean I
had forgotten that.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
No, I remember because you know, we all of us
were closed following that, because announcement had been made a
few months earlier, and there was a lot of speculation
of who would be the first first CS and the
the yle was that if he retired, then perhaps somebody
else would take charge, and there's a lot of speculation basically.
So it was watching that with you know, very hawks eye,
(03:18):
and then that that week came of yours and it turned.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
To be true.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
So yeah, suddenly, before we get to the air chiefs comments,
before we get to the debate, and the interesting parallel
that you do right before we began recording this that
you know we're still talking about this topic. Uh, a
day after China held its eightieth Victory Day parade, where
it you know, where it's displayed some of the most
(03:42):
high tech weaponry.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Though we don't know if it's partly tested. But still
the comparison.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Is that it was an awesome show. I have to admit.
I mean, I'm no big fan of the Chinese or
Shi Jinping or Mao, but I have to say that
that parade was the most impressive military parade I have
ever seen. Possibly. I mean, if you look at historical parallels,
it would be the great parade that the Soviet Union
put up on the Red Square after winning the Second
(04:08):
World War. That would be the most spectacular parade of
all time, where you have Generals Zukov and Constantine Rokostovsky
on horseback inspecting the parade. They were cavalry offices. Of course,
the greatness of that parade, but this parade, Hi Jinping's parade,
in terms of sheer optics, I mean, this boggles the mind.
(04:30):
The fact that you're able to put on a parade
of this size, this scale, this scope. There were so
many messages rolled in that you know, and yes we're
talking about theaters six years after the Chief of Defense
Staff was announced, and of course he set out with
this task for the first two years. We still get
(04:52):
to see phase two of those reforms that were rolled
out in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
But for our listeners and viewers to be better able
to understan and this topic, I think it's best if
you first accept explains I'm sorry, the concept of theaters,
because it's it's a word that comes naturally to people
who cover this domain, people like you, people like me
who read a lot about this domain, the world of military,
in the world of national security and stuff like that.
(05:17):
What at the very basic level is a theater? The
concept of theaterzation, why do you even need it? And
you know, I think perhaps it goes back to World
War Two, where you had countries fighting in far off places,
far far away from where you actually are, and I
think people don't sort of understand the sheer vastness of
(05:37):
World War Two, where you basically had in the Russia
had several different armies. It wasn't one single army, several
different armies. That's the that's the amount of fighting that
Russia is.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A big country, I mean across eleven time zones.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So you know, if you for me, World War two,
I mean, if you were to look at it in
cinematic terms, it's saving private Private Ryan, the first visuals
the Norman Land. Yes, you had a ton of people
landing on the beaches on naval a sorry, warships with
air support. That's the theater, I'm guessing. So, but break
(06:10):
it down for us and what is theatization and why
do we talk about it?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, good points. And the fact is that you know,
theaters are of course the theater of war and it
has to do with warfare, war fighting. It's not about
you know, it's not about parades, certainly, it's not about
training or planning or acquisitions. This is about the sharp
end of the sword, that is the war fighting, which
is what militaries essentially are for. They are for warfare.
(06:39):
They're for war fighting therefore deterring conflict, there for protecting borders.
All of that comes down to theaters. And that is
where theaters are so important. And as you mentioned, they
became very important during the Second World War where you
had multiple theaters simultaneously playing out across the world, which
is why it was called the Second World War. You
had the Axis powers you had Italy, Germany, Japan versus
(07:02):
the allies who were Japan, Great Britain, the United States,
the USSR, several other countries, France, and this was a
war that was brought across multiple theaters simultaneously. You had
warfare raging in North Africa, then that moved to Europe,
and then of course it was raging in Asia as
well with the Empire of Japan. So it was a
(07:24):
simultaneous conflict spanning the globe six years, and that is
where really the concept of modern theaters emerged. What happened
after the Second World War is that militaries continued in
that fashion of standalone entities. You had primarily the three
armed forces. You had the army, the Navy, and the
air force. In this case of the you know, in
(07:46):
the army, it was the army, and you had the
Army Air Forces as well, like you had in the
United States. Japan had only the Army Air Forces of
course more recent in origin. That's the reason they were
part of the army in the twentieth century. But then
the realization grew that you need to have joint warfighting
structures that would integrate all the assets of various organizations
(08:09):
the army, the navy, and the air force and basically
fight together, plan and fight together. So it's actually at
the combat edge of conflict that theaters are they become
so important and countries that did not do this discovered
this to their peril, like the Japanese, for instance. You
had a very powerful Japanese imperial Japanese army, you're a
(08:32):
very powerful imperial Japanese navy. But they fought two different
conflicts in the same war. So the army had its
own strategy, the navy had its own strategy. And because
they didn't combine forces, they didn't think together, they didn't
plan together, they didn't train together, and they didn't fight together.
