Restructuring the armed forces

Col Mahesh Chadha (retd)

The recent announcement by the government to restructure the armed forces is a step in the right direction. Warfare today has become more complex with its three dimensions enlarged to encompass not only conventional and technology-driven but tools also nuclear, cyber and space ones. China has done it already. But Pakistan is not likely to venture into it as it does not have any commands and its corps are under the GHQ with political overtures. China has made it more inclusive by having Politico-Army Theatre Commands based on geographical parameters — each many times bigger than our operational commands. Chinese President Xi Jinping's threat that China will not lose an inch of its ground at any cost is a warning for us to be prepared for any eventuality that may arise on our borders.

The background

At the time of Independence, we had a loose armed forces structure: areas, divisions and corps in the Army and squadrons and divisions in the IAF and Navy. When in 1947 Pakistan attacked us in J&K, we raised a corps and a command HQ for the western borders, and later a command HQ for the eastern borders. After every war — of 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999 with China and Pakistan — some more divisions, and corps HQ were raised. However, it was in the aftermath of the 1971 war with Pakistan that Northern and after the 1999 Kargil conflict South-Western and Training Commands were raised. Similarly, the IAF and Navy increased their commands and today, we have 17 commands — seven each of the Army and IAF and three of the Navy, including two training commands — ironically, as the latter are treated on a par with an operational command, and went on to produce a COAS. While these new raisings created more high ranking officers, they reduced the areas of responsibility and created boundaries to be criss-crossed with due coordination with each other — at times difficult to achieve. In these conflicts, the synergy of the three services remained an overriding lacuna, except in 1971 where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Committee was the redoubtable Sam Manekshaw; hence the birth of Bangladesh.

As early as the eighties, General K Sundarji had propounded the theory of Theatre Commands. In his book The Blind Men of Hindoostan, he talks of the changing concepts of warfare where synergy of the three arms can only be achieved if there is a single command and control system as compared to the existing separate ones. That time, it was the beginning of the cyber space warfare. So, he dwelt upon the nuclear aspect and recommended to our leaders to take a wake-up call lest we were found wanting in safeguarding the territorial interests of our nation.  Since then, both China and Pakistan have allied and made strides in escalating threat to us by the day. The OBOR and CEPC are only a part of the grand strategy to strangle India in the Indian Ocean, South China Sea and along  Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Thus, all the more the requirement of the integration of all forces under one head to take on the land, air and sea battles. 

The present status

Justifying as operational needs, it is the successive pay commissions and cadre reviews  — one such is again in the pipeline which has resulted in the creation of higher ranks, truncated commands, eg Western Command that stretched from J&K to Rajasthan is divided into three — Western, Northern and South Western Commands. Similarly, at the corps level, in J&K alone there are three Corps as compared to one till 1971. It is this expansion that has caused the formations and units to live with deficiencies in arms, armour, engineer and artillery equipment — the most essential requirement to fight any war. 

We cannot afford to be a welfare Army, where comparison with the bureaucracy has become more of a one-upmanship than pragmatism. There is need to keep the armed forces lean and thin and not top heavy as it is today unwieldy. If a state government has so many chief secretaries, should the army too have so many generals, where there is a hierarchical command structure? Putting a lt-general under another seems ridiculous.  

The way forward

Though there has been loud thinking on adopting the Theatre Command system, switching over to it will require the bureaucracy and the defence services to sit together to first define the concept and take care of its fallout — most importantly the likelihood of mass-scale reduction in higher ranks, which will definitely create heart-burning. The one suggestion to overcome such an eventuality is to have four-star generals as Theatre Commanders and a five-star general as the CDS. This would be in consonance with the concept as suggested by Sundarji and other expert committees, the recent being the Shekatkar committee. That since the 1980s such a three-service command exists in Andaman and Nicobar can act as a model. The Integrated Defence Staff HQ can be the restructured CDS. 

All the 17 commands could be merged so as to create only six or seven role-specific commands — Northern and Eastern under the Army; Western under the IAF and the Southern under the Navy. Theatre Commands North and East could be mostly composed of the Army and IAF, West and South of the Army, IAF and Navy. Cyber and Nuclear Commands could remain as such, a three-star general of any service and an expert component under the PMO. The Training and Maintenance Commands could be wound up. However, no change is visualised in the corps and below formations, except to revert to the old command structure at the area level etc. The schools of instructions and officers' training academies would also need a review as most of them do not require a lt-general as the commandant to train them. An upcoming brigadier or a major-general would fit the bill. The logistics support units too should be reorganised to meet the requirements of each service. This will save considerable budget that can be utilised to fill the deficiencies in arms and equipment. 

Peace time vs war time

The services will have to shed their individuality and adopt a unified philosophy so that the system works well,  as a homogeneous entity. However, in operations, it will require deft handling at the level of the CDS when the situation may require the placement of additional or reduced forces under one or another Theatre Command. 

In the process, the rehabilitation of many redundant high-ranking officers should not be considered as the largesse endowment of cadre review, but as a cache of great experience and talent. Therefore, it would be a progressive transformation. The government must ensure that the downsizing in the armed forces is not wasted or taken advantage of by the central paramilitary forces and civilian counterparts. If at all, as a last resort, a golden handshake may be considered.