The creation of Integrated Theatre Commands, including the Northern, Western, and Maritime Command or in whatever manner they come up, is the most consequential structural reform of India’s armed forces since independence. The CDS has submitted the formal theatre command proposal to the defence minister, who is expected to hold wider consultations before taking it to the Cabinet Committee on Security for final approval. Yet beneath the doctrinal ambition lies an operationally decisive problem that needs to be confronted: the three services run entirely incompatible Enterprise Resource Planning systems. Currently, they cannot share logistics data, generate a joint inventory picture, or produce a unified sustainment forecast. And there is no integration layer above the three to provide theatre-level visibility to the DMA or the future theatre commanders. Theatre commands without integrated logistics are a building without plumbing.