You saw their combat power being frittered away. And the
classic case is the Battle of Midway. They broke up
(08:55):
their forces. The navy was doing its own thing, the
army was doing its own thing. The name he said,
I will fight the ultimate battle at sea. I will
destroy the US Navy. The army said, I will do
the ultimate land invasion and all that. Whether they should,
you know, they could have actually combined their forces. I'm
not saying that would have won the war for Japan.
It would certainly have won that battle for them. It
would have because they had the advantage when the battle began,
(09:18):
the Battle of Midway, and when the battle ended. It
was the most catastrophic naval defeat, possibly since the Battle
of Sushima, where the entire Japanese carrier battle group was destroyed.
Four carriers were sunk in a span of a few hours. Right.
So from there a lot of the thinking emerged that, look,
we need to put our forces together. We need to
combine our forces so that we present a joint front
(09:40):
towards the enemy, and a particular theater of combat. Would
have the Army, it would have the Navy, to have
the air force all fighting as one. And now we
come to the Indian story, which is that we've always
spot separately from nineteen forty seven onwards. But during Kargill,
that was the turning point where they discovered that the
(10:00):
three forces were not on the same page. The Army
detected the intrusions, it started tackling the intruders on the
heights of Cargallen. It was the air force that entered
the conflict much later, a few weeks after the Army
had begun fighting. That went up to the politicians, and
then they had to finally ask the air force to
enter the conflict. The navy also entered much later, so
(10:25):
it was like a slow moving process of one force
coming in, then a second force, and then a third force,
and then towards the end you have something of a
united front. So the thinking at that time was that
could we not have fought this together? You have an
integrated theater over there. The theater commander then becomes responsible
for all the land and air forces in his area
(10:45):
of responsibility, in his theater of responsibility, and the Navy
would also be there along that Arabian seafront. Now the
thing is in India, over the years, we have thirteen
different commands. The air force has five commands, the army
has five commands, the Navy has three commands. And it's
so funny that if, for instance, if you were to
(11:08):
prosecute at war against Pakistan on the western front, how
many commands are you going to talk about? You have
one naval command, you have four army commands, and you
have three air force commands, all fighting this different the
same front. So you would imagine the amount of bureaucracy
that's going to go on that you will have multiple
(11:29):
battles being fought all across the the line of control
and the international border. So here are the solution that
emerged after several years of debates and discussions after post
twenty nineteen was that we need to have just three
or maybe four theaters, and the theaters will be headed
by a theater commander. He could be from the Army,
(11:50):
the Navy, or from the air Force, one of the
three services, and you would have just from thirteen single
service commands strung all across the country come down to
just three commands, three or maybe four commands. One command
facing China that's the Northern Command, one command facing Pakistan
that's the Western Command, and one command facing the ocean
(12:12):
that is your Ocean Command, the Maritime Command. And one
would that would possibly be headed by the Navy, and
the theater commander would have under him tri service that arepresentative.
You would have an Air Force component commander, you would
have an Army component commander, you'd have Navy component commander.
So in that sense, you know the debate about what
will enable commander know about air operations or what will
(12:36):
we know about army operations advice, Yeah, you have you
have a component command with that exactly like how it
functions in the Andermin and Nicobar command, where you have
it's a very small command. I mean, firstly, it is
not it's compared to the kind of commands that we
are in charging the theater command. It's a tiny command,
but it's a very important first step because you see
(12:57):
there you have the sincan who he's the command, and
under him he has three component commanders from the Army,
the Navy, and the Air Force. So you have the
Naval component commander who has the frigates, the patrol craft,
the naval assets. Under you have the Air Force component
commander who has fighters when they come there. He has
the helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, drones, and then you have
(13:18):
the Army component commander. So this is a This was
actually meant to be the laboratory, the test bed for
implementing the theater commands, and the Navy was very far
sighted in that sense. About twenty five years back, when
this whole thinking, this thought process began, after the Cargill
Review Committee, Navy said, yeah, we give you one of
our commands. Let's start the process over here. So in fact,
(13:42):
the Navy has been strangely, at the forefront of theaterization,
all the arguments, all the staff work for theater commands
under first General Rabat and then his successor General and
Chahan have been done by the Navy. A lot of
the planning has been done by So that's how we
see it in the Indian context. But this whole process
(14:04):
was to have happened two years back. I was there
in the College Army War College when the Air Force
chief said that, and my heart sank when he said it.
