Redefining ‘Centralised Command–Distributed Control–Decentralised Execution’

The Indian Air Force’s latest doctrine adopts ‘Joint Planning, Centralised Command, Distributed Control, Decentralised Execution’ (CC–DC–DE) as the guiding principle for air operations. Indian Air Force (IAF) is the only organisation to have adopted the entire CC–DC–DE framework verbatim from the United States Air Force (USAF) doctrine. However, IAF’s doctrinal treatment remains declaratory. This article analyses doctrines across the IAF, USAF, NATO, the UK, France, Australia and China to argue that doctrinal adoption without local contextualisation has rendered the CC–DC–DE framework operationally inadequate for the IAF. In turn, it forecloses its potential to guide C2 for joint warfighting.

The article analyses India’s own strategic tradition. It draws on the Arthashastra, the Mahabharata, and Shivaji’s Maratha campaigns to trace the logic of ‘CC–DC–DE’. The article reconceptualises the framework to align Centralised Command as Strategic Coherence, Distributed Control as Operational Coordination, and Decentralised Execution as Tactical Convergence. The argument is simple—India does not need to import a command logic for its joint force. India needs to recognise and articulate the one it already has.