ramana wrote:You are adding complexity to a simple problem. None of these things are beyond the capability of whoever gets appointed as the Chiefs of Staff. I think we should learn to move beyond whats available elsewhere and trying to fit square pegs in round holes or vice versa.
Do you dispute the highest commander-in-chief is the President?
The highest military officer regardless of which service he belongs to is the Chiefs of Staff?
The issue is he is also the chief of staff his service.
And hence could be pre-occupied with his service issues.
One way around is to appoint another officer as the head of that service.
I respectfully disagree with this Ramana.
The need for a tri-service commander is extremely crucial today as the Nuclear triad is in place. There should be single point command, control and military advise around the storage, training and employment of nuclear weapons. Presently, this is under a tri-service command, which lies outside the 3 chiefs of staff. This anomaly should be rectified with a tri-service chief as suggested by Naresh Chandra committee.
This version of the CDS will thus be over all triservice commands.
There is also a need for a Special Operations Command as by nature the deployment could be in any scenario, in any place and at short notice. History tells us that the best commanders are unable to gather and mobilise quickly due to assets not being at their disposal.
Aside from SOC, there is also scope for a rapid reaction division, whose core will be the 50th Parachute Brigade (Ind.), a LHD and amphib army infantry bde.