4 Purely service based domains are not viable anymore. If it is a better idea for the AD assets to be under an Air Defence Commander, so be it. If the Western Theater Commander has dedicated fixed wing and rotary assets with a staff composed of progressive bright minds of the army and air force to make battle plans for conducting operations-- so be it. No one is calling for a change of roles/tasks of the services but it has to be appreciated that primary and secondary tasks of arms and services are adaptive, interchangeable and can evolve as per the requirement. In any case the role of any of the three services is not being changed or challenged. Neither is the competency of any of the Chiefs being questioned. A unified leadership team will encourage trust, create empowerment, and break military managers out of the ‘my department’ mentality and into the ‘our organization’ mentality. When we take a deeper look at the root cause of these issues, we find that more often than not silos are the result of a conflicted leadership team.
Defining Theaterisation
5 Carl von Clausewitz defines the term ‘theater’ (kriegstheater) as one that denotes ‘a portion of space over which war prevails and has its boundaries protected and thus possesses a kind of independence’. This protection may consist of fortresses or important natural obstacles presented by the country, or even in it’s being separated by a considerable distance from the rest of the space embraced in the war. The thought behind the ‘kriegstheater’ basically being a theater of operations defined by the commander who is orchestrating or providing support for specific combat operations within the theater.
6 Even the WW II German military, arguably having one of the finest General Staff structures, suffered from inter-service rivalry and overreaching interference/control by higher echelons, especially after 1944, as the tide of war turned. Military operations in the Western theater were placed under the direction of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) which reported to Hitler separately as different from the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) which was responsible for the Eastern Front. To give one example, under the OKW, the defense of Western Europe was entrusted to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who as the overall commander had no direct authority over Navy Group West or the Third Air Fleet. Both these forces reported to their own high commands, which in turn reported to Hitler. This resulted in German forces fighting in an uncoordinated manner with a waste of sparse resources, as the allies began their push in Europe.
7 The term theater of operations is defined in the American field manuals as the land and sea areas to be invaded or defended, including areas necessary for administrative activities incident to the military operations. A theater command is therefore tailor made to control military assets in a theater of war to achieve military aim. Simplistically put, it places all available resources of air, ground and land at the disposal of a senior military commander.
8 In our context, the integrated theater commands envisage a unified command of the three Services, under a single commander. The Shekatkar Committee formed by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar (chaired by Lt General D B Shekatkar) had recommended not only the requirement of a CDS, but also the formation of three integrated theater commands namely, Western for the Pakistan border, Northern for the China border and Southern for the maritime role. The Kargil Review Committee (1999), which was set up after the end of the Kargil War, had also recommended the creation of joint theater commands. The GoI has already approved the formation of theater commands and there is no requirement of any ‘act of parliament’ similar to the ‘Goldwater-Nichols Defence Reorganization Act of 1986’ in the United States, as is being professed by many. The question is no longer ‘if’ but ‘when’.
The Need For Organisational Transformation
9 Taking a leaf from the corporate world, ‘Organizational Transformation’ is a strategic method of getting your organization from where you are now to where you will need to be in the future’. In many cases, this transformation is required to address a problem or change that’s long overdue. Studying the effect of automation with respect to the functioning of the corporate world, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) economists John Hawksworth and Yuval Fertig concluded that for many roles, ‘some tasks will become more valuable and other tasks will be eliminated’. Similarly, in fields such as the military, the availability, allotment, utilisation of resources and the command and control for fighting an integrated battle may need to be structured very differently to meet new challenges. Duplication, waste of effort, waste of resources, dual command, compartmentalisation-----will be eliminated and ‘some military tasks will become more valuable and other tasks will be eliminated’.
10 The art of warfare and military strategy must constantly evolve and adapt to meet a variety of challenges—from changes in military technology to the development of new weapons; to a shift in concepts of warfare to include hybrid warfare, limited war, unconventional warfare and asymmetric warfare. In the subcontinental context, our ability to fight a two front war with the integrated use of the entire military force in tandem with political, economic, informational and national resources assumes importance. And all this in a seamless non- compartmentalised manner. This becomes all the more necessary as military technologies shift to artificial intelligence, robotics/drones, human enhancement and human genomics. We can no longer afford to be ready and prepared with an archaic command and control system ready to fight the ‘last war’.
