On 20 June 2026, addressing personnel at the Eastern Air Command (EAC) Headquarters in Shillong, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh stressed that technological agility, strategic foresight and institutional innovation are essential for robust defence preparedness in an increasingly uncertain world order. He named hybrid threats, cyber and information warfare, logistics resilience, supply-chain security and drones as critical emerging elements of conflict, declared that "Aatmanirbharta is key to national security on our own terms," and cited the message of Operation Sindoor on safeguarding security and sovereignty. For NDA and CDS aspirants, this single address maps almost the entire "emerging warfare and higher-defence reform" syllabus.
The changing character of warfare
Modern conflict is no longer confined to tanks, ships and fighter aircraft meeting across a clear front line. The character of warfare is shifting toward contests waged below the threshold of open war. Key concepts examiners now expect:
- Hybrid / grey-zone warfare — the blending of conventional force with irregular tactics, economic coercion, proxies and disinformation, deliberately kept below the level that would trigger a full military response.
- Cyber warfare — attacks on networks, critical infrastructure, power grids and command systems.
- Information and psychological warfare — shaping perceptions through propaganda, deepfakes and social-media manipulation.
- Drone, unmanned and counter-drone systems — cheap, attritable platforms that have transformed surveillance and strike, demanding equally capable counter-UAS defences.
- Electronic warfare — jamming, spoofing and protecting the electromagnetic spectrum.
- Space as a war-fighting domain — satellites for communication, navigation and ISR, and the threats to them.
- Artificial Intelligence in defence — decision support, autonomous systems and data fusion.
The exam-relevant takeaway is that logistics resilience and supply-chain security — which the Raksha Mantri singled out — are now treated as front-line concerns, because a force that cannot sustain itself or source critical components cannot fight a prolonged conflict. The lesson from recent global conflicts is stark: a state that depends on a single external supplier for ammunition, spares or microelectronics can be coerced simply by the threat of cut-off. This is why supply-chain security and indigenous production are now spoken of in the same breath as deterrence.
Aspirants should also be able to distinguish the domains of warfare. Classical warfare recognised land, sea and air; contemporary doctrine adds space and cyber as the fourth and fifth domains, with the electromagnetic spectrum and the cognitive (information) domain increasingly treated as battlegrounds in their own right. A conflict fought across all of these simultaneously is described as multi-domain operations — a phrase examiners are beginning to use, and one that captures why "jointness" among the services is no longer optional.
India's higher-defence reforms
The institutional response to this changing landscape is the cluster of higher-defence reforms every aspirant must know. The keystone is the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a post created in 2020 with General Bipin Rawat as the first incumbent. The CDS is the single-point military adviser to the government on tri-service matters and heads the newly created Department of Military Affairs (DMA) within the Ministry of Defence.
The reform agenda's central goal is jointness — the move toward Integrated Theatre Commands, under which assets of the Army, Navy and Air Force in a given geography would operate under a single commander rather than as three separate services. This is the most significant restructuring of the Indian armed forces since independence, and current-affairs items track its progress closely; our NDA current-affairs hub follows these developments cycle by cycle.
It is worth distinguishing the existing tri-service (joint) bodies from the proposed theatre commands:
- Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC) — India's first and only existing tri-service geographical command, set up in 2001.
- Strategic Forces Command (SFC) — manages India's nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
- Defence Cyber Agency, Defence Space Agency (DSA) and the Armed Forces Special Operations Division — tri-service agencies created to handle the new domains, designed to grow into full commands.
The proposed theatre commands are widely discussed as likely to include a Northern (China-facing) theatre, a Western (Pakistan-facing) theatre and a Maritime theatre — though the exact structure is still being finalised, so aspirants should describe the concept rather than commit to numbers. The underlying idea is integration of resources, training, procurement and doctrine so that the three services fight as one coherent force in a given theatre. The reform also created the post of the Vice Chief of Defence Staff and strengthened the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), which supports the CDS. Understanding the chain of command — political control through the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Nuclear Command Authority for strategic weapons, and the service chiefs for raising, training and sustaining their forces — is exactly the kind of structured knowledge that scores in both the written exam and the SSB conference.
IAF Commands and the Eastern Air Command
Because the announcement was made at the Eastern Air Command, Shillong, aspirants should know the structure of the Indian Air Force, which is organised into seven commands — five operational and two functional:
- Operational: Western (New Delhi area), Eastern (Shillong), Central (Prayagraj), South Western (Gandhinagar) and Southern (Thiruvananthapuram) Air Commands.
- Functional: Training Command (Bengaluru) and Maintenance Command (Nagpur).
The Eastern Air Command's area of responsibility covers the strategically critical North-East and the frontier with China — which is precisely why a message on preparedness and emerging threats was delivered there. The EAC operates from forward bases and Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) in Arunachal Pradesh and the eastern Himalaya, sustaining air power across some of the most demanding terrain in the world. For comparison, candidates should also recall that the Indian Army is organised into seven commands (including the Eastern Command at Kolkata) and the Indian Navy into three (Western at Mumbai, Eastern at Visakhapatnam, Southern at Kochi) — a common matching item in NDA GK. The reason a Defence Minister's "future of warfare" message lands at an air command is that air and space power, ISR and rapid logistics are the elements most transformed by the emerging-warfare technologies he listed.
