Joint Communication Command for the Indian Armed Forces

Joint tri- service institutions are not new to the Indian Armed Forces. The National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College and the National Defence College stand testimony to fact that our predecessors were alive to the emerging challenges and created institutions far ahead of the times. The Armed Forces Medical Service is another example of tri-service integration. However, jointness at other functional levels has languished for decades, which was severely exposed during the 1999 Kargil war.

The Kargil Committee Report published in the second half of 2000, was brutally critical of the lack of integration between the services and the need to evolve joint response mechanisms. Since then, proposed restructuring of the Indian Armed Forces including the Higher Defence Organisations (HDO), has been in the limelight and a matter of intense speculation and debate. A few cautious steps towards achieving jointness have been taken wherein Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), Strategic Forces Command and the Andaman and Nicobar Command have been created. An implementation of the balance of the recommendations has seen the emergence of insurmountable differences within the Government, strategic community and the uniformed fraternity, resulting in limited progress. However recently, positive developments have emerged which indicate a concerted attempt by all stakeholders to push through this matter which has a deep bearing on national security. Media reports have suggested that on 17 January 2017, during the Combined Commanders Conference at the Indian Military Academy Dehradun, which was attended by the Prime Minister, the Raksha Mantri and the National Security Advisor, the agenda was focussed upon.

More recently, media reports have indicated that as a follow up of the deliberations, a new Cyber Agency under the HQ IDS and headed by a Major General or equivalent rank officer is in the process of being established. This Agency will have both offensive and defensive capabilities and is expected to evolve into the eagerly awaited Joint Cyber Command.

Positive developments are also expected in the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff/Permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, Joint Operational Commands, creation of a Special Forces Command and the Aerospace Command. It is in this context and as a corollary, the creation of a Joint Communication Command (JCC) is being proposed. Modern warfare, which essentially is net centric will arguably turn completely net dependant in the near future. If an attempt is made to strip the complexities of modern warfare to the first principles, it can visualised as the interplay between five major components, namely, sensors, shooters, decision- makers, information nodes (where data is stored/ processed) and finally, the ubiquitous network. The desired characteristics of the network, which may seem as utopian in the present day Indian Armed Forces are enumerated as follows: (a) Extend over multi- dimensional space. (b) Boundary less and not restricted by ownership. (c) Accessible to all stakeholders equally. ( d) Fully plug and play. ( e) Support diverse systems. (f) Utilise uniform protocols including security. Present net centric capabilities of the Indian Armed Forces are weighed down by legacy networks which are individually extensive and complex. Since the complete migration to new all pervasive tri-service networks would be a technical and logistic nightmare, the current approach is focused on achieving basic functional efficiency using the existing individual service networks with gateways to suitable overlay networks. Recently a tri- service network overlay ( Defence Communication Network [DCN]) has been created at the apex level as a step towards