Jointness 2.0: Army, Air Force, Navy take a step closer to fulfil long-pending dream

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan (Courtesy: PTI photo)

The Bangladesh war of 1971 was a perfect sign of "jointness", the late General Bipin Rawat, India's first chief of defence staff, often said. And the results were evident: Comprehensive victory in less than a fortnight, with the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force planning their operations with synchronicity. In charge of bringing together the three services, making them fight as one organisation was his goal. Now, two-and-a-half years after his tragic death in a helicopter crash near Wellington, where the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) is located, a major step forward towards jointness is being taken. Fittingly, it is at the DSSC and the process began last month.

The DSSC is where the Indian Army's majors and lieutenant-colonels and their equivalents in the Navy and Air Force go for their staff training. They are young enough to absorb the changes that will ensure closer cooperation in the future and also, carry them out in case of conflict. Two major changes have happened: Changes in the structure of the instructors and the classes, with the "mixed" environment the way forward. The primary objective is ensuring that learning together will lead to fighting together as seamlessly as possible and quickly too. General Anil Chauhan, the chief of defence staff, has called it Jointness 2.0 and believes it is necessary to build up a jointness culture.

Now, the first batch of "joint" officers beginning their course last month had 40 young officers -- 20 from the Army, and ten each from the Navy and Air Force, besides four other officers -- one each from the United States of America, the Maldives, Britain and Australia. While a segment of training has always been about "jointness", this segment has been "enhanced", sources said. This would be in the areas involving logistics and the ISR issues, meaning intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance. Gathering intelligence about the enemy and checking out the enemy's positions and capabilities are aspects that all three services are involved in and is therefore easier to involve officers of all three forces.

Each service has a different culture, roughly speaking, a way of function and it has been there from before 1947. Now, it has been decided to have a joint service culture. This can involve things like a joint service song, in the way there is an Army song, a Navy song and an Air Force song. A Common Operative Planning Process (COPP) is being worked out. This document, the "common format", is the way format.

The instruction for young officers is changing; so will the staff structure. The DSSC instructors, led by Lieutenant General Virendra Vats, are now more "integrated". Under the Army's chief instructor (a major general) are two army brigadiers, an air commodore and a commodore of the Navy. The chief instructor of the Navy will naturally be a rear admiral, but he will have a commodore and a brigadier reporting to him. The IAF chief instructor, an air vice marshal will lead a team including an air commodore and a brigadier. A "mixed" group of officers will undergo the courses. The joint course is a pilot project, but subsequently, as General Chauhan has said, there will be four verticals in the DSSC -- for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Joint Services.