I said, oh my god, we're back to square one
a square. It's like I thought this debate was settled.
It possibly was until of Sindur. But I think what
(14:25):
has happened after Operations Sindur is that the Air Force
now believes that this is their moment, that you for
the first time have a political leadership that understands coercive
offensive air power. And they said, we cannot lose this momentum.
If we lose this momentum, we might get subsumed into
these theater commands and the Air Force will not be
(14:48):
what we are capable of, which is this fantastic arrow
space power that can strike across the globe, across India's
you know, my frontiers areas of influence and all that.
So that is where this entire debate is coming from.
And of course a Chief Marshall Apcing, I must tell
you they've is a man who speaks his mind. And
(15:10):
we've seen that. We've seen that, we've seen all of
this year twenty twenty five starting from January. There's never
a dull moment when the Air Chief is around. He
always speaks his mind and it's a good thing. We
do need service chiefs to speak up their mind, give
good professional advice to the government. And I'm sure he
has his reasons for what he's spoken out, what he's
(15:31):
very clearly articulated, But it is of course for the
government to take a columns. The ball is in the
Prime Minister's court.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But I do want to understand what at the very
core is the Air Force's issue with this, with this
idea and the concept. And to your point, yes, the
Air Chief is, you know, a person who speaks his mind.
But it's not as though these comments have not been
made before internally, because that's where reporters that you have
drawn your importing from to be able to tell us
that the airport is not really on board. And that's
(16:01):
something that we we've heard ever since this this topic
was browsing. The first first aspect though, what was seen
was that General Bipin Rabat was aggressive in that regard
and there was this there was this feeling that he
would be able to push it through. Yeah, he would
be able to get people on board. But to be
(16:22):
able to get people on board, you have to push
certain things to yes. But I'm guessing it didn't help
when he in a very famous interview to God Defend
Today UH said that the Air Force is just a
support arm of the Indian military. So comments like that
and guessing is what pissed the Air Force off a
bid And I think that's where the core objection comes from.
(16:44):
But apart from that, the larger core objection of the
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
But you know, yeah, I mean the Chief of Different Staff,
the late Gen Rabat, has made these comments. I mean
I've been previous in fact, one of the first discussions
with him UH after he becomes CDs, because he said, oh, well,
the Air Force is a support arm and they're all
meant to support the army. And see, you know, I
see that where he comes from because and This is
(17:08):
the tragedy that the Air Force is always considered itself
outside the pale of the other armed forces. And we've
all been fighting, like I said, like the Japanese, we've
been fighting. The Navy's fighting its own war, the army
has been fighting its own war. Uh, the air force
fights its own war. But the integrated war fighting is
what we need to look at now. And I think
(17:29):
uh General Robert's comments might have, you know, triggered off
some concerns, some anxiety amongst the Air Force brass where
they the Air force is paranoid about being subsumed by
the Indian Army. He said, Look, we don't want to
do the army's tactical war fighting, you know, we don't
(17:49):
want to be destroying one bunker or one small target
or destroying a bridge. We have to do the largest
strategic planning. We have to do the strategic war fighting,
which is to hit the mean his reserves prevent him
from mobilizing. And we saw that in operations Indur. In
less than thirty minutes, you paralyze the Pakistan Air Force,
You destroyed his air defense network, his air defense cover.
