Media reports suggest (‘Armed Forces’ integrated commands structure plan looks at Vice CDS, Dy CDS with clear roles’, IE, May 13) that the complex and contentious policy issue of rewiring the Indian military into integrated theatre commands (ITC) is gaining traction and that the armed forces are looking at the appointment of a Vice Chief of Defence Staff and a Deputy Chief of Defence Staff. This is to be cautiously welcomed and while an official announcement would provide more detail, a review of the post of a CDS in India’s higher defence management matrix is merited.
Lack of an appropriate degree of jointness among the three armed forces has long been identified as a structural constraint that needed redress and to his credit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked up the gauntlet. In the first few months of his second term (Modi 2.0), namely August 19, the post of the CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) was announced with fanfare. This was seen as a bold and welcome initiative.
The CDS’s many hats
The CDS was accorded a daunting and anomalous institutional profile but this was deemed necessary when the post was conceived. Wearing three hats, the CDS is the first among equals along with the other three service chiefs as a four-star general. Concurrently, he is Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Defence and Principal Adviser to the Defence Minister on inter-service issues. This is a demanding combination of roles, wherein professional military expertise has to be harmonised with bureaucratic acumen and a delicate political advisory role.
A chequered trajectory
General Bipin Rawat, who retired as the army chief in December 2019, was appointed as the first CDS in January 2020 but the trajectory of this post has been tragic and chequered. General Rawat died in an unfortunate air accident in December 2021 and consequently, many of the policies initiated by him remained suspended. In retrospect, some of them were impulsive and less than sagacious.
For reasons that remain inexplicable, the Modi government took nine months to appoint a new CDS and in October 2022, Lt Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) was appointed the second CDS. Eyebrows were raised at the time, for this decision to recall a retired officer and appoint him in a higher rank was unprecedented and in my view, avoidable.
Since then, there has been considerable internal deliberation about organisational changes but towards the end of Modi 2.0, there has been little tangible movement on the operational front. In summary, if India was to face a war now, the existing command and control structures with the three service chiefs at the apex would have to deal with the exigency.
Why the new posts?
Against this backdrop, it is instructive to note that new posts at the higher level are being envisaged to enable the CDS to realise the larger objective of enhancing jointness (the sharing of domain expertise and assets) and improving composite combat capability.
However, the major takeaways from the report appear perplexing and await clarification. The first pertains to the post of a Vice CDS in four-star rank. Rank hierarchy is central to the military and if implemented, the office of the CDS would be tenanted by two four-star rank officers and at a later stage — complemented by three theatre commanders presumably of four-star rank. Concurrently, the three service chiefs who are the original four-star rank officers would have a different profile that would be devoid of the command responsibility.
This is a major restructuring of the Indian military and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has cautioned that the creation of theatre commands has taken up to 20 years in bigger countries, adding that while the process is on, it is time-consuming. He also added that many points of view have been taken on board (the Air Force, for example, has strong views on the subject) and that policy steps would be initiated only when consensus has been arrived at. Can this consensus be nudged in a positive manner?
One had opined in the past that the existing set of responsibilities for the CDS is a case of avoidable overload and that the role of functioning as a Secretary to the government be reviewed. In the new posts being mooted, it would be desirable if the bureaucratic role could be hived off to the four-star VCDS thereby allowing the CDS to focus on his primary roles.
The reference in the report that the Maritime Theatre Command (MTC) is likely to have its base in Coimbatore is perplexing. Karwar had been earlier identified and there was a certain logic to choosing this venue for the MTC. Why Coimbatore and not a location along the coast that will maximise existing infrastructure and assets for the MTC is intriguing. Perhaps the official announcement will provide some answers.
With a two-front operational tasking along the land borders (China and Pakistan) and tangled, unresolved territorial disputes that have been festering for over seven decades and compounded by the scourge of state-sponsored terrorism — the challenges to national security and sovereignty remain abiding and tenacious. Kargil 1999, Mumbai 2008 and Galwan 2020 are illustrative of threats and (military) capacity.
The creation of the CDS in 2019 was to enable an enhancement in overall combat efficiency across the board and prepare for new exigencies that will be shaped by the techno-strategic churn that is now taking place. The wars in Ukraine and Palestine and the spillover into the Arabian Sea are cases in point.
The distance (not) covered since 2019
An objective review would suggest that the needle of India’s overall combat efficiency — the ultimate litmus test — has not moved significantly since 2019 and the announcement of the post of a CDS.
A new government will assume office in June and whether Modi 3.0 or otherwise, the evolution of the CDS as an institution should be resolute and objective and guided by abiding national security considerations. Sage counsel from former naval chief Admiral Arun Prakash when the first CDS was appointed merits recall: “The military ethos requires that he (CDS) retains his professional independence and upholds his oath of allegiance to the Constitution.”
The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi
