Context: Recently, the COAS stated that the next step in defence reforms after the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) would be the formation of integrated theatre commands.
About Integrated Theatre Command

• The idea of Theatre Command was suggested in the reports of the committee The military reforms committee – under Lt General (retd.) DB Shekatkar. It recommended the creation of 3 integrated theatre commands northern for the China border, western for the Pakistan border and southern for the maritime role.
• An integrated theatre command is one that enables the pooling of resources of all three services under a single commander, towards securing a particular geographical area.
• A theatre will be identified on the basis of its sharing of a contiguous geographical boundary with a competing entity or an adversary. The geographical area must also include adjoining seas and space that may be essential for manoeuvre of own forces to address the threatening entity/adversary and also its geographically contiguous collaborators.
• The commander of a Theatre Command will not be answerable to individual Service in particular and will have all resources from the Tri-Services at his disposal.
• The integrated theatre commander will be free to train, equip and exercise his command to make it a cohesive fighting force capable of achieving designated goals and the commander will have all the logistic resources required to support his operations at his disposal.

Advantages

• Better acclimatisation of troops to the given battlespace, which will assist them to comprehend the operational requirements correctly in the assigned area of operation.
• Training needs and administrative requirements of the troops can be better understood, which would allow specialisation and suitable honing of battle drills at all levels.
• Equipment can be procured, maintained and pre-positioned for quick mobilisation and apt application during the envisaged, short-duration, high-intensity war.
• The allocation of military hardware, in terms of weapon systems, command, control and communication equipment and combat support elements will be theatre specific and result in optimisation of the resources.
• Unified command of the three Services under one designated commander will allow for prompt and precise decision making and will remove unnecessary tri-services one-man-up ship.
• Hence, it goes without saying, that the theatre commands will afford better coordination, intelligence sharing, apt advice and seamless conduct of operations in a given theatre of operation.

Disadvantages

• At the strategic and tactical levels there could be some challenges, like the distribution of certain specialised resources which are held in limited numbers, e.g. multi-role combat aircraft, command, control and communication equipment, early warning assets, etc.
• Division of such meagre resources will reduce combat efficiency at the point of decision. Alternately, these resources will have to be replicated for each theatre command. The cost of the same will be prohibitive, especially when the country is going through trying economic times.
• Besides, interoperability of troops and equipment from dormant sectors to the active areas during war will be difficult and less effective because they would have been trained and equipped specifically to their primary sector of responsibility.
• Another serious challenge that could be faced is that the concept of a theatre command may promote a sense of “fighting battles, rather than fighting a war”, which in turn may reduce our ability to either win a battle or the war.

Current Command Structure in India

• The current structure of the armed forces includes 17 different commands. Army and Airforce have 7 Commands each and 3 commands are headed by the Navy. Under the Army, the commands are the Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, Central, Southwestern, Central and Maintenance and Training. The Navy is divided into Western, Eastern and Southern commands. 
• Each command is headed by a 4-star rank military officer.
• India only has two tri-service commands. The first one is known as the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) and was created in 2001. It is led by service chiefs on a rotational basis. The second is a functional command (not overseeing a particular geographical location) called the Strategic Forces Command established in 2006. 

Recent reforms in the Defense: 
Chief of Defense Staff

• The CDS is a high military office that oversees and coordinates the working of the three Services. It offers seamless tri-service views and single-point advice to the Executive.
• The CDS will also head the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) to be created within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and function as its Secretary.
• He will be a four-star General office and would not be eligible to hold any government office after demitting the office of CDS.
• The CDS would come in the ambit of ‘Right to Information Act, in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.

Roles and responsibilities

• CDS will give single-point military advice to the government, bringing about jointness in “operations, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three Services and will act as the Principal Military Adviser to Defence Minister on all tri-Services matters.
• The CDS would not exercise any military command, including over the three Service Chiefs, so as to be able to provide impartial advice to the political leadership.
• The CDS would administer tri-Services organisations, agencies and commands related to Cyber and Space.
• The CDS will also be a member of the Defence Acquisition Council chaired by the Defence Minister and Defence Planning Committee chaired by the NSA and will also function as the ‘Military Adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority’.

Department of Military Affairs

• It is headed by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and work exclusively pertaining to military matters will fall within the purview of the DMA. Earlier, these functions were the mandate of the Department of Defence (DoD).

Also Read: https://abhipedia.abhimanu.com/Article/IAS/MTQzNzU3/Post-of-Chief-of-Defence-Staff--A-critical-analysis-Governance-Issues-IAS