(18:11):
And that's the reason that they went to the United
States and said, listen, make these GUIDs stop, because that
those blows that were struck were very, very swift, they
were very resolute, and their impact was devastating. So that
is how the air force and the airpower and all
that function. But having said that, the air force has
(18:31):
some very key arguments against air power. And if you
read what the air chiefs have been saying, what they've
been writing, senior Air Force brass have been talking about,
they say that, look, we anyway just have less than
thirty squadrons, thirty fighter squads. If you put us in
penny packets among all the different theater commands, you divide
us among all these theater commands, we're going to have
(18:53):
very little to fight with. And their concept is air
power is indivisible. You cannot it's one country, it's one
air force, it's one aerospace. So you know, that's the
kind of approach that they've been looking at. But you know,
critics of that will argue that why have five different commands?
(19:14):
Then why have five different Air force comans? So now
here's why I worry now is that the compromise formula
they might work out is a single aerospace command. You know,
let the Army have one command, that the Navy have
one command, and the Air Force have one command. So
you divide what you have right now, so you're coming
down to that, and the only reform would really be
(19:36):
that it will be theater commanders in charge of each
of these theaters. The Army will look at the Northern
Command and possibly the Western Command, the Air Force could
look at the Aerospace come and the Navy of course
as the maritime theater command. But you know, this defeats
the purpose of an integrated approach. You know, where you're
(19:57):
looking at the theater commander who fights, he needs to
have all the resources at his command and he doesn't
have to dial someone for you know, whatever he needs,
you know, And I think this argument also their force
is making that you're going to divide it into penny
packets and they're not going to another country, right, They're
all within your country, and those resources will be at
(20:18):
the level of the Chief of Defense Staff where it
will be decided here in Delhi as well, that look,
this is the way we're going to fight this war,
and this is how we're going to prosecute it, even
if it's a two front war. The first day of
the thing you obviously can't fight simultaneously. Can hold one
front and you know, move in on another front, and
those plans exist for how they will fight a two
(20:40):
front war. But all of this will be done in Delhi.
It is not that you will have the scenario of
one theater commander saying, no, I refuse to part with
any of my assets and you know, I'm not going
to give you any squadrons or something like that. It's
not going to become like a two too, mamma, as
is being widely feared. But you know, the foss point
is this, and they've repeated articulated this that they're opposed
(21:02):
to theaterization. They don't want their squadrons to be integrated
into these various penny packets. And I was reading one
of the force retired officers who wrote recently, it's like
breaking a sword into three parts. You can't have, you know,
three parts of a sword. You need to have one part.
So that, in a sense is what the Air Force's
(21:23):
arguments against theater commands are. But you know, we've been
through all of this day. I mean it's been six
years now. We've debated, we've discussed, there have been committees.
In fact, interestingly, one of the air chiefs recommendations was
that we need to have a committee thro side, you know.
So that's the great Indian you know, committee trick. Yeah,
(21:48):
to make sure that something always gets you know, pushed,
the can get skicked further down the road. But we've
been through all of this, it's been twenty five years.
In fact, in another couple of months is going to
be two twenty five years since we first heard theater
commands and the Chief of Defense Staff way back in
two thousand and one. The group of ministers that went
(22:09):
into the Cargo Review Committee, they recommended all of this, right,
So every time you keep coming back to square one,
you go down a certain path, you implement Phase one
of the reforms, the Chief of Defense Staff. That was
one of the most, not one of the most, it
is the most significant reform of the Indian military since
nineteen forty seven. The Chief of Defense Staff, the Department
(22:32):
of Military Affairs, the chief of Staff, he wears three hats. Basically,
he's the secretary, he's the advisor, and he's also the
chairman Chief of Staff's committee. So that is the most
significant military reform. Phase two is what we are talking about,
which is theaters. And I have a sense that the
Prime Minister could announce that when he has that Triple
(22:54):
C the Combined Commander's Conference in Kolkata in a few
weeks from now, and if he doesn't say it now,
my fear is that the momentum that you've built up
post of Sindur, they've that kind of is going to
get frittered away. There could be arguments against that to
say that, listen, we can't reform under fire. We have
(23:17):
an ongoing military operation that is Sindur. Therefore we need
to hold the reforms like this because if you go
into theaters right now, then you know, we risk distracting
the Indian military. All of those arguments will be needed
against that. But finally, like all other countries of the world,
they've that. I mean, you you can argue that we
can't import Western concepts, you can't import Western you know,
(23:41):
theaters into the Indian context. But in every single country
in the world, it has always been the political executive
that said, go do theaters, make them happen. They have
over ridden all their military's objections because military is hate
change everyone. Right. Yeah, here in India today, I was
(24:04):
here when all those furist debates took place about integrating print,
digital and television into one media plex, and those debates
were settled theater, one theater, a single theater where those
debates were settled more than thirteen years back, when India
today shifted here to Noida and media plex. And who
can argue today that this should have been the way
(24:27):
it was in the past, where every organization was on
its own. You had print on its own, digital on
its own, and television on its own. So I mean
that is of course a very very small aspect of this.
