As the crisis in East Pakistan progressed, following the intervention by India, the top military brass had the full control of the military and state's affairs. In the absence of the joint staff mechanism, the defence plans and executions of operations were oversaw by each inter-service which affected the overall performance of the armed forces. Coordination between each inter-service became increasingly difficult. In a thesis written by Pervez Cheema, the 1971 war was fought "without a purpose and with total lack of coordination between the civil effort and the armed forces, and between four fighting services: the Army, Navy and Air Force." Furthermore, the federal studies also noted that the top military brass had alienated the Army, Navy and Air Force. in which, none weren't taken in confidence, and the joint efforts were unsupported at either a planning or operational level, and were also constrained over disagreements during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Due to lack of complete and comprehensive communication, each services blamed the others for operational failures.