CDS and Military Reforms in India: Structural Bottlenecks and the Way Forward

24 Jun 2026

GS III: Various Security Forces and Agencies and their Mandate

Context: India’s defence transformation requires theatreisation, jointness, capability development and technological modernisation, but these reforms cannot be carried by the CDS alone without political ownership, assured financing and institutionalised military advice.

About Chief of Defence Staff

Integrated Advice: The office of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was created to provide integrated military advice and promote jointness among the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Operational Integration: The CDS is expected to guide the armed forces towards greater coordination in planning, capability development and multi-domain operations.
Limited Authority: The CDS does not command the three services and does not control all levers of finance, acquisition, research, industrial capacity or national security decision-making.
Reform Enabler: The CDS can prepare options, identify trade-offs and push integration, but final decisions require political approval and institutional support.
National Security Context: India must prepare for integrated operations, simultaneous pressure on multiple fronts and warfare increasingly shaped by emerging technologies.

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Need for Military Reforms

Theatreisation: Theatreisation seeks to integrate the capabilities of the Army, Navy and Air Force under unified theatre commands for better operational efficiency.
Jointness: Jointness is necessary to ensure that the three services plan, train, procure and operate in a coordinated manner rather than as separate institutional silos.
Capability Development: India needs long-term capability planning in areas such as fighter aircraft, submarines, tanks, drones, cyber, space and precision warfare.
Technological Transformation: Modern warfare is increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, cyber capabilities, electronic warfare and network-centric operations.
Atmanirbharta: Defence self-reliance requires coordination between operational needs, domestic industry, research institutions, procurement systems and assured orders.

Political Ownership of Reform

Political Direction: Military reform must be treated as a political decision because only elected leadership can define national priorities, command structures and strategic trade-offs.
Theatre Commands: The design of theatre commands cannot emerge merely from inter-service negotiation because each service will naturally defend its own professional perspective.
Final Authority: The government must decide how much autonomy theatre commanders should have and how command authority should function during war.
Air Power Allocation: Political leadership must resolve key questions related to the allocation of air power between continental and maritime theatres.
Strategic Balance: The government must decide how India should balance continental threats, maritime priorities and multi-front contingencies.
Global Example: The Goldwater-Nichols reforms in the United States succeeded because political leadership treated jointness as a national requirement despite institutional resistance.

Financial Ownership of Capability Development

Capability Plan: The Defence Acquisition Council approves the 10-year Integrated Capability Development Plan, but it does not automatically ensure assured budgetary support.
Budget Gap: Annual defence allocations are shaped by fiscal-year limits rather than long-term capability timelines.
Aspirational Planning: A capability plan without assured financing risks remaining aspirational instead of becoming a strategic roadmap.
Procurement Delays: Fighter aircraft, submarine and tank programmes often stretch across decades because procurement priorities and funding commitments do not move together.
Industrial Capacity: Domestic industry cannot invest confidently in capacity and technology if orders remain uncertain due to the annual budget cycle.
State Responsibility: Technological transformation requires the State to align defence budgets, procurement timelines, research institutions and private industry with operational requirements.
Risk Assessment: Every budget decision creates military consequences, and political leadership must know the operational risk accepted when certain capabilities remain unfunded.

Institutionalised Military Advice

Structured Advice: Military advice should be regular, structured and integrated into national security decision-making rather than episodic or crisis-driven.
Peacetime Planning: Force structure, capability priorities and doctrinal choices are made in peacetime, requiring constant interaction between military leadership and political authority.
Apex Mechanism: India needs a regular apex-level mechanism through which integrated military assessments can be presented to political leadership.
Crisis Limitation: Military advice often becomes prominent during crises, but defence transformation requires institutionalised dialogue before crises emerge.
Civilian Control: Civilian control over the military remains essential, but it is strengthened when political leaders receive timely and professional military advice.
Integrated Counsel: The CDS must refine service-specific views into integrated military advice and present disagreements honestly with their operational implications.

Challenges in Defence Transformation

One-Man Burden: Placing the entire burden of comprehensive military reform on one CDS risks ignoring structural limits in India’s civil-military architecture.
Inter-Service Differences: The Army, Navy and Air Force may have different views on theatreisation, command authority, resource allocation and operational priorities.
Institutional Resistance: Defence reforms often face resistance because they affect service identity, command structures, budget shares and institutional autonomy.
Fragmented Levers: Finance, acquisition, industrial capacity, research and strategic decision-making are spread across different institutions, limiting the CDS’s direct control.
Implementation Delay: Since the creation of the CDS in 2019, the blueprint for integrated theatre commands has remained under preparation, showing slow reform momentum.
Personality Dependence: Reforms should not depend on the individual drive of a particular CDS but on durable institutions, political direction and clear decision-making structures.

Way Forward

Political Decision-Making: The government must treat theatreisation as a political decision instead of allowing it to become a prolonged inter-service compromise.
Clear Reform Options: The CDS should present clear options to the government with operational advantages, risks, costs and trade-offs.
Assured Funding: The government must provide long-term financial backing for capability development so that defence planning becomes strategic rather than aspirational.
Defence Planning Discipline: Capability plans must be linked with budgets, procurement timelines, industrial capacity and operational risk assessments.
Institutional Dialogue: Regular military advice at the apex level should be institutionalised so that integrated assessments shape peacetime planning.
Ground-Level Jointness: The CDS should build jointness from the ground up through common training, integrated planning, shared logistics and joint operational habits.
Joint Warfighting Doctrine: India needs joint warfighting strategies for sustained multi-front conflicts that may stretch over weeks and months.
Civil-Military Synergy: Defence transformation requires continuous coordination between political leadership, military professionals, finance authorities, research institutions and domestic industry.

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Conclusion

Military reform is a national endeavour requiring political impetus, financial commitment and institutionalised military advice. The CDS can guide integration, but theatreisation and jointness need sustained ownership from the political leadership.