Theaters are doing much much bigger stuff. They're defending national borders,
they're protecting India and its people. But the point is
(24:47):
that people hate change and dam forces are no different
from this. At the end of the day, it's all
about tough, it's about forces, it's about protecting the unique character,
it's about protecting billets. Forget that when theaters come, a
whole of a lot of very senior appointments are going
to collapse and disappear. And who would want to be
(25:10):
known as a particular service chief in whose tenure this happened.
This was the particular chief who allowed this to happen,
and therefore this particular service lost a lot of billets,
It lost you know, appointments and all of that. So
I think there's a lot playing on in the mind
of the service chiefs. But like I said, it is
(25:32):
going to be a political call. It was Ronald Reagan
who flagged off the Goldwater Nichols reforms. When the reports
were came in, the armed forces refused to get it,
you know, implemented. They said, we can't allow this to happen.
A whole lot of service chiefs were sacked, and finally
the theater has happened, and the United States, of course,
is where it is today because of that. This is
(25:54):
not to say that we should copycat what the US did,
because what the US does with theaters is very, very
different from what we and research. We're looking at theaters
on our own soil, right, looking at our own interests,
our own borders, facing our immediate geographical neighbors. We're not
planning to fight in South America or in Antarctica, or
capture Greenland or something like that. Right, we are geographically
(26:17):
contiguous within our borders. We are trying to get our
armed forces give the best bang for the buck for
India's defense and security.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, I mean, I mean I quite get the idea
because I think this is something that would resonate with
many of our listeners. Of you, is that within a company,
when you have all the teams reporting that single boss,
they kind of come together, right, And when you have
to work with the teams who are reporting to a
different boss, even though your end goal is the same,
(26:46):
even your overall company's KR is the same.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
There will be friction.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yes, they will be debates, and they will be like,
at the end of the day, boss, I don't report
to you or your boss. I will go to my
boss and ask him.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
But we pull in resources. Yes, we do that exactly.
So that's what the concept also is that and you know,
I think the downstream effects of theaters is going to
be tremendous because what you have when you're fighting as
a single service is that you will start making requirements,
projecting requirements that will be aligned to your services way
(27:18):
of war fighting. Yes, so if you ask the Air
Force what do you need, he's going to say, I
need forty two s coadns of forty five scadns. I
can't fight without forty five squadrons. If you ask the Navy,
he'll say I need three aircraft carriers. The Army he'll
say I need five thousand tanks, or you know, I
need five offensive strike course. But when you integrate all
(27:38):
of these into one, you realize that And this came
to me from General Rabert himself. He said, you know,
I never knew that a Sukhoi thirty could carry like
more than five tons of ordnance. That's a lot of
combat power. And he says, I discovered that very late
in life. Wow, you know, And for him to make
that honest admission is a problem for our system as well,
(28:00):
that we've probably not trained our commanders enough to look
at the fighting potential of other services. When you integrate
all of this, you can possibly see that you possibly
met not need forty or fifty fighters cordons. At the
end of the day, it is all about ordnance on target, right.
It doesn't matter if that ordinance comes from an aircraft,
(28:21):
it comes from a warship, or it comes from a
ground based launcher or a horse cart. Even as long
as it's ordnance on target, the enemy can't do anything
about it. He's overwhelmed. It doesn't matter how it's delivered.
That's one aspect of looking at it, of course. So
these kind of solutions will now come in when you
(28:42):
integrate the assets together, and then the force commander realizes
that these are the fights, these are the forces that
I have at my command. This is how I can,
you know, swing the battle. It's all about war fighting, really,
I mean, I hope it never comes down to that.
The fact that India fighting endless wars like several other
(29:03):
countries in the world. The aim is to create a
military like this that will deter conflict, that will force
the Pakistanis or maybe the Chinese to think twice before
saying that, listen, there's going to be a quick victory.
