The Indian military has been seeking to build jointness among its services for decades, including through proposals to establish regional joint theatre commands with responsibility for different areas of the subcontinent and beyond. But those efforts hit a roadblock earlier this year when the Indian Air Force (IAF) objected to its capabilities being split across commands and relegated to providing tactical support to land operations. A truly joint Indian military may still be a long way off.

For around a decade, Indian military leaders have been touting theatre commands as a way to bring together the army, air force and navy under joint command in defined regions. The proposed structure is broadly modelled on the US theatre command system, although on a much smaller geographic scale.

The initiative gathered pace in 2020 with the appointment of India’s first chief of defence staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat. Under one proposal, the three services’ 17 regional commands would be replaced with five theatre commands—one each in the west, north and east, plus an Indian Ocean command and an air defence command. That arrangement, it was hoped, would reduce duplication and promote jointness in planning, strategy and operations (though some have argued that the government’s approach is driven more by financial considerations than by operational goals).

While all three services have shown a willingness to consider the plan, they are yet to agree on the details. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged them to reach a consensus on proposals earlier this year, the new CDS, General Anil Chauhan, set about the task of resolving the individual services’ concerns. He has now been directed to implement jointness through a ‘bottom-up’ approach that focuses first on logistics, human resources, weapons procurement and communications before addressing other areas. In contrast to past hurried efforts, the new CDS has displayed a mature and measured approach to the task.

The IAF is the most apprehensive about the change. Its leaders say the proposal weakens the IAF’s force structure, undermines its doctrinal approach and affects its operational capabilities. For them, it seems like a plan to parcel out the air force to theatre commands. Fundamentally, the IAF’s reservations are that the model is too army-centric. The Indian Army’s huge size and leading role in domestic counterinsurgency and land-based border disputes have given it a disproportionately large role in India’s military strategy.

Yet every recent Indian prime minister has articulated the nation’s strategic interests as extending beyond its land borders, from the Gulf of Aden to the Malacca Straits. Except for a brief period in the 1980s, India has rarely demonstrated the will to defend those interests through power-projection capabilities, which critically include airpower. Paradoxically, India’s political leadership has generally limited itself to defensive and reactive military responses.

The IAF has said that while it’s not against theatre commands in principle, its core strengths shouldn’t be compromised by such a change. The feeling seems to be that the army is out of sync with the realities of modern warfare and has an archaic, land-centric mindset. That concern was reinforced in 2021 by Rawat, who said that the IAF is only a supporting arm for the ground forces, much like artillery and engineers. That statement betrayed a deeply held belief within the army that the IAF’s role is subordinate to the army’s.

There are concerns that the proposed air defence command would effectively reduce the IAF to playing such a supporting role. Limiting the IAF to air defence would ignore the multidimensional nuances at play in the air domain, including offensive and defensive counter-air, strategic strike, air transport, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The chief of air staff, Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari, has said that this makes the proposal unacceptable and counterproductive, noting that strong air defence is inextricably linked to counter-air and all other offensive air operations.

The IAF has also argued that the distribution of air assets to theatre commands would go against the principle of unity of airpower. Its fighter aircraft are all multirole platforms, which allows considerable flexibility in their usage. Assigning dedicated forces to a theatre could hamper that flexibility, particularly when resources are limited. The IAF is down to 32fighter squadrons and may touch a low of 30 by 2025–26, compared with its sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons. Chaudhari estimates that the IAF may, at best, increase to 36 squadrons by 2035–36 . This low strength doesn’t offer the luxury of allocating dedicated airpower resources to each of the theatre commands.

Despite its reduced fighter squadron strength, the IAF has kept modernisation on track and possesses a growing expeditionary capability (as was demonstrated in its participation in Exercise Pitch Black 2022). Due to limited resources, control of these capabilities needs to be centralised and execution needs to be decentralised.

For fixed air force deployments to theatre commands to be viable, the IAF would need a force of at least 42 fighter squadrons. Even when integrated theatre commands finally replace the IAF’s geographical operational commands, it would need to have functional commands (such as an air combat command and an air transport command, and ) to train and maintain the forces to be provided to the theatre commands. These functional commands would be especially important for executing specialist airpower missions, although the tasking may flow from the CDS.

The IAF’s updated doctrine, released early this year, should also be taken into consideration. It reflects a strategic shift that should influence the restructuring. It divides the conflict spectrum into ‘war’, ‘peace’, and ‘no war, no peace’, and stresses that airpower is a key component of joint military strategy. It also emphasises the importance of expeditionary capability, punitive strikes, civil–military fusion and air diplomacy. It postulates a larger regional role for the IAF, particularly in the Indian Ocean, including airborne early warning and control; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and strike and airlift capabilities.

The theatre command concept should be tested before it is fully implemented. The Andaman and Nicobar Command, set up in 2001 as India’s first real joint theatre command, provides a great opportunity to validate and finetune all elements of a theatre command, but, to date, interservice rivalry has prevented it from reaching to its full strategic potential.

Theatre commands should also reflect a national security strategy, which India currently lacks. As former army chief General M.M. Naravane recently commented, moving to theatre commands without an overarching strategy is like ‘putting the cart before the horse’.

Finally,  radical changes in operational and administrative chains of command can’t just be left to the military to decide. It will be difficult given the entrenched jostling in India’s chain of command, but for a theatre command concept to work, decision-makers need to sit within a clear and consistent command structure. That could mean developing a joint chiefs of staff system like in the US, fully integrating service headquarters with the Ministry of Defence, and removing the operational roles of the service chiefs. Without clear structures, newly appointed joint theatre commanders could be simply sidelined in practice.

