New Delhi: Indian Army and Indian navy have formalized a framework for closer institutional cooperation, signing a memorandum of association on affiliation in New Delhi on May 14, in a move the two services said reflects the operational demands of modern warfare.
The memorandum was signed by Lt Gen VPS Kaushik, adjutant general of the Indian army, and Vice Admiral Gurcharan Singh, chief of personnel of the Indian navy.
Lt Gen Dhiraj Seth, vice chief of the army staff, and Vice Admiral Sanjay Vatsayan, vice chief of the naval staff, were present at the ceremony.
The agreement seeks to establish structured linkages between formations, regiments, institutions, establishments and ships of the two services – covering professional exchanges, joint activities and mutual familiarization with operational practices.
Affiliations between army and navy units have existed informally for decades, but this memorandum is intended to regularize and expand such ties under a common framework.
Both services pointed to Operation Sindoor – India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2026, which involved coordinated strikes against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir – as evidence of the operational value of inter-service coordination.
The operation, which reportedly included the army, navy and air force working in concert, has since become a reference point in Indian military discourse on jointness.
India has long acknowledged a structural gap in how its three services coordinate, a challenge that successive defence reviews and the creation of the chief of defence staff post in 2019 have sought to address.
The establishment of theatre commands – integrated operational structures combining assets from multiple services – has been under deliberation for several years, though progress has been gradual.
Bilateral memoranda of this kind are seen as incremental steps toward building the habits of cooperation that theatre command structures would require.
The memorandum is also expected to encourage personnel from each service to develop a clearer understanding of the other’s operating environment. Naval operations in the Indian Ocean region – where China’s expanding presence has added strategic pressure and army operations along the northern and western land borders represent distinct domains, but ones that military planners argue must be conceived jointly in future contingencies.
The agreement does not specify which units will be affiliated or the pace at which affiliations will be established; those details are expected to be worked out between the two services in subsequent arrangements. The memorandum is meant to set broad guidelines and a common intent rather than prescribe operational specifics.
The signing follows similar inter-service affiliation efforts in recent years, including agreements between the army and the air force, as the armed forces work toward a model of operations that reduces dependence on single-service planning and execution.