We can move in over here or in that sector.
It's going to take India several days to react. Whereas
if there's a theater commander over there and he has
(29:26):
his orders and he immediately strikes without waiting two weeks,
three weeks or something, that it's the minute he gets
the signal, he goes in and strikes. That's it.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah. And also I'm guessing that is what you just
said right now about of the answer to my long
standing question of why does the Army and the Air
Force both have a set of attack helicopters. Why can't
they be just under one single service and then be
used accordingly? Right, we'll talk more about this, but a
quick break.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
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(30:21):
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Speaker 3 (30:42):
So, you know, Dave, that point you've made about attack
captors before the break was spot on because you're looking
at you know, when a service believes that he cannot
get the other services to pitch in or pull in
when there are no theaters coming, then everyone tries to
create his own parallel structures. So you will have the
(31:04):
Army looking for attack helicopters, You'll have the Air Force
looking for special forces at commandos. You'll have maybe looking
for creating an army and an air force. So you know,
that's how a lot of duplication takes place, and all
of this would be obviated when they come together. They
plan together, they train together, they put up requirements for resources.
(31:28):
They think jointly. I think jointmanship is the keyword over here,
and when the services sit together, they will come up
with joint solutions.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
A tiny tangent overa here because it may be a
question that people within the forces, of people sitting in
senior positions may think it's a bit stupid, but I
still wonder that do you think of a factor in
this debate also is the structure of our military, which
is very loyalistic. In fact, you have loyalties dating to
(32:00):
the squadron they were part of in the NBA, in
the I m A, in the I n A, in
the Air Force Academy. You have you have instance of
seeing office is still recalling, Oh he's from that spotron
of the NBA, so he's my arriving. So my question,
the progression where I'm going towards is that is there
a worry also that when you have a theater commander
from the army, When you have a theater commander from
(32:21):
the Navy, the that the Air Force person under him
or her would be like, you get to ultimately to
side layer, Yeah, do you think that is also there?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Th Yeah, that that is there. And and it's a
very very valid worry they because you're looking at something
the after effects of something like almost nearly eighty years
of this single service approach, which you know, some former
chiefs have called tribalism. They have a point there, it's
almost tribal this kind of thing. It's it's extremely good though.
(32:53):
I must tell you that when militaries fight in the
in the field, for instance, the army fights, they're fighting
for the honor of the battalions. That's a very very
powerful motivating cry because when he goes into battle, he
has to, you know, perform to an extent that no
one in his battalion should ever have to question him
or anything. So he's fighting not just for the country,
(33:15):
but for the e earth of his battalion as well.
So that's a very powerful motivating factor. But all of
this you should shed once you're above the rank of
a colonel, once you start getting on your first star
and your second start as you go up the hierarchy,
you should shed some of these inhibitions. Then you should
start looking at the bigger picture. And I think that
(33:35):
is going to be a very crucial aspect of the theaterization,
where you need to create a carter of officers who
think jointly, who train jointly, who plan jointly. And that's
going to be the big challenge. And this is not
going to happen overnight. Now. It's taken us twenty five
years to come to where we are today. In twenty
twenty five, right, my hair is gone white report this story.
(34:01):
It'll probably vanish. At the rate at which we are going,
I'll lose all my hair by the time we see
those theater commands. But you know, the thing is that
it is going to be a big challenge for planning.
Training joined me precisely the reasons you've mentioned that from
the beginning, you've been regimented in a certain way to
(34:22):
think of, you know, your squad and your unit, your battalion,
your regiment. It's very intense in the Army and of
course in the Air Force as well. It's not as
much in the Navy, uh, you know, but these are
some of those big practical hurdles, and it's again, it's
not very unique to India or the Indian Armed Forces.
It's been the thing globally. Uh. They've been intense battles
(34:47):
in the United States also between the you know, various services.
I mean, I've met US Air Force officers very rile
by the fact that, you know, US naval aviators are
the toast of the world because of two movies, right,
Officer and a Gentleman and top Guns, and so they
haven't recovered from that. And within the US Navy as well,
(35:09):
you have the Marine Corps, right, which is part of
the United States Navy, which fights jointly with the Navy,
but is a separate service, and there's a lot of
rivalry there as well. So these kind of things, it's
all human nature, are they But finally it is for
the person at the top to take the ultimate call
that do we need it in the national interest? Does
(35:31):
it serve India's national interest? And it does. Every study
has shown you that that this is the need of
the r and if there is that. I was talking
to a former two star friends and he said, you know,
the sad part of this is that theaterization all these concepts,
(35:52):
they don't win you votes. They are not election issue.
