New Delhi: India has taken major steps towards enhancing joint collaboration among Army, Navy and Air Force. The success of this close coordination under the theatre commands have been witnessed in the Kashmir Valley where joint counter-terror operations were launched. 


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The Theatre Command would see joint training of personnel, unified command and control structure besides pushing for a tri-service approach for the modernisation of the three forces. 


Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat has described benefits of this Theatre Command. They are: 


1. One of the main advantages is that the leader of unified command has control over more varied resources. The naval fighter aircraft can be deployed in the Western sector in the desert areas when not required at sea to effectively utilise existing resources.


2. The naval fighter jets can operate in deserts and the IAF jets there can move to the other borders. Air Defence Command will have air assets such as missiles from the army. The navy will be a part of it as well
 
Other countries having such commands:


Several major militaries are divided into integrated theatre commands. China’s People’s Liberation Army has five theatre commands: Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern and Central. Its Western Theatre Command is responsible for India.


The US Armed Forces have 11 unified commands, of which seven are geographic and four functional commands. Its geographic commands are Africa, Central, European, Indo-Pacific, Northern, Southern and Space. Cyber, Special Operations, Transportation and Strategic are its functional commands.


What is Theatre Command?
 
A theatre command is a military structure wherein all the assets of the Army, Air Force and Navy in a particular theatre of war are under the operational control of a three-star general. Currently, existing commands are of the Army, Navy and Air Force. India's status:


Andaman and Nicobar command:


- The joint command at the moment, the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), is a theatre command, which is headed by the chiefs of the three services in rotation. Headquarters at Port Blair.
- It has assets and manpower of Army, Navy, IAF and Coast Guard placed under one operational commander.
- The command is headed by a three-star officer and is drawn from the three Services by rotation.
- It was created in 2001 after a Group of Ministers had given a report on national security following the Kargil War.
- It operates directly under the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
- It is to ensure optimum use of assets from all forces is being considered for other sectors as well.
- This is the only tri-services operational command and focuses mainly on amphibious warfare.


CDS Bipin Rawat on Theatre command:


Feb 2020: India could create up to five theatre commands and the new structures would be in place in the next two years, said India’s newly appointed Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat.


Feb 2020: The Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, is working on redesigning existing military commands into theatre commands and establishing new joint commands that will combine the resources and assets of the three defence forces, based on threats at India’s borders with its neighbours. The work on establishing theatre commands will begin next year and will be completed within three years, the CDS added.