Since the government isn’t interested in biting that bullet, those crucial reforms may need to be driven by a parliament-mandated committee that involves all major stakeholders. India needs its own Goldwater–Nichols moment to produce lasting and effective military reforms.

This article was written as part of the Australia India Institute’s defence program undertaken with the support of the Australian Department of Defence. All views expressed in this article are those of the author only.

A recent test flight of Boeing Australia’s Airpower Teaming System, the second such flight in the ‘Loyal Wingman’ program, which currently has two test aircraft, saw the first aircraft retract its undercarriage for the first time and the second aircraft take its first flight. A total of six have been ordered, with three to be acquired by the end of 2021. A new final assembly is to be established at Wellcamp Airport near Toowoomba in Queensland, providing a boost to the state’s defence industry sector.

This is an important milestone for the test program of the new capability that demonstrates developments that may be more important for the Australian Defence Force than the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines in 20 years’ time.

The Loyal Wingman is groundbreaking in a number of ways. First, and perhaps most important, it is the first combat aircraft developed and designed for the Royal Australian Air Force since World War II. It represents a new type of capability for the RAAF through crewed–autonomous teaming technologies, allowing aircraft such as the F-35A Lightning II, F/A-18F Super Hornet and E-7A Wedgetail to ‘plug and play’ with the Loyal Wingman as a networked force. It’s set to offer ‘fighter-like performance’ with a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 kilometres) and a modular design to allow a range of different types of missions including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay, and both kinetic and non-kinetic strike capabilities. Its use of smart and trusted autonomy will mean that it’s not a ‘remotely piloted’ drone but operates with a high degree of independence alongside crewed platforms without adding needless burdens to aircrew.

With the assembly facility in Queensland, the Loyal Wingman project creates the potential for a flourishing aerospace industry that supports not only the manufacture of the aircraft itself, but also the rapid development of new types of air combat capabilities.

It’s this future development potential that needs to be explored quickly. In the context of the AUKUS agreement, much attention has been placed on Australia’s decision to pursue SSNs and the challenges of getting them within a reasonable timeframe. But there’s a strong case to be made that Australia can’t afford to stand still on long-range deterrence and strike while waiting potentially decades for the SSNs to arrive.

An alternative path for the ADF to project power needs to be considered. Developing and evolving a second-generation Loyal Wingman is a logical next step.

The first-generation Loyal Wingman that is now being tested is a small tactical aircraft which will offer the RAAF greater combat mass than it is currently able to field. Quantity has a quality of its own, and Australia’s approach to RAAF force structure needs to break away from traditional sizing limitations that have been largely static since the 1980s and the arrival of the F/A-18 A/B ‘Classic Hornet’. It’s time for a larger and more powerful air force in the face of growing threat from a rising China. The Loyal Wingman gives a path to that larger future force.

Alongside greater mass must come greater range and performance. The Loyal Wingman’s declared range of 3,700 kilometres would translate to an unrefuelled combat radius of approximately 1,200 kilometres depending on payload and mission profile. That’s roughly comparable to that of the F-35A. That range does need to be extended, in order to solve the challenges posed by the extensions of China’s anti-access and area-denial envelope.

Ideally, this challenge would be eased via host-nation support or through airborne refuelling, but it’s possible that support from countries in the region won’t be forthcoming in a crisis, particularly if they’re pressured by China not to offer it.

There are also challenges when it comes to aerial refuelling. China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force is developing longer-range capabilities. The Pentagon’s 2021 China military power report notes the continued development of the PLAAF’s long-range J-20 fighter. The Royal United Service Institute’s Justin Bronk notes that the J-20’s mission is to attack vital combat-enabler platforms such as the KC-30A refueller and the E-7A Wedgetail early warning and control aircraft.

The J-20’s range of up to 2,700 kilometres means that, if deployed to bases in the South China Sea, it could potentially strike airborne refuellers operating out of northern Australia. The PLAAF’s long-range bomber capability is also being rapidly developed. The H6N bomber is now operational and can carry air-launched ballistic missiles with a range of 3,500 kilometres that could strike targets as far south as Pine Gap. We could lose bases through missile strikes as quickly as through diplomatic coercion.

As ASPI’s Marcus Hellyer notes, RAAF airborne refuellers extend the time on station of platforms such as the F-35A and extend their range by about 500 kilometres. The risk is that increasingly long-range PLAAF airpower will place these airborne refuellers under threat. So, they must be defended. The logistical challenges increase as fighters need to defend the tankers and, in turn, need the tankers to stay on station.

There are two options for managing this dilemma. The first is acquiring longer-range fighters. The proposed US Air Force next-generation air dominance (NGAD) and US Navy F/A-XX programs could potentially deliver such a capability for the RAAF, but likely not until the 2030s. The second is to use the Loyal Wingman as a basis for a future multirole vehicle that can undertake both longer-range strike and long-range air defence missions as part of an integrated air and missile defence system, such as that envisaged under Project AIR 6500.

Certainly, the first-generation Loyal Wingman could be employed on one-way flights to contest PLAAF forces in the South China Sea through electronic warfare missions, for example, and offer a forward line of combat air power while leaving crewed platforms to the rear. But the performance and payload of the Loyal Wingman as it is currently configured would leave it vulnerable to higher performance crewed PLAAF fighters such as the J-20, as well as the J-11 and J-16.

Evolving the Loyal Wingman into a second-generation platform with greater range, payload and performance to expand the RAAF’s tactical and operational air defence and strike capabilities is a clear path forward. It should take full advantage of rapid digital design and development to produce an evolved aircraft not in decades, but in years, noting that the current aircraft went from concept to first flight in three years. In confronting the growing challenge posed by a much more capable PLAAF, the RAAF needs to think in terms of hemispheric airpower projection. That’s a job for Loyal Wingman 2.