Why would the politician stick his neck out and you
know call for a theater or announced theaterization if it
doesn't winin votes, I said, but then you have to
spin it in such a way that it translates into
national security objectives. It meets national security aims. The fact
(36:14):
that you've created a far more efficient Indian military force
than what previously existed is something that should be made,
you know, a key priority for our politicians and they
should understand that. Look, this is not something that you
know that like they say, war is too serious to
be left to the generals. Certainly not. And it's issues
(36:37):
like this that we should debate more in India. Given
you know how important the armed forces are for us
and the kind of threats that we face along the
northern and the western borders. This needs to become a
political discussion point and it should translate into some kind
of you know, political achievements for the government. Whoever you know,
(37:00):
implements this. And there are plenty of committees. It has
bipartisan support across governments if you look at it. It's
only the nature of the appointments that made you know, vary.
The UPA had one set of you know, thought process,
which said that they wanted a permanent chairman chief of Stuff.
They didn't want a Chief of Defense Staff. The NBA
(37:21):
says that, look, we need a CBS, but I think
on the issue of theater commands, I think both governments
would agree, and there is bipartisan political support for this.
So it needs to become a part of our political debates.
The opposition also needs to have a say in on this,
and you know, finally we need to get the military
that we you know, so badly need. Yeah. So a
(37:45):
couple of final points.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
One is that if you look at it, if you
like you said, you've reported on this for a long time.
So if you look at it, do you think there's
actually any more space for debate left? Because you know,
you're talking about committees. I mean I would call it
the dance of the committees. So after the Cargile War,
you have a Cargo Review Committee. The report of this
(38:08):
review committee was reviewed by a group of ministers in
two thousand and one and then they give out a
report which was then you had the Narration Tantra Committee
in twenty eleven to see if this particular group of
miniatures report was implemented and if not, then what could
be done to of committees? Yes, and in twenty sixteen
you had the Shikaga Committee, not exactly in this line
(38:30):
of committees, but it was also around this topic of
joint jointness and some other minor things. So you've had
all these committees. They must have had had their debates.
So do you think there is any space left for
a debate or do you think the debate is just
happening because that call is not being taken? For example,
are we now still debating with the media CDs was
(38:51):
the CSC We are not because that call was taken.
India will have a steadence apparently. I think it was
your reporting. Even the services were taken by Price that.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
He bent out in his speech.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
They knew it was coming, but they weren't expecting him
to annown make that announcement from the independence from the It.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Was it was only going to be a permanent chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee, which everyone had anticipated, including us,
and I think we were taken by complete surprise in
twenty nineteen when he announced the Chief of Defense Staff
and when the you know, the appointee. The appointment was
made and General Robert took over. You know, I remember
(39:29):
looking at him and his uniform and he said, what
are you looking at? So I said, you know, I
never believe that I would ever see a Chief of
Defense Staff in my lifetime. So you know, it could
took everyone by surprise. And you know that was the
heartening thing for me because here you had the entire
system saying, yes, we need the Chief of Defense Staff.
(39:50):
So many committees have recommended it. But let's go for
a you know, permanent chairman of the Chief of STUF,
which is one run lower card. Well, consensus, let's go
for the consensus. Okay, let's not take any harsh decisions.
You know, a few people might feel hurt and stuff
like that. So I think the government of the day
(40:10):
in twenty nineteen Prime Minister More they made that call.
They announced the CDs, but we've stopped short of announcing
the second phase of reforms, the most crucial aspect, which
is going to be creating the theater commands. And that
is entirely the present Chief anil Chahan's responsibility. And he's
maneuvered it. I mean, he's temperamentally very different from General Ravat.
