CDS calls for incorporating lessons from Op Sindoor into theatre model

Post Operation Sindoor, there are some "more lessons" that the armed forces have learned and it needs to be incorporated into the model of the planned theaterisation, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday.

In his remarks during an interaction at India Defence Conclave 2025, hosted by defence think-tank Bharat Shakti, he also said that "we should have our ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and kinetic operation capabilities across the length and breadth of Pakistan, that would be I think, new normal" post the decisive military operation conducted in May.

He was asked what the new normal articulated by the government meant for the Indian military.

"For armed forces, it should translate into new normal for us also. That would mean something like better operational preparedness, 24x7, that I think is very, very essential. We should be better prepared in our air defence, counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial System), electronic warfare, that should be new normal because that is the kind of warfare which we are expecting.

"We should have our ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and kinetic operation capabilities across the length and breadth of Pakistan, that would be I think, new normal," the CDS said.

And, hopefully, "while we change, the adversary will also change, and accept this new normal", he said.

Gen Chauhan asserted that technologically, "we will have to be ahead" of the adversary.

"The last time we targeted, maybe just static targets, we may have to think of engagements of mobile targets in future," he said, without elaborating.

He also spoke of the role of the CDS, and recalled that the top post does not have an operational mandate.

On the choice of the location of the recently held Combined Commanders' Conference, he said it happened for the first time in eastern India, and the location itself was a "messaging".

The Combined Commanders' Conference 2025 was conducted by the armed forces in Kolkata, West Bengal from September 15-17.

On the planned theaterisation, the CDS said, "Post Operation Sindoor, there are some more lessons we have learned, I need to incorporate that into this model that we have worked out."  "We have experiences of Uri, Balakot, (Operation) Sindoor, Galwan, Doklam, Covid, so we need to amalgamate that particular experience, come to an organisational structure which will be for all seasons. That should be there," he said.

As per the theaterisation plan, each of the theatre commands will have units of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and all of them will work as a single entity looking after security challenges in a specified geographical territory.

At present, the Army, Navy and Air Force have separate commands.

In a lighter vein, the CDS said that post Operation Sindoor, a big challenge has been "finding time".

"There is not one day when all four of us (three Service chiefs and CDS) are in Delhi, that is the biggest challenge," he said.