By Bhartendu Kumar Singh
For its geographical size and population, Pakistan is an overtly powerful military country. It ranks ninth in the military power ranking on globalfirepower.com website, despite its GDP size being forty-sixth and its per capita income $1,680 in 2024 (way behind Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh). Liberal budgetary allocations (often at the cost of neglecting other vital sectors) have contributed in the past to Pakistan’s rise as a recognised military and nuclear power. The huge rise of 17.6 per cent in Pakistan’s defence budget (24-25) a few days ago is just a continuation of pampering Pakistan’s military after a few years’ gap.
When the SIPRI Fact Sheet on ‘Trends in world military expenditure, 2023’ was published this April, Pakistan gave an impression of restraining its defence budget. Pakistan’s decadal growth rate of defence expenditure was only 13 per cent, an impressive figure by all standards. In 23-24, it was supposed to have spent $8.5 billion. Its global ranking in defence spending came down from 24 in 22-23 to 30 in 23-24. Now that Pakistan’s defence budget for the year 24-25 has gone up, strategic experts in Pakistan may have readymade excuses like threat from India, disturbances on Afghanistan front and so on.
Pakistan may be a respectable military power but it masks a sense of hollowness when the usage pattern of defence budget is subjected to scrutiny. First, Pakistan still has an under-developed domestic military industrial complex (MIC) with the exception of nuclear and missile technology. It does not have a single company in the top 100 arms producing companies. There is complete militarisation of defence production business wherein the generals preside upon the destiny of most weapons companies. For example, a serving military officer always leads the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Board (POF) in Wah area. So is the case of most of its 14 production units. Collectively, they supply to the domestic market and export around $100 million abroad. The performance is, however, much below their potential.
Second, Pakistan has always had a high share of imported weapons. Presently, it is the fifth largest arms importer in the world. As per SIPRI Fact Sheet ‘Trends in international arms transfers, 2023’ published in March 2024, Pakistan accounted for 2.9 percent of global arms imports during 2014-19, which increased to 4.3 per cent during 2019-23. Pakistan imports almost half of what India does, despite having only one-tenth defence budget than the latter. Given the precarious foreign exchange reserves, high imports do strain other sectors.
Third, Pakistan’s arms imports are completely monopolised by China. As per SIPRI estimates, 82 per cent of its arms imports came from China during 2019-23, as against 69 per cent during 2014-18, and 51 per cent during 2009-13. While Pakistan may declare these rising figures as an attestation to its friendship with China, it also implies that Pakistan is not able to diversify its imports basket and does not have an import-substitution policy. Imported weapons make only hollow military powers since supply-chain logistics get disturbed during war or crisis times. In Pakistan’s case, there is also the problem of poor-quality weapons supplies from China that do not have many takers elsewhere in the world.
Fourth, for its geographical size and population, Pakistan maintains an elephantine armed force. It has the world’s seventh largest armed force, numbering around 6,50,000 active personnel, almost half of India’s force size. Unlike many other countries, Pakistan still has an armed force in colonial mold that refuses to reform itself. The garrison state attitude in Pakistan ensures that external reforms in other countries’ armed forces are not readily accepted and replicated. Consequently, Pakistan spends a huge portion of its defence budget merely on salaries and maintenance.
Pakistan generals are the biggest culprits behind this reality-bite in Pakistan’s so-called military prowess. They are a ‘state within a state’. A career in the Army is considered as a dream career for any youngster in Pakistan. While they themselves live a lavish life both during and after the service due to heavy subsidization by the Government, they do not care much about Pakistan’s hopeless defence economy. For instance, the Military Accountant General (MAG) in Pakistan, despite being a civilian officer, is under the complete control of the generals in Rawalpindi. He is placed quite low in the warrant of precedence at 19th position, whereas even a Brigadier is placed above him at 15th position. The MAG is, therefore, not able to perform his accounting or audit functions in an independent manner. Consequently, Pakistan’s entire military accounting and audit system is in shambles!
The MAG’s inefficiency has allowed the generals to make a mess of the defence budget. The Transparency International has placed Pakistan’s defence budget in the ‘least transparent’ category. Many aspects of Pakistan’s defence budget are not transparent. For example, defence pensions are as high as 31 per cent of the defence budget and kept separate from the defence budget under a civil head. It will soon rise beyond manageable proportions. There is also a very high level of corruption. Often, funds from the defence budget are diverted to a number of companies being operated by and for the Pakistan armed forces. Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani defence economist, has called these thriving entities as ‘milbus’ that have defied all reform attempts so far!
The ongoing economic crisis was an opportunity for the Pakistan generals to do a course correction by putting a cap on their defence budget until things ease out and the economy improves. However, the self-serving generals do not care for Pakistan or for that matter, the other pressing economic issues in their country. Unfortunately, the people of Pakistan do not have a way out of these generals who thrive on public money as parasites in an endemic and perpetual manner. Probably, they will have to wait for some remote possibility of reforms in Pakistan’s defence economics to optimise the defence budget.
The author is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service.
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