CORE Programme 2026: Tri-Service Review Ends in New Delhi

Why this is worth noting

Every year the armed forces sit down with the civil side of government to take stock of what India faces and what it is equipped to handle. The 2026 edition of that exercise, the CORE Programme, wrapped up at the Manekshaw Centre in the capital.

Two bodies share the credit, and examiners like to separate them. The programme was put together by Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff. Running it was the job of the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies.

Who sat in the room

It ran five days, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth of September 2026. Around the table were senior officers drawn from all three Services, joined by civil servants from three ministries: Defence, External Affairs and Home Affairs. That combination is the point of the exercise, since a security question rarely belongs to any one of them alone.

The agenda

Talks ranged across how the Services work as one force, how ongoing conflicts are being fought, what has changed about warfare itself, and where production and capability need to catch up. Alongside these sat the quieter dimensions of security, the ones that involve no shooting at all.

Technology took up a fair share of the discussion. Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Quantum Computing were examined for what they might do on a battlefield. So were cognitive warfare, strategic communication and the business of countering disinformation.

Access to the top brass

What set this edition apart was how much time the leadership gave the participants. The Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of the Naval Staff and the CISC each spoke with the officers on the course, covering how decisions get taken at the apex and what the current threat picture looks like. The Vice Chief of Air Staff and the Vice Chief of Army Staff did the same.

Beyond uniform

The room was not limited to government. Specialists, university academics, think tanks and other public institutions were represented too, which widened the conversation about how the character of war is shifting and what a coordinated national answer would look like.

The takeaway

By putting the Services, the ministries and outside institutions on one platform, the programme worked at a problem India keeps returning to: departments that must act together but do not always plan together. The closing theme was that diplomacy, information, economics and military force have to move in step, an idea the participants summed up as a Whole-of-Nation approach to national security. Exercises built around cognitive warfare and strategic communication scenarios rounded off the week.