Aatmanirbharta and the Operation Sindoor lesson
Aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) in defence is the policy backbone of the preparedness drive. The instruments aspirants should cite are the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 — which prioritises the Buy (Indian-IDDM) category — the innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) platform that funds start-ups and MSMEs, the successive Positive Indigenisation Lists that bar imports of listed items, and the resulting record defence production and exports. The strategic logic is simple: weapons and components sourced abroad can be cut off in a crisis, so self-reliance buys freedom of action — "national security on our own terms."
It is also worth knowing the wider self-reliance ecosystem: the two Defence Industrial Corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the 2021 corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board into seven new DPSUs, and the steady rise in defence exports to a record level — India now supplies platforms and components to dozens of countries. The strategic payoff is twofold: a domestic industrial base that cannot be embargoed in a crisis, and the foreign-policy leverage that comes from being an arms exporter rather than only an importer.
The Raksha Mantri's reference to Operation Sindoor underlines this. Indian-developed systems are reported to have performed well during the operation, validating years of indigenisation investment and offering a concrete data point for the SSB lecturette on self-reliance. Aspirants should frame Operation Sindoor in their answers as evidence that indigenisation is not merely an economic policy but an operational necessity — a force can only fight "on its own terms" if its critical weapons, sensors and software are made and maintained at home. India's nuclear doctrine — credible minimum deterrence and a declared No First Use posture — completes the strategic picture; deterrence remains the bedrock even as the tools of sub-conventional conflict multiply. Aspirants building this into a structured plan can explore the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was created in which year? (a) 2017 (b) 2019 (c) 2020 (d) 2022 → (c) — Created in 2020, with General Bipin Rawat as the first CDS.
Q2. The Chief of Defence Staff heads which newly created department in the MoD? (a) Department of Defence Production (b) Department of Military Affairs (c) Department of Defence R&D (d) Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare → (b) — The Department of Military Affairs (DMA).
Q3. India's only existing tri-service geographical command is the: (a) Strategic Forces Command (b) Western Command (c) Andaman & Nicobar Command (d) Eastern Air Command → (c) — The Andaman & Nicobar Command, set up in 2001.
Q4. "Grey-zone warfare" is best described as: (a) Conflict fought only at night (b) Coercion kept below the threshold of open war (c) Nuclear exchange (d) Naval blockade → (b) — Activity deliberately kept below the level that triggers a full military response.
Q5. The Eastern Air Command of the IAF is headquartered at: (a) Prayagraj (b) Shillong (c) Gandhinagar (d) Nagpur → (b) — Shillong, covering the North-East and the China frontier.
Q6. India's nuclear command authority manages its arsenal through the: (a) Defence Space Agency (b) Strategic Forces Command (c) Defence Cyber Agency (d) DRDO → (b) — The Strategic Forces Command (SFC).
Q7. Under DAP 2020, the most favoured acquisition category for self-reliance is: (a) Buy (Global) (b) Buy and Make (c) Buy (Indian-IDDM) (d) Lease → (c) — Buy (Indian-IDDM) — indigenously designed, developed and manufactured.
Q8. India's declared nuclear doctrine rests on credible minimum deterrence and: (a) First Use (b) Massive Retaliation only (c) No First Use (d) Launch on Warning → (c) — A declared No First Use posture.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
NDA and CDS GK papers probe defence reform through dependable angles: the year the CDS was created (2020) and its first incumbent; the Department of Military Affairs; distinguishing the existing tri-service ANC and SFC from the proposed Integrated Theatre Commands; and listing the seven IAF commands with their headquarters. Emerging-warfare terms — hybrid/grey-zone, cyber, electronic and information warfare, the Defence Space Agency and Defence Cyber Agency — are increasingly tested as one-liners. The SSB GD and lecturette routinely pose the analytical "is India ready for future war?" or "why does self-reliance matter?" framing, where Aatmanirbharta, DAP 2020 and iDEX make strong supporting points. The fresh 2026 hook — the Shillong address and the Operation Sindoor validation of indigenous systems — is exactly the current event examiners attach to static reform questions to reward candidates who follow the news.
Stay exam-ready with The Cavalier. Defence reforms and warfare concepts evolve fast — bookmark our NDA current-affairs hub for monthly updates and explore the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi to master the GK and SSB syllabus with ex-Army faculty.
✍️ Written by Col Vijyanat Thakur — Veteran, Indian Army; SSB & defence-studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.
The Cavalier, founded by ex-Army officers, has trained NDA/CDS/SSB aspirants since 2001 (Facebook · YouTube).
Source: Ministry of Defence PIB release, 20 June 2026 (PRID 2275812). Facts cross-verified.