Understanding military theaterisation

Theaterisation is essentially an integration, of different service HQs prosecuting operations in a common front.

- OPINION LT GEN AJAI SINGH RETD)

All that front’s war fighting assets are placed under the command of that one theatre commander, thereby making his operational decisions faster and making him directly accountable for them. Doing so also reduces many duplications that occur if multiple Army/ Navy/Air Force HQs in the same front do the same thing in a longer time cycle by coordination their respective HQs at Delhi.

Is it needed? Yes 110%. As the experience of many battles over centuries have shown, the side which can decide, and act faster will have distinct advantage. This is also Col Boyd’s famous ‘OODA (observe, orient, decide and act) Cycle’. And if we need to at least match the OODA cycle of an adversary who has already made Theatre HQs, then we also need to make Theatre HQs. China has Theatre HQs, and Pakistan is unfortunately an “Army which has a country”, and its Army decides everything.

Who currently controls our military response? Each service (Army, Navy, and Air Force) currently has geographical Command HQs. Army has 6 regional Commands (North, West, South-Western, Southern, Central & Eastern), Navy 3 (Western, Eastern, & Southern) and Air Force 5 (Western, South-Western, Southern, Central & Eastern). While these commands are static HQs, actual military operations are done by the Army’s ‘Corps’, Navy’s ‘Fleets’ and Air Force Squadrons in their respective ‘Bases’, which are grouped under these 14 Regional Command HQs. Actions of/ orders to these 14 HQs are currently given by their respective service HQs, who interact with each other for operations through HQ IDS (Integrated Defence Staff) - all at Delhi. Theaterisation threatens no service core competency or war fighting methodology and only leverages these for better outcomes.