11 Thus the requirement of strengthening the centralisation of resources and transition from a strictly ‘service chief headed’ vertical command to a unified system of putting troops and weapon systems under an ‘overall’ commander to achieve synergy, economy of effort and application of max combat power. There should be no hesitancy to restructure or combine roles or ‘have an organisational transformation’ if that’s what is needed in the military environment of the day.
Creative Destruction Is Desirable
12 Failure to do so could lead to stagnation or worse failure and elimination of organisations, leaders and entities which do not adapt to the contemporary requirements. Or in other words face ‘creative destruction,’ a term coined by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter characterized creative destruction ‘as innovations and changes that increase effectiveness and potency of the structure from within; incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one’. Creative destruction therefore is the deliberate dismantling of established processes in order to make way for improved methods.
13 In the Second World War, Generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D Eisenhower were put in roles in which they commanded vast tri-service military operations. Despite the victory in the war, major structural flaws were observed resulting in the creation of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military adviser in the United States. In the United Kingdom, by the 1960s, the three military headquarters were integrated into the Ministry of Defence and the post of Chief of Defence Staff as the principal military adviser created. France, Germany and Australia have also shifted to a more integrated defence management system. In Russia the creation of strategic commands was laid down in 2010 and soon after China followed with the 2015 People's Republic of China military reforms and the creation of five theater commands.
14 Today our enemies have some of the finest weapon systems in terms of technology, destructive power, real time intelligence gathering, identifying, locating and precision targeting; all supported by electronic warfare, hypersonic weapons, information management systems, unmanned aircrafts/UAV’s and robotics. This necessitates us to have the ability to strike the enemy by bringing our entire combat potential to bear on the enemy in all three military dimensions of land, air and sea. Modern military doctrine also recognises the need for impacting the enemy throughout the depth of its territory simultaneously -- in the global information space, in the air, on land and on sea; by using all available resources as a ‘complete and integrated’ package. And if this process entails an element of ‘creative destruction’, the same has to be accepted for larger gains in our war fighting ability.
Theaterisation-Not A Bad Idea
15 In the newly emerging scenarios, with threat perceptions ever changing, the possibility of an unsymmetrical or ‘limited area’ confrontation remains high. It would be outside the capabilities of any single service to respond effectively to such a diverse array of threats. Such conditions call for a total and real time coordination among the three services. The existing Chief of Staff Committee has not proved to be very effective. The appointment of the CDS and formulation of the Department of Military Affairs is still beset with teething problems, acceptability and turf wars. In this muddle, throw in the Defence Secretary, the MOD and the National Security Adviser who also act as the interface between the Service Chiefs and the Cabinet Committee of Security or the National Security Council. And with more than 15 different commands of the three services (plus two tri-service commands: Strategic Forces Command (SFC) and Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) headed by rotation by officers from the three Services) most not even co-located; joint operations, information flows, and rapid decision-making, allocation/availability of tri-service resources; so vital in modern warfare is only in name at best. If anything, ‘penny packet’ distribution of resources exists here; in the existing system.
16 If the recent precision targeting of Palestinian targets by Israel or the use of AI and drones with devastating effect by Azerjaiban military or closer home the alarm caused by drones in the Jammu and Gurdaspur areas are any indication, we need to place a very high priority on modernizing the country’s capability to command complex joint operations in the battlefield. There is an urgent need to enhance the military’s joint command and control systems. As also the joint logistics, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. The envisaged theater commands will be effective organisational structures designed to control all such military assets in a theater of war to achieve desired military results.
17 The present system of structured, compartmentalised service HQ’s with their ‘stand alone’ doctrines need to be replaced by force HQ’s which are more modern, task oriented, flexible and threat tailored. Thus there is a requirement of unified command in a theater of war with the overall commander having a guaranteed and lethal ‘force’ of all arms and services to project power and conduct joint operations in a high-intensity high technology conflict by shortening the OODA Loop. Time-sensitive decisions can be taken by theater commanders (and subordinate commanders) rapidly, especially when there may not be time to gather all the information or depend on nebulous availability of combat power not under their control. Inherently, one of the goals of designating a theater commander being to execute the OODA loop process faster than an opponent, in order to infiltrate and disrupt his decision cycle.
The Chinese Model
18 Being our ‘enemy number one’, it would be worth the while to study the Chinese model. In its quest to have a ‘world-class’ military by the end of 2049, the PLA has continued to transition into a more modern, mobile, and lethal ground force through the fielding of upgraded combat systems and the integration of communications equipment and other technologies. The PLA is the principal armed wing of the Communist Party and does not directly serve the state. The Central Military Commission (CMC), currently chaired by Xi Jinping, is the highest military decision-making body in China.The PLA’s modernization seeks to improve its ability to conduct joint operations and has been able to create and task based formations at lower echelons that are more operationally flexible and better suited to conducting and managing complex combined-arms and joint operations.