(40:34):
You know, Joern Rabath was very aggressive, and you know,
he was a bit like a you know, more bullish
on a lot of issues. And you know, in all
my interactions with him, he used to tell me, look,
I'm only implementing what every single committee has recommended. I
have a cupboard full of committee reports. I'm just pulling
out committee reports. Okay, said they've already recommended this, Let's
(40:56):
do it. He says, I'm a doer. Jen Johan is
a nice person. He's uh, he believes in consensus. He
has a different work style. I mean equally effective, but
a very different work style. He believes in taking people
on board. And we'll have to see. Now he's got
literally this year and next year to you know, implement
(41:17):
the theaters and that's going to be a very very
key reform. And he's in charge. He's the man of
the moment. So it's actually two people now, it's the
Prime Minister, it's the Defense Minister Rajnat Singh, and of
course it's the Chief of Defense Staff than Johan.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, right, right, last point then, and going back to
the air chiefs comments from that two day confidence is
one argument that he made that to a lay person
like me, felt trittle logical. He said, Look at Absindur,
everything was hunky dory, everything was rosy Pamil Pakistan. Uh
(41:54):
so great, So why do you need theater tradition when
we have this close coordinating And that is what he's
pitching for, his pitch for Alli level, national level close
coordination center that would have all these three services coming right.
So it seems like a valid counter Sandep.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
What if Sindura had ended differently? Okay, that's my counter
to that. I mean, how do we know it was
entirely unpredictable what happened on the ninth for instance, I'm
sure the fact that you had a political leadership that
was mature enough to work out an escalation ladder, that
was not deterred by Pakistan's drone attacks on Indian civilians
(42:35):
and cities, that very calmly worked out an escalation ladder,
and then slowly started climbing up that escalation ladder to
a point when they authorized air strikes against Chaklaala and Sargodha.
Now these are two targets. Again, I never thought I
would see them being struck in my lifetime. I've spoken
to a lot of my friends in the Air Force
and across the services. They said, Look, we had been
(42:57):
rehearsing these scenarios for decades. We never ever thought that
time would come when someone would authorize the strike on
these targets. But it did happen. What if Obsindur had
gone differently, would the air force then change its appreciation?
Would you want for a wake up call, a very
(43:18):
very rude shock like sixty two, nineteen sixty two, when
I would argue the most significant Indian defense reforms took
place that was in the heat of a defeat, a
very bad, embarrassing body defeat in the war with China,
which then spurred off a whole set of reforms. And
we saw how the Indian services performed just nine years
later against Pakistan. The fact is that Obsindur worked out
(43:43):
well despite all the narratives and the spins that are
being given to it by Pakistan and then of course
our new best friend China. You know what if it
had worked out differently, would you then only reform if
you were shocked? Cargill Also, I mean nothing to cover
ourselves with glory. I mean we missed the intrusions for
(44:04):
whatever reasons. We missed the Northern Light Infantry sneaking across
the line of control, occupying our posts. We didn't appreciate
the size and scale of the intrusions. And then finally
when they were detected, it was you know, the three
services saying, oh, should we employee a power? And then
finally the political thing it was very slow. My sense
(44:27):
is that wars of the twenty first century we've seen
that eighty eight hours. Ops indoor unfolded in eighty eight hours.
Do we have the luxury today of having three separate,
five disparate commands or six commands and then you know,
asking everyone to build up a consensus, going to a
committee and saying this is what we need to do
(44:47):
and all that. Or do you want a force commander
who's there, who's got all the assets under him, and
he's the single point of you know, authorizing the kinetic
strikes or launching the kinetic strikes. You're actually looking at
a meaner, meaner military that will strike in hours and
not in days. So this is the scenario that you're
looking at, and this very changed ops indoor conflict scenario
(45:12):
where again eight eight hours, that's how long the entire
conflict lasted.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, right, I think we ended there and I think
like you were talking about while, like you said before
we began recording, that ultimately this is going to be
a political decision, just like the appointment with the CDs was.
To take my point forward. It was a raging debate
until the appointment was made. Yeah, after that, everybody has
sort of fallen in line, has accepted that CDs is
(45:39):
the new normal, and everyone's very happy about it as well,
so you don't see any complaints anymore. So perhaps it's
about ironing all those final wrinkles and just taking that
plunge that may or may not happen very soon. So
we'll keep tracking and we'll discuss when we know all
on this topic. Thanks and the day Chat has always
has always did, and thanks to our listeners and viewers.
(46:01):
That's it for this week's Defense Stores For more, tune
in next week. Till then, stay safe and not pross
any boundaries with the classport
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