Jointness is all about accepting core competencies of each service

Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retd)

Former Addl Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies

THE saga of theaterisation to bring jointness in operations among the three services has engaged everyone’s attention for the past few years and brought with it a multitude of views expressed with passion in the media. The theaterisation schematic, too, has seen multiple iterations during Gen Bipin Rawat’s tenure as CDS, with ‘scoops’ of an ‘air defence command’ kick-starting the process to the present ‘leaks’ of a Northern, Western and Maritime Command being proposed. In this debate, certain fundamentals are being lost sight of and demand an appraisal and reiteration.

Each service possesses specialised domain knowledge and expertise that are utilised jointly in crafting a war strategy and executing it to attain victory. The recent wars in Azerbaijan-Armenia and Russia-Ukraine have shown that frontage and depth of a battlefield are no longer defined in terms of tens of kilometres. This has come about with the use of cruise missiles, tactical and long-range UAVs and aircraft-launched air-to-ground weapons having substantial range; underpinning all this is good ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance).

Plans for attack in depth are beyond the scope and purview of tactical commanders on the ground in the battle engagement zone or in flying squadrons; these strike plans are made by rear echelon tri-service entities at the level of corps or command HQs who control the battle at the operational level. When one is talking of target engagement by missiles and rockets (medium and long range), the strike plan mosaic would take the best-placed shooter to address a target — it could be land, air or even sea-based (a strike from carrier-based aircraft or a naval UAV which may be best placed), with the target having been determined by a satellite that could well be a civilian one. This is what multi-domain operations (MDO) are all about; ownership is incidental, with targeting efficiency determining the choice of the sensor and the shooter.

Surprisingly, some recent opinion pieces have been suggesting service-centric views that are hard to fathom in the MDO world that actually demands seamless fusion of the capabilities of the services with civilian ones, to get more bang for the proverbial buck in war. A retired Army Chief has written on a web portal, “Threats to a nation’s security can manifest in different dimensions, and therefore, the necessity of three branches viz. Army, Navy and Air Force… These threats are dealt with utilising the weapon systems at hand, land-based for land threats, aircraft for aerial threats, and ships and submarines for sea-borne threats (emphasis added).” He goes on to suggest that “…all land-based systems should be allocated to the Army and inter-Service transfers effected as required, in keeping with the overarching philosophy of dealing with land, sea and airborne threats.” This understanding of prosecution of war is surprising, to say the least.

The geopolitical environment around India demands that we develop our maritime capability to meet the fast-developing threat (in the medium term) of China’s navy making its presence felt in the Indian Ocean Region — it is not for nothing that Beijing is developing ports and bases in Myanmar, Pakistan and the western rim of the Indian Ocean.

In the short to medium term, however, it’s our land borders that demand focused attention. And this would be best achieved by harnessing and fusing the core competencies of the Army and the IAF — the best placed sensor and shooter formula for mission accomplishment. Air power has the unique capability of reach with speed, and is thus entrusted with the task of striking surface targets within a battle zone, in its proximity and deep in the rear as well; in air power parlance, it is battlefield airstrike and interdiction. By striking installations and infrastructure assets in the enemy’s hinterland, the adversary’s capabilities upfront in the battlefield are degraded, helping our own Army as it fights it out at close quarters and holds/gains land. Complementing these missions is air power’s targeting of the adversary’s strategic assets located in depth that has long-term debilitating effects. In short, national war prosecution philosophy — call it doctrinal thought — drives equipment procurement strategy, amongst other fundamentals; turf interests have no place in this and should be avoided like the plague.

It is here that the former Army Chief’s call about avoiding ‘satisficing’ — a combination of the words ‘satisfy’ and ‘suffice’ to convey distribution of assets in petty numbers to different services to ‘satisfy’ them — gains salience. One couldn’t agree more as ‘satisficing’ goes against the basic grain of optimal utilisation and economic maintenance of assets (logistics and supply chain factors). The moot point is whether ‘satisficing’ should be brought in as an argument to seek a transfer of assets, overriding the sole factor that should determine ‘ownership’ — the operational philosophy of joint operations. The holding of helicopters, UAVs, special forces, certain types of radars and BrahMos missiles by each of the three services comes to mind — it is a distribution done with operational logic. For example, the BrahMos missiles (both airborne and ground-based) with the IAF, and indeed the Indian Navy (ship-based), are meant for tasks that are totally distinct from those that the Army holds. The targets of BrahMos with the land forces are more or less confined to the extremities of a physical engagement zone, while those of the IAF are part of its integrated strike plans to shape the overall battle, and certainly the ground battle that the Army is engaged in. The ‘ownership’ debate must not be allowed to hijack the critical issue of efficient joint task execution.

So, a suggestion from an IAF helicopter pilot who has operated with the Army most of his service career — jointness is all about accepting the core competencies of each service and fusing their strengths for a stronger combined punch in the MDO environment that is staring us in the face. Hopefully, energies are being directed to address this challenge, with all hands on deck.

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