19 In addition to the People's Liberation Army, Navy and Airforce, there exists the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF), a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The fifth organisation in this structure is the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), responsible for the PRC’s strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces.
20 As part of its modernisation drive, the PLA has reduced the erstwhile Military Regions/Military Districts from 11 to 7 to the current 5 Theatre Commands. With a force that totals approximately two million personnel in the regular forces, the PLA’s war fighting ability envisages joint command and control systems, joint logistics systems, and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems divided into five geographical entities; the Northern, Western, Southern, Eastern, Central Theater Commands. In addition, to obtain better synergy and war fighting capability, the PLA has now standardized its 13 group armies (roughly corps level equivalent), as part of an effort to downsize and streamline the PLA’s force structure. Each group army now includes multiple combined-arms brigades. In total, these 78 combined-arms brigades serve as the PLA’s primary maneuver force. The theater commands have task based components of all arms, services and support services - PLA Army, PLA Navy, PLA Air Force, PLA Rocket Force, PLA Strategic Support Force and the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force.
21 In 2019, the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) continued to implement structural reforms that began in late 2015 and early 2016. The PLAN organizes, mans, trains, and equips the PLA’s naval and naval aviation forces, as well as the PLA Marine Corps (PLANMC), which is subordinate to the PLAN. Similar to the other services, the PLA-wide reforms removed the PLAN headquarters from conducting operations, which became the purview of the PLA’s joint Theater Commands, and focused it on organizing, manning, training, and equipping naval forces.The PLAN’s force structure consists of three fleets with subordinate submarine flotillas, surface ship flotillas, aviation brigades, and naval bases. The PLAN’s North Sea Fleet is subordinate to the Northern Theater Command, the East Sea Fleet is subordinate to the Eastern Theater Command, and the South Sea Fleet is subordinate to the Southern Theater Command.
22 The PLAAF (People’s Liberation Army Air Force) constitutes the largest aviation forces in the region and is the third largest in the world with over 2,500 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UAVs) of which approximately 2,000 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft). The PLAAF’s role is to serve as a comprehensive strategic air force capable of long-range airpower projection. The PLAAF is comprised of aviation, airborne, air defense, radar, electronic countermeasure, and communications forces. Amid the wide-ranging reorganization of the PLA, the PLAAF too has reorganized into five Theater Command Air Forces, established at least six new air bases, and restructured previously subordinate regiments into brigades under the new bases by disbanding its fighter and fighter-bomber divisions.
Conclusion
23 As is implied by the words ‘creative destruction’, the process inevitably results in losers and winners within an organisation. Military leaders committed to the older technology and outdated concepts of warfare will be left stranded. Entrepreneurs of progressive military thought and understanding of new technologies may create temporary disequilibrium but will become harbingers of new opportunities for victory in the battlefield. Theaterisation is one such concept whose time has come.
24 It would be a fallacy to imagine that theatrisation would lead to employment of resources, specially of aerial assets in ‘penny packets’ or that we do not have enough resources or that the concept has ‘huge’ financial implications (to fight a war!). The argument that theater commands suit the big three because militarily they are self-sufficient, have large defence outlays or they foresee ‘out of area operations’ is not relevant to the core issue.
25 Two things need to be clarified here. Firstly, allotment of resources to a theatre does eliminate any of the principles of war, but actually enhances unity of command and
economy of effort. Utilisation, allotment, switching/removal and re-allotment of resources to a theater will always depend on the military situation and the overall national aim. Secondly, diverting of land, sea or air resources (could be in terms of time or space also) from the control of a theatre commander will now be dependent on an organisation which in effect is responsible for the higher direction of war. Service dominated hierarchical control in any case is wasteful, myopic and no longer tenable in today’s battlefield.
26 Finally, perhaps a very churlish argument projected by naysayers is that the theater commander may lack domain knowledge for use of the other two services under his command! Needless to say, the overall force commander will always have a competent and subordinate all services staff HQ's for domain advice. It is one of the primary functions of the staff to develop and integrate individual service activities enabling a commander to balance the art of command and the science of control.
WHEN YOU HAVE TO SHOOT, SHOOT; DONT TALK
