India’s long-running debate over the creation of Integrated Theatre Commands (ITCs) has entered a critical phase, with senior military leaders increasingly expressing support for jointness while differences remain over how the country’s Army, Navy and Air Force should operate under a unified command structure.
At the centre of the debate is a fundamental question: how can India integrate its three armed services without compromising the operational flexibility, specialised capabilities and national-level coordination required to fight a multi-domain war?
The issue was brought into public discussion during the inaugural Ran Samvaad conclave at the Army War College in Mhow on August 26–27, 2025, when the chiefs of the three services participated in a structured dialogue on theatreisation for the first time.
The discussions exposed differing institutional perspectives on how India’s defence organisation should be restructured to strengthen its overall combat capability. While the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral D K Tripathi, expressed the Navy’s commitment to integrating with the Army and Air Force, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A P Singh cautioned that joint planning and coordination did not necessarily require the immediate establishment of joint command structures.
“Joint planning and coordination are essential, but joint structures are not necessary at this stage,” Singh said.
The debate reflects a broader disagreement over the relationship between operational control, geographical responsibility and the employment of military assets.
India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, had strongly advocated Integrated Theatre Commands as the principal mechanism for achieving integration, jointness and interoperability. He had also described the Indian Air Force as a supporting arm, comparing its role to artillery and engineers supporting combat formations in the Army.
However, the Air Force’s position has continued to emphasise that airpower cannot be understood solely as a supporting capability.
In an interview with the Press Trust of India on October 25, 2026, shortly before his retirement at the end of the month, Air Chief Marshal Singh reiterated that the IAF was “fully committed to jointness and integration”.
He also stressed that future conflicts would increasingly involve multiple operational domains, requiring the three services to work together more closely than ever before. At the same time, he clarified that the Air Force did not view theatreisation as an exercise in permanently dividing fighter aircraft geographically among different theatres.
This distinction raises an important question about how airpower can deliver its maximum operational effect within an integrated command structure.
Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth, speaking at the NDTV Summit on September 27, 2026, emphasised the importance of achieving decisive outcomes on land, stating that “land victory is the only indisputable marker of war victory”.
Such statements from the leadership of the three services reflect different military perspectives shaped by their respective operational environments. They also demonstrate why the theatreisation debate requires a carefully negotiated settlement rather than an institutional contest over command authority.
Former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash, writing on October 28, 2026, urged the services to finish their arguments and reach an agreement before the next national security crisis. He argued that the principal change under theatreisation would be the transfer of control from an Air Force commander to a theatre commander.
The central challenge, however, extends beyond the question of who exercises operational control over assigned aircraft. It concerns who decides the distribution of scarce military resources among competing theatres and how quickly those resources can be reassigned when national priorities change.
A theatre commander must have assured and predictable air support to execute a campaign. Without access to the air assets on which operational plans depend, a commander risks being held accountable for outcomes beyond his control. Army and naval commanders have historically expressed concerns that air support can become something they must negotiate for rather than an assured element of operational planning.
These concerns deserve consideration. However, allowing individual theatres to retain excessive control over air assets could create another problem: one theatre might hold resources that are urgently required elsewhere, weakening the country’s overall military response.
A proposed solution is the principle of **centralised control, dispersed command and decentralised execution**.
Under this approach, all weapons and platforms that travel through the air under their own power—including fighter aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial systems, loitering munitions, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and long-range guided rockets—would operate within a centrally coordinated framework, regardless of whether they belong to the Army, Navy or Air Force.
Individual services would retain responsibility for raising, training, maintaining and sustaining their respective capabilities. However, the coordination of weapons and platforms operating within the shared airspace would remain centralised.
The reasoning is operational rather than institutional. Airspace is a shared medium in which aircraft, missiles and drones must operate without interfering with one another or friendly air defence systems. Coordinated timing, sequencing, identification and deconfliction are essential for conducting effective massed strikes and preventing friendly-fire incidents.
A proposed mechanism for implementing this arrangement is the creation of Guns-Free Areas (GFAs). These would be designated areas in which the Army and Navy could employ their conventional ground- and sea-based weapons without requiring routine coordination with the Air Force. Airpower would remain outside these designated areas.
The boundaries and operating rules of GFAs would be established by a proposed Joint Forces Headquarters (JFHQ) under the Ministry of Defence, working with the CDS. The headquarters would provide a neutral mechanism for balancing national priorities and preventing any individual service from exercising disproportionate influence.
The arrangements would require clearly defined airspace limits, provisions for helicopter operations, surveillance, air defence, casualty evacuation and military transit. Since battlefield conditions change rapidly, theatre-level authorities should be empowered to adjust GFA boundaries within nationally established rules rather than referring every operational change to the central headquarters.
Reciprocity would also be necessary. Aircraft requiring passage through GFAs would need protected corridors and designated time windows during which surface-based weapons launches could be restricted.
Historical military operations demonstrate why airpower must be treated as more than a supporting instrument.
