Why India’s military transformation must begin with human resource reform
The Indian Armed Forces stand at a historic turning point. Contemporary conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific have demonstrated that future wars will not be won by manpower, tanks, or artillery alone. Military success increasingly depends on the seamless integration of land, air, sea, cyber, space, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, drones, and information operations into a single operational system.India has acknowledged this reality through theatre commands, Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs), technological modernisation, and the adoption of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). However, structural reforms and new doctrine alone cannot deliver transformation. The decisive factor is whether the Army‘s human resource policies— covering officer selection, professional education, command opportunities, promotion and senior leadership development—are evolving at the same pace. A force organised around twentieth-century career patterns cannot fully exploit twenty-first-century military capabilities.
The appointment of Lieutenant General Susan Coyle as Australia’s Chief of Army illustrates the growing international recognition that future military leaders must understand multiple domains rather than remain confined to a single arm. Contextual, out of the last 6 Chiefs in US Army, 2 are from Infantry, 1 Armour, 1 Armour/Mechanised, 1 Artillery and 1 Aviation! So, for India too, MDO is no longer a futuristic concept but an operational necessity to counter precision strikes, cyber-attacks, electronic warfare, drones, and information campaigns.
Broadening Leadership Pathways
Leadership in the MDO era demands much more than command of large formations. It requires the ability to integrate intelligence, precision fires, manoeuvre, logistics, cyber capabilities, and information operations into one coherent battle plan.Historically, Infantry officers often enjoyed greater opportunities for higher command because of their exposure to large bodies of troops and traditional land operations. While this approach suited earlier wars, and now at best for low scale counter insurgency operations, future battlefields will increasingly reward officers who can synchronise technology with combat power rather than merely command larger formations. Success will be measured by the destruction of enemy capabilities, disruption of decision-making systems and integration of multiple domains rather than territorial gains alone.Accordingly, officers from all arms who demonstrate competence in commanding integrated formations should enjoy equal opportunities for advancement to higher ranks. They need to be given opportunities and not denied.
Selection, Training and Professional Military Education
The Army’s officer selection system has consistently produced capable leaders and requires refinement rather than replacement. Initial allocation of officers to different arms is broadly equitable, but subsequent career progression can become influenced by unequal command exposure and promotion opportunities.Professional military education must therefore evolve. The Army Training Command (ARTRAC), Staff College and other institutions should incorporate greater emphasis on Integrated Battle Groups, artificial intelligence, drone warfare, cyber operations, space capabilities, ISR, electronic warfare and cognitive warfare. Promotion examinations and command courses must prepare officers to operate confidently across multiple domains instead of reinforcing single-arm thinking.
All-Arms Synergy: Integration Without Dilution
All-arms synergy remains the foundation of successful military operations. Infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, signals, aviation, air defence, and logistics each possess unique expertise developed over decades. MDO seeks to integrate these capabilities—not blur or replace them.This must not mean overloading the infantry soldier with every new tool. Loitering munitions, micro-drones, and targeting uplinks help only if they enhance his primary task. Technology must strengthen, not replace, specialisation. Artillery remains the principal arm for long-range precision fires; signals, engineers, air defence, and aviation possess competencies built over decades. MDO requires integration without dilution of expertise.The Indian Army must move beyond the colonial General Staff model, which privileges Infantry to the maximum, while treating Artillery, Air Defence, Engineers, Signals, Aviation, and other Arms as secondary enablers. In the era of MDO and Integrated Battle Groups, this hierarchy has become an operational constraint. Modern battlefields demand leaders who understand sensor-to-shooter networks, electronic warfare, precision fires, mobility, counter-mobility, cyber, space and logistics as integral combat power, not as additions to an infantry-centric plan. Opening IBG and higher formation commands to officers from all arms on merit would align leadership with mission requirements, improve tactical flexibility, and broaden the intellectual base of the General Staff.Missile brigades raise a similar concern where units are commanded by artillery officers and brigade command becomes a general cadre appointment. If a missile brigade command is treated as adequate general staff experience, by the same analogy, officers who command artillery, AD, Engineer brigades and Signal Groups, should be eligible for Infantry or Mountain divisions thereafter, from tactical orientation, job content, and degree of difficulty of command, as they rate higher than or at worst equal to the missile brigades.
The Risk of Excessive Centralisation
Effective target destruction depends on an unbroken, near-zero-latency sensor-to shooter link. Artillery has long mastered this through observation, target acquisition, and massed fires. Excessive centralisation of high-value battlefield assets under higher headquarters risks weakening this competency. Separating target acquisition from gunners, placing ISR assets directly under General Staff, or assigning tactical UAVs to Army Aviation may sever the eyes from the fist.Kargil showed that success came not only from infantry courage but from integration of artillery, air power, and intelligence. Recent precision operations, including Operation Sindoor, have highlighted the value of intelligence, surveillance, long-range fires, drones, and information operations. The lesson is not that every asset must be pulled upwards, but that each must remain linked to the arm best placed to employ it in time. If ISR becomes a general intelligence appendage and UAVs become aviation centric rather than fire-support enablers, the kill chain may suffer delay, competing priorities and diluted responsibility.
