India to finally have Chief of Defence Staff

    17-Aug-2019


TNN
NEW DELHI, Aug 16 : India will now finally have a tri-Service chief or a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a pivotal defence reform hanging fire since the 1999 Kargil conflict, to provide “single-point military advice” to the Government and inject some much-needed synergy in planning, procurements, training and logistics among the Army, Navy and IAF.
“To further sharpen the coordination between the forces, I want to announce a major decision from the Red Fort: India will have a CDS. This is going to make the armed forces even more effective,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech on Thursday.
The three Services, who have to truly integrate to face the challenges of technology-driven futuristic wars, will get effective leadership at the highest level with the CDS post, added the PM.
In effect, the CDS will rank higher than the Army, Navy and IAF chiefs, even if he is a four-star General like them, and eventually pave the way for unified theatre commands instead of the present single-service.
TOI was the first to report on June 21 that the appointment of a tri-Service chief and the finalization of a comprehensive National security strategy were among the top priorities of the Modi 2.0 Government in the defence arena.
The PM’s announcement of the CDS post led to intense speculation in strategic and military circles, with the majority view being that Army chief General Bipin Rawat will be the frontrunner for the top job.
Sources said a top-level TOI was the first to report on June 21 that the appointment of a tri-Service chief and the finalization of a comprehensive National security strategy were among the top priorities of the Modi 2.0 Government in the defence arena.
The PM’s announcement of the CDS post led to intense speculation in strategic and military circles, with the majority view being that Army chief General Bipin Rawat will be the frontrunner for the top job.
Sources said a top-level “implementation committee” will work out the exact modalities and the role of the CDS by November. By then, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa would have retired on September 30. The tenure of Gen Rawat, in turn, is till December 31.
Sources said the CDS will handle all tri-Service issues and push for “greater jointness” among the Army, Navy and IAF, which often pull in different directions without any inter-Service prioritization to systematically build the country’s military capabilities within budgetary constraints.
“Though a four-star General like the three chiefs, the CDS will be the 'first among equals’ in the hierarchy. But the Army, Navy and IAF chiefs will have operational command of their forces. A five-star CDS is not envisaged as of now but let us see how the exact structures pan out,” said a source.
A prominent section of the defence establishment believes that India needs a five-star CDS - with overall operational control as well - to crack the whip in the rank-conscious environs of the over 15-lakh strong armed forces.
But others contend an all-powerful General Number 1 is unlikely given the long-standing politico-bureaucratic concern over such a post, with some sections in the past even erroneously stressing that it could set the stage for a possible military coup.
Successive Governments have used the ruse of the “need to consult various political parties" to keep the CDS post in cold storage ever since it was strongly recommended by both the Kargil Review Committee in 1999 as well as the then Vajpayee Government’s Group of Ministers report headed by LK Advani in 2001.
The intense rivalry and turf wars among the Army, Navy and IAF, of course, also put paid to all such plans. In 2012, the Naresh Chandra Taskforce pitched for a permanent chairman of the Chief of Staff Committee (PC-CoSC) - a diluted version of the CDS - with a fixed two-year tenure. The CoSC currently comprises the three Service chiefs, with the senior-most acting as its ex-officio Chairman till he retires.
As reported by TOI earlier, the three Service chiefs had last year agreed to the proposal for a PC-CoSC, who would focus on “capacity and capability development” in the armed forces.
With the CDS post now on the anvil, the country’s defence establishment will also need to focus on setting up unified or theatre commands – with all military assets in a region under a single operational commander - for a greater offensive punch from limited resources in the years ahead.
At present, India has 17 single-service commands and only two tri-Service commands in the shape of the Andaman and Nicobar Command, a theatre or regional command, and the Strategic Forces Command, which handles the nuclear weapons. Apart from being much more cost-effective, theatre commands are required for the conduct of synergized land-air-sea operations with unity of command in modern-day warfare.