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 importantly, resolving the question of who will ultimately exercise operational authority over the ITC commanders. The issue is critical because establishing the ITCs without simultaneously defining the command relationship above them would be akin to designing an elaborate machine without deciding who gets to operate the controls. The hardware may be impressive, but without a clearly defined mechanism for directing it, the system remains operationally incomplete.Increasingly, a cross-section of military veterans and defence analysts argue that, by a process of elimination, this overarching responsibility can only devolve upon the CDS. Once the service chiefs are recast primarily as force generators and battlefield authority passes to the ITC commanders, the CDS would be the only officer positioned above the individual theatres and across all three services. Consequently, in practice, he would be responsible for prioritising resources, coordinating simultaneous campaigns and ensuring that operations in one theatre complement rather than undermine those in another. Without such an arrangement, India risks creating three largely autonomous theatre commands, while leaving unresolved the most fundamental question of all: who ultimately directs future wars in totality? That conclusion, however, immediately raises a broader question about the institution of the CDS itself – not the individual occupying the post, but the authority, responsibilities and place in the military hierarchy that the position has been created to exercise. Also read: The Costliest Delay in Indian Military HistoryWhen the post was formalised in 2019, the government deliberately stopped short of creating an Indian equivalent of the American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the British CDS. India’s CDS, for its part, was designated principal military adviser to the defence minister, permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff committee and head of the newly created DMA, but was specifically not granted operational command over the armed forces.Such a compromise was understandable, as India still retained separate service commands and the political leadership remained wary of concentrating excessive military authority in a single individual. The CDS was conceived primarily as a coordinator, integrator and adviser rather than as an operational commander.Curiously, however, as theatreisation gathered momentum over the years, remarkably little attention appears to have been paid – by the military, defence think tanks or service-sponsored research institutions alike – to the rather inconvenient question of who would ultimately exercise operational command over the ITCs. Much intellectual energy went into designing the theatres; rather less into deciding who would command the commanders once the shooting started. It was, in effect, a little like designing a new ministry, allocating it a budget and staff, and only afterwards remembering to ask who was supposed to be in charge.It is by now axiomatic that modern warfare demands unity of command, particularly as military operations increasingly span land, sea, air, cyber, space and the electromagnetic spectrum simultaneously. Operation Sindoor reinforced precisely this reality for India, as have the wars in Ukraine and the recent Iran-Israel-US confrontation. All these conflicts have underscored the need to combine air power, missiles, drones, electronic warfare, intelligence assets, cyber capabilities and ground forces in a single operational effort.Also read: India’s 6th-Generation Fighter Ambitions Are Akin to Adding New Floors to a Weak FoundationSuch campaigns cannot be optimally directed through separate service chains, requiring centralised strategic oversight and decentralised execution. The question, therefore, is not whether such overarching direction is necessary, but where it should reside within the Indian military system. The experience of other major militaries is instructive.In the US – on whose joint-command system the Indian CDS and theatre-command concepts are broadly modelled – the operational chain of command runs from the president through the secretary of defence to the combatant commanders. This arrangement is underpinned by decades of institutional evolution, extensive joint-service reforms and the Pentagon’s vast defence bureaucracy specifically designed to support unified military operations across multiple theatres.India, however, has no comparable arrangement.Its defence minister exercises political oversight and civilian control, but neither his nor her office, nor the Ministry of Defence (MoD), is organised to function as a wartime operational headquarters. It would also not be realistic to expect a political appointee, however capable, to adjudicate competing military priorities simultaneously involving Pakistan, China and the IOR.Such a lacuna leaves an institutional void between political direction and battlefield operations – one that, if the ITCs are to function as an integrated war-fighting system, increasingly points towards the CDS assuming overarching operational command.But if that happens, the implications would extend far beyond merely redefining the responsibilities of the office. The legal and administrative framework under which the CDS post was created would itself require amendment and, in India, would be creating an institution fundamentally different from the one approved in 2019. Consequently, one vital issue – should the proposed ITC structure eventually confer operational authority upon the CDS – would concern rank. At present, the CDS is first among equals with the three service chiefs, but if he were also to exercise operational authority over the three ITC commanders, the question of command relationships would inevitably require resolution.Furthermore, the situation could become positively Byzantine if, as is also being contemplated, the new structure creates a four-star vice chief of defence staff (VCDS) to assist the CDS. India could then conceivably find itself with eight four-star officers at the apex of its military hierarchy – the CDS, three service chiefs, three ITC commanders and the VCDS – all formally of identical rank, yet with markedly different powers, responsibilities and reporting relationships.On paper, they would be equals; in practice, some would command others, some would advise them, and one would presumably be expected to stand above the rest while technically remaining merely first among equals. Such an arrangement would be an extraordinary recipe for confusion over authority and command at precisely the point in the country’s military structure – and amid the turbulent circumstances in India’s neighbourhood – where absolute clarity over who commands whom could matter most.Pakistan’s military, by contrast, currently has three four-star officers at the apex: the air chief, the naval chief and the newly created national strategic commander, while its army chief now holds five-star rank as chief of defence forces. India’s proposed structure, if all the contemplated appointments materialise, could conceivably put eight four-star officers at the top – more than twice as many as Pakistan, but with the same basic question still unanswered: where does ultimate operational authority lie?Also read: Indian Army’s New Found Love for Hindi and Hindutva Has Serious ConsequencesIt is in this context that some veterans argue that a CDS vested with operational command should logically hold five-star rank, placing him unambiguously above his peers. Such an elevation, if the CDS were ultimately given these powers, would be more than symbolic: it could establish a clear apex of authority within the new command structure and remove a potentially contentious question over ultimate operational authority. Most military systems resolve such ambiguities through either explicit legal authority or superior rank, and India’s eventual ITC structure may require one or both.However, granting operational authority to the CDS would not be without risks.India’s civilian leadership has historically preferred a dispersed military command structure and, since Independence, authority has been deliberately distributed among the service chiefs, the MoD and its civilian bureaucracy. This arrangement was intended to reinforce civilian control and guard against any excessive concentration of military power.Critics therefore argue that empowering the CDS with operational command could produce an overly centralised military system. Others worry that a CDS exercising authority over three theatre commanders and three service chiefs could also trigger new bureaucratic and turf rivalries in the MoD, rather than resolve existing ones. The debate, therefore, is no longer simply about creating the ITCs but about completing the command architecture that theatreisation inevitably requires.Establishing the new commands without simultaneously resolving the question of operational authority would amount to constructing an elaborate military edifice while leaving its most critical relationship undefined. Ultimately, however, the success of theatreisation will depend less on creating the ITCs than on credibly answering the more fundamental question: who commands their commanders?