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Chandigarh: There is growing speculation in military and strategic circles that the government may use Independence Day, or the period around it, to formally announce the long-awaited creation of Integrated Theatre Commands (ITCs). Equally, it may not, as one of the most important issues underlying theatreisation remains unresolved: who will exercise overall operational command over the three proposed ITCs in future wars?

Current plans reportedly envisage three four-star officers from either of the three forces heading the Western, Northern and Maritime Theatre Commands, responsible respectively for operations against Pakistan, China and across the wider Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Each would exercise control over combat formations drawn from the Indian Army (IA), Indian Navy (IN) and Indian Air Force (IAF), within their respective areas of responsibility.

This arrangement is intended to replace the prevailing system of 17 separate service commands – seven each in the IA and IAF and three in the IN – with a far more integrated structure designed to improve joint war fighting, resource utilisation and operational effectiveness. By bringing forces from all three services under a single operational headquarters, the ITC system is intended to reduce duplication, improve coordination and enable faster, more coherent military responses across multiple domains.

In doing so, it would shift operational authority from the individual services to the theatre commanders, substantially altering India’s traditional military chain of command, under which the three service chiefs would be responsible exclusively for raising, training, equipping, and sustaining their respective forces. No longer expected to direct military operations, they would prepare and manage forces for employment by the ITC commanders, representing the most significant change in India’s military command structure since Independence. 

Yet, this transformation spawns a fundamental dilemma: once the ITC commanders assume responsibility for combat operations, who exercises overarching operational authority over them? Who coordinates their activities when operations overlap? Who arbitrates competing operational priorities or allocates scarce resources between simultaneous conflicts? And, ultimately, who translates political objectives into a coherent military strategy across all three theatres?

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General N.S. Raja Subramani speaks during the unveiling of trophies for the commencement of ‘Trophy Tour’ of the ‘Durand Cup’ tournament 2026, at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Center (RBCC), in New Delhi, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Photo: PTI /Shahbaz Khan.

The answer, so far, remains far from clear and is understood to be one of the key issues still under examination within the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), now headed by the newly promoted Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General N.S. Raja Subramani. Having assumed office in May as India’s third CDS since the post was created in late 2019, he inherits not merely the task of implementing theatreisation but, more........

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