Limits of Air Power and Implications for India’s Theatreisation

Why in News?

Recent conflicts in Ukraine and Iran show that air power remains indispensable but is rarely sufficient to secure victory independently. This has renewed India’s debate over whether centralised control of the Indian Air Force (IAF) can meet a prolonged China or two-front contingency, or whether Integrated Theatre Commands are necessary.

What is an Integrated Theatre Command?

• Air power is the ability to employ aircraft, missiles, drones, surveillance systems and supporting space assets to produce strategic and tactical military effects.
• Theatre-isation involves reorganising service-specific commands into geographical or functional Joint Theatre Commands, with assigned Army, Navy and Air Force assets placed under a single operational commander.

India is examining commands for land borders, maritime security and integrated air defence. 

Key Facts: 

• Cost-exchange asymmetry: One-way attack drones may cost only tens of thousands of dollars, while sophisticated surface-to-air interceptors can cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
• IAF’s squadron deficit: Against an authorised benchmark of 42 fighter squadrons, open-source assessments place the IAF’s operational strength at approximately 30-31 squadrons.
• China’s quantitative advantage: China possesses a much larger overall combat-air fleet. However, direct numerical comparisons can be misleading because not all Chinese aircraft can be deployed across the Himalayas, while high-altitude Tibetan airbases impose payload penalties.
• Operation Sindoor: Pakistani drones and missiles were countered through India’s Integrated Counter-UAS Grid and layered air-defence systems. 

Fundamental Limits of Modern Air Power: 

• Contested Airspace: Ukraine’s dispersed and networked surface-to-air defences prevented Russia’s larger air force from obtaining uncontested control. Numerical superiority can therefore be offset by mobile air defences, electronic warfare and resilient command networks.
• Air Superiority without Strategic Victory: Despite extensive US-Israeli freedom of action over Iran, dispersed missile forces and underground infrastructure survived. Air power can destroy visible targets and disrupt logistics, but cannot independently occupy territory or compel a durable political settlement.
• Unfavourable Cost Arithmetic: Drone swarms can force defenders to exhaust expensive and finite interceptor stocks. This allows a weaker force to impose disproportionate economic and operational costs.
• Dependence on Other Domains: Air operations require satellites, intelligence, cyber networks, radars, special forces and secure logistics. Air power must therefore operate within a multi-domain system, rather than as a standalone war-winning instrument.

The IAF’s Case against Theatreisation: 

• Flexibility and rapid swing: Fighters such as Rafales and Su-30MKIs can be shifted rapidly between the China and Pakistan fronts. The IAF fears that fixed allocation to theatres would weaken this flexibility.
• Scarcity of assets: Permanently dividing approximately 30-31 fighter squadrons among multiple commanders could prevent the concentration of combat power at the decisive location.
• Need for central prioritisation: Strategic assets such as airborne warning aircraft, refuellers, long-range surveillance platforms and air-defence systems may be required across theatres simultaneously.
• Risk of land-centric employment: Placing air assets under ground-force commanders may reduce air power to close-air-support duties, overlooking offensive counter-air operations, strategic strikes and air interdiction.
• Proven effectiveness: Centralised control supported successful limited operations such as Balakot and Operation Sindoor.
• Coordination as an alternative: The IAF has favoured a Joint Planning and Coordination Centre to improve inter-service cooperation without permanently transferring air assets to theatre commanders.

Why the Existing Model may Face Challenges against China?

• Strategic and industrial depth: Unlike Pakistan, China can disperse assets, absorb losses and sustain a longer conflict.
• Extended and difficult frontier: The LAC stretches from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. Terrain, weather and limited basing options complicate rapid force generation and redeployment.
• Multi-domain challenge: China can combine aircraft with missiles, drones, cyberattacks, electronic warfare and space-based surveillance.
• Two-front contingency: Simultaneous pressure from China and Pakistan would require real-time decisions regarding the allocation of scarce fighters, air-defence systems and surveillance platforms.
• Consultative delays: A coordination centre depends upon inter-service consultation. During a fast-moving crisis, the absence of a clearly empowered commander may delay targeting, logistics and reinforcement decisions.
• Air-land integration gap: Ground formations and Integrated Battle Groups along the LAC require predictable and timely air support based on pre-agreed joint plans.
• Institutional friction: Differences in rank equivalence, promotions, career incentives and command authority continue to complicate unified chains of command.

Significance of Integrated Theatre Commands: 

• Unity of command: One commander becomes responsible for the operational outcome within the theatre.
• Faster decision-making: Reduces crisis-time consultation and accelerates the allocation of intelligence, strike and logistics assets.
• Joint-force multiplication: Integrates land, maritime, air, cyber, space and electronic warfare capabilities.
• Common operational picture: Enables all Services to access the same surveillance, intelligence and targeting information.
• Efficient resource utilisation: Common logistics, infrastructure, maintenance and procurement can reduce duplication and costs.
• Multi-domain preparedness: Provides an institutional structure for synchronising kinetic and non-kinetic operations.

India already possesses a technological foundation for such integration. The Army’s Akashteer network connects with the IAF’s IACCS and the Navy’s air-defence network to generate a common air picture. 

The Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act, 2023 also empowers commanders of inter-service formations to exercise authority over personnel from different Services, providing a legal foundation for greater integration. 

Associated Concerns: 

• Fragmentation of a numerically constrained Air Force
• Over-centralisation of operational power in theatre commanders
• Duplication between Service Headquarters and theatre establishments
• Inter-service rivalry over command appointments and asset ownership
• Absence of a clear mechanism for reallocating assets between theatres; and
• Risk of mechanically copying foreign models unsuited to Indian geography.

Way Forward: 

• Adopt a phased approach: Begin with integrated planning, logistics, communications, intelligence and air defence before transferring wider operational control.
• Create a national strategic reserve: Keep scarce assets (AEW&C aircraft, refuellers, strategic transport, long-range ISR and selected fighter units) under central control.
• Ensure dynamic asset allocation: Theatre commanders may receive operational control of designated air assets, while the Air Chief retains the ability to recommend cross-theatre reallocation during national emergencies.
• Appoint Air Component Commanders: Every theatre must have a senior air officer responsible for designing and executing the air campaign.
• Institutionalise peacetime jointness: Make tri-service postings, joint professional education and joint exercises essential for promotion, drawing lessons from the US Goldwater-Nichols reforms.
• Conduct China-centric war games: Test theatre structures against prolonged LAC conflict, two-front escalation and disruption of cyber-space networks.
• Build economical counter-drone layers: Expand jamming, spoofing, guns, interceptor drones, VSHORADS and laser-based directed-energy systems. DRDO’s Integrated Air Defence Weapon System combines QRSAM, VSHORADS and a high-power laser. 
• Integrate C4ISR networks: Link the sensors, radars and weapon systems of all three Services into a secure and real-time operational grid.

Recent wars do not establish the decline of air power; they expose the limitations of employing it in isolation. The IAF’s concern about preserving flexibility is valid, particularly given its squadron deficit. However, flexibility without unified planning and command may prove inadequate against a peer adversary such as China. 

India therefore requires a hybrid theatre architecture: centralised control of scarce strategic assets combined with integrated theatre-level execution so that its Armed Forces fight as one military system rather than three coordinated Services. 

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