Promotion Policy for the MDO Era
In the technological era of MDO, all arms—especially technical and semi-technical arms—must be credibly represented at higher command. Numerical weight alone should not shape promotion outcomes. If Infantry repeatedly dominates senior appointments while armour, mechanised infantry, artillery, air defence, aviation, signals, engineers, and others remain under-represented, the Army may signal that future war will still be led through a single-arm lens. Service Headquarters must ensure that policymaking, selection bodies, HR branches, and key appointments such as Military Secretary draw upon the broadest talent pool.The post-AVSC command-exit model up to Major General provides some balance through pro-rata promotions. At Lieutenant General level, however, promotions are merit-based, with some corps-specific vacancies and a majority open to all arms. Recent outcomes have raised concern that numerical dominance and policy influence may overshadow wider institutional merit. The Army should examine a balanced prorata-cum-merit model for above, combining representation and merit to sustain morale, fairness, and all-arms synergy.At Lieutenant General level, early deliberation is essential to prevent the perception of Infantry domination. One model could set aside specified corps vacancies and limited service-specific merit vacancies, then divide the balance, 70 per cent on pro-rata representation and 30 per cent on merit across all arms. If 80 vacancies were available, about 56 could be allotted pro-rata and 24 by merit.Staff appointments should be treated as repositories of talent and domain expertise, not as secondary to command.Rating tendencies across services must also be studied in a theatre environment so joint structures do not inherit service-specific biases under a new name.
Eliminating Parochialism
Lieutenant General Prakash Menon has warned that senior leadership selection in the Indian Army is often shaped by “inherited identity,” particularly the professional segment into which an officer is first inducted. This warning deserves attention. Regimental, corps, or lanyard affiliation must never appear to substitute for competence in modern war. The Army’s credibility rests on confidence that it rewards professional excellence, operational imagination, integrity, and multi-domain competence rather than identity, familiarity, or closed networks.Recent senior advancement patterns attract attention when officers sharing the same regimental or lanyard affiliation appear disproportionately at the highest levels during the tenure of a Chief with similar background. Such outcomes may be coincidental and merit-based; however, in an institution built on trust, even the perception of preferential nurturing deserves objective review. The issue is not to question individuals, but to ensure selection systems are visibly broad-based, professionally defensible, and resistant to any impression of regimental patronage.The theatre commanders’ model offers a useful principle: the size of a Service should not be the primary criterion for senior command appointments. Merit, competence and knowledge of the arm or Service likely to play the predominant role in a sector or terrain must guide selection. The same logic should inform Integrated Battle Groups, Rudra Brigades and corps-level command wherever operational realities require specialised knowledge.
Organisational Reform Beyond Structures
China’s military reforms, the United States’ Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative, and NATO’s emphasis on multi-domain integration point to the same reality: organisational culture and talent management are as important as weapons acquisition. India’s move towards theatre commands must therefore be matched by internal reform at Service Headquarters. Decision-making bodies must reflect the diversity of arms and expertise required for modern war. In a steep, rank-conscious organisation where confidential reports strongly influence careers, policy and selection processes must be insulated from monopolies, informal networks, and narrow group influence.Human resource and career management branches, selection bodies and Principal Staff Officer appointments should not be dominated by any single arm. Operational experience is vital, but acquisitions, maintenance, land management, logistics, administration, and personnel management also require domain expertise often found outside the General Staff stream, which existing earlier was changed for General Staff! HR policy branches should include visible representation from all arms; senior staff selection should draw on collective wisdom and proven talent; and appointments such as Military Secretary should be protected from becoming perceived preserves of Infantry. Diversity of background is not tokenism—it is an operational necessity and a safeguard against institutional blind spots.
Harnessing the Experience of Veterans
Retirement does not diminish professional knowledge. Many serving senior officers have limited experience of large-scale conventional warfare, making the insights of experienced veterans particularly valuable.Retired officers possessing expertise in operations, technology, logistics and human resource management should be engaged through structured discussions, doctrine development, and professional seminars. Such participation can enrich institutional learning while fully respecting the authority of serving commanders.India’s transformation towards Multi-Domain Operations has begun. The next stage must focus on the human dimension of military reform.Theatre commands, Integrated Battle Groups, and advanced technologies will succeed only if accompanied by modern personnel policies that encourage all-arms synergy, technical competence, broad leadership development, and transparent promotion systems.Force restructuring cannot stop with new organisational charts or revised designations. It must include comprehensive reforms in professional military education, career management, promotion policy, institutional representation, and organisational culture.Victory in future wars will depend not merely on advanced weapons or sophisticated doctrine but on the quality, diversity and fairness of the leadership system that commands them. If structural reforms outpace human resource reforms, India risks acquiring the language of multi-domain warfare without fully embracing its institutional spirit.