Operation Sindoor in May 2025 illustrated how airpower can influence the broader strategic direction of a conflict. The 88-hour operation ended after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations contacted his Indian counterpart through the hotline on May 10. Prime Minister Narendra Modi subsequently told Parliament that no world leader had asked India to stop the operation.
The 1971 India-Pakistan War provides an even more comprehensive example. In the eastern theatre, the Indian Air Force progressed from a favourable air situation to air supremacy, giving Indian ground forces substantial freedom of movement. Airborne operations at Tangail and helicopter operations across the Meghna River helped accelerate the Army’s advance towards Dhaka.
On December 14, 1971, MiG-21 and Hunter aircraft conducted precision rocket attacks on the Governor’s residence in Dhaka while an important meeting was underway. The attack contributed to the Governor’s resignation and the collapse of the civil administration in East Pakistan, accelerating the final military and political outcome.
Similarly, during the 1999 Kargil War, the Air Force operated under severe restrictions, including the political directive not to cross the Line of Control, difficult high-altitude terrain and the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles.
Nevertheless, air attacks against the Pakistani supply camp at Muntho Dhalo on June 16, 1999, became a significant turning point. Operations against positions including Point 4388 and Tiger Hill complemented the Army’s ground offensive and contributed to Pakistan’s withdrawal.
The 1971 conflict also demonstrated the importance of flexibility in allocating airpower. Once the air situation in the eastern theatre was secured, squadrons were shifted towards the western front in response to changing national priorities. The ability to concentrate and reallocate air assets during an ongoing conflict remains a critical requirement for India’s future command structure.
Airpower can generate effects at tactical, operational and strategic levels simultaneously. An attack against a specific target may influence a battlefield engagement, disrupt an entire campaign and send a wider strategic message. Its operational reach also extends beyond the geographical boundaries of individual theatres.
Consequently, geographical basing should not be confused with permanent operational ownership. India’s combat aircraft are already distributed across airbases according to infrastructure, maintenance, logistics, readiness and operational requirements. An aircraft stationed in one region can support operations elsewhere when circumstances permit.
Permanently assigning aircraft to individual theatres could restrict the ability to concentrate airpower where it is most urgently required.
For example, a crisis on India’s northern border could initially demand substantial air resources. If tensions subsequently escalate along the western frontier while a maritime crisis develops in the Indian Ocean, national leadership would need to redistribute aircraft, aerial refuelling platforms, airborne surveillance systems and electronic warfare capabilities within hours.
No individual theatre commander can independently determine the competing requirements of all three operational fronts. Such decisions must be made at the national level.
International experience also offers important lessons. The United States operates 11 unified combatant commands, comprising four functional and seven geographical commands. However, North American air defence is coordinated through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a binational organisation responsible for aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning across North America, including Alaska and Canada.
The US system also retains national-level authority for allocating scarce military resources among competing commands. China’s theatre command structure similarly provides useful lessons, although its geographical conditions and security requirements differ significantly from India’s.
For India, the challenge is therefore not simply whether to establish theatre commands, but how to design an effective national-level authority that can coordinate and distribute military capabilities.
The proposed JFHQ would perform this function, working alongside the CDS to establish operational priorities, designate GFAs and allocate scarce air assets among theatres. Each theatre would have an air component responsible for planning and executing its air campaign using the resources assigned to it.
The arrangement would require transparent allocation criteria, representation from all three services, clearly defined responsibilities and fixed timelines for reviewing operational requirements.
Air defence presents another important dimension of the debate. India’s airspace cannot be treated as a collection of disconnected geographical compartments. Civilian aircraft, military platforms, missiles and unmanned systems operate across national airspace, creating the need for a unified air surveillance and defence architecture.
India should therefore consider maintaining a single integrated air defence framework capable of combining surveillance, identification, military intelligence and air defence information. Such a system would require effective command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities, including secure information-sharing between military services and civilian aviation authorities.
The architecture must also remain resilient during communications disruptions and other forms of hybrid warfare.
Ultimately, India’s theatreisation exercise must begin with a clear National Security Strategy and an assessment of the country’s higher defence organisation. The command structure should emerge from national military objectives, geographical realities, threat perceptions and available resources rather than from an attempt to divide responsibilities equally among the services.
Jointness is essential, but it should not be confused with geographical restructuring for its own sake. The objective is to translate political direction into achievable military objectives, allocate national capabilities according to strategic priorities and provide commanders with the authority and resources required to execute their missions.
As Admiral Prakash has argued, the services must reach a settlement before the next crisis. That settlement must be based on realistic military contingencies and assessed against readiness, responsiveness and the ability to concentrate combat power.
The Air Force belongs to the nation, just as the Army and Navy do. The central question is not which service should control the others, but how India’s military capabilities can work together to achieve national objectives.
The ultimate test of Integrated Theatre Commands will not be how neatly India divides its military forces on a map, but how effectively it can bring its combined combat power to bear wherever and whenever national interests demand it.
