Since the war of 1962 with China, there have been 13 5-year defence plans. The problem was that this always fell short because of the lack of prioritisation

New Delhi: With two hostile neighbours, India's military faces a humongous task. In order to boost the forces, the Armed Forces has been drawing up the final contours of Theaterisation plans which seek to integrate the Army, Indian Air Force and Navy and their resources into specific theatre commands, an Indian Express report said.

The report said that the services have decided to take a fresh re-look on the proposed reform after Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) asked them to do so. The initial plans was to create four theatre commands-an air defence command, maritime theatre command and two land-based theatre commands-one each for the western and eastern sectors.

One of the proposals that is under consideration is to create joint theatre commands based on India's adversaries to begin with. This would initially involve carving out an integrated theatre command to take care of the northern and eastern borders with China and another for the western borders with Pakistan and a third maritime command to tackle the threats in the maritime domain.

Further the report also said that there are discussions underway to ensure that the process of creating the theatre commands does not have a long settling period given the fact that there is always a possibility of conflict on the horizon.

The Importance of Theaterisation:

The Indian Army, Air Force and Navy have 17 commands together and the idea behind the Theaterisation was to et up four new integrated commands. This would ensure better planning and military response while it would also bring down costs in the near future. Initially the costs may go up as the all the theatres would have to be armed with ample systems. Since all the acquisitions would be unified in the future, the costs wold eventually go down.

Since the war with China in 1962, there have been 13 five year defence plans. The problem was that these plans would fall short due to lack of prioritisation.

This is the major reason why the Narendra Modi government decided to go ahead with the appointment of a CDS. The job of the CDS is to ensure that this plan is implemented and with the appointment came a clear policy on defence diplomacy. Some of the issues that come under defence diplomacy are jointmanship and visits of the higher military authority. The CDS in such an event becomes a central figure to ensure that these processes go on smoothly.

The need for pinpointed military application becomes very important considering the challenges and in the event of a two front war on the northwest and northeast borders.