NEW DELHI: The Indian military establishment has raised a new group as part of a structural reorganisation exercise to keep an eye on the new technologies across the globe.
“The Future Analysis and Operations Group (FAOG) has been created as part of the Headquarters (HQ) Integrated Defence Staff with a dedicated manpower,” said a source in the Ministry of Defence.
The HQ IDS works as a point organisation for jointmanship in the MoD which integrates policy, doctrine, war fighting and procurement of arms and equipment.
“The stimulus for FAOG, under the reorganisation exercise, are the changes in warfare and lessons drawn from the recent wars like the Russia-Ukraine, Hamas-Israel, Azerbaijan-Armenia, etc, and a structure was created having the direction to recommend,” the source said.
A direction was sent to all the services to create a similar set-up on modern warfare in their structures and allocate resources. The FAOG started functioning about six months back and a Future Warfare Fund was created to “join hands with the agencies, think tanks, academics, research institutes and specialists for their recommendation, direction and guidance to empower FAOG.”
The FAOG will club the ideas from the services and build synergy. Ultimately, the work is expected to assist with required, ““reorientation, re-ORBATing and re-equipping the forces.”
Re-ORBATting refers to the process of reorganising and restructuring military forces, often involving changes to their order of battle (ORBAT), which is a list of the units and their capabilities. The FAOG, under the HQ IDS, has come up with a “clear responsibility and accountability fixed.”
The HQ IDS was raised on October 1, 2001, to provide an institutional framework for managing defence at a higher level, and integrate the three Services and other relevant elements in the quest of credible and comprehensive national power.
India’s war-fighting machinery/organisations are being reorganised to meet the needs of the technology-led modern warfare.
To enumerate reorganisation from the top, the three services (Army, Navy and Air Force) will be eventually reset into Integrated Theatre Commands (ITCs).
Presently the three services fight the war independently with the geographical area being looked after by their 17 Commands (seven each of the Army and Air Force and three of Navy).
The reorganization, leading eventually to the ITCs, is being executed in multiple ways and at various levels. Training, promotion, posting and financial planning are just a few of them.