Pakistan Defence Budget: Can it compete rising Indian Military Ambitions
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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has increased its defence budget allocation by 11% in recently allocated budget 2016-17.
The defence allocation has been increased from Rs. 775.8 billions to Rs. 860.1 billions registering an increase of Rs. 85 billions.
Out of total defence budget allocation Pakistan Army share stands at 47% , Pakistan Navy gets around 10% while Pakistan Air Force budgetary allocation stands at 20%.
Out of the total defence budget only Rs. 216 billions are earmarked for the operational expenses while the rest of the amount goes into the employees related expenditures and the physical assets.
On the other hand India's defence budget has seen a tremendous rise from $11.8 billions in 2001 to $ 52 billions in year 2016.
Pakistan spends $ 8000 on a soldier annually while India spends $17, 500 per soldier annually.
India recently announced its 2016-17 fiscal budget and defense got $52 billion, 2.25% of India’s GDP. In real terms though the Indian defense budget would be even higher since pensions, border forces, and nuclear warheads/missile development are not included in this amount.
In comparison Pakistan’s defense budget is the lowest in the region. It spends roughly the same allocation as a percentage of GDP (2.30%), but we all know that Pakistan’s GDP is much smaller than that of India; about one eighth.
Last year, India overtook Germany to rank at number 8 in the list of countries with the highest military expenditure. It spent more money on National Defense than countries like Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Italy and Canada.
Pakistan on the other hand ranks at number 27 on the Global Index of Defense Budgets and in 2015-16 spent about $7 billion in its military budget. By the year 2020, India is expected to emerge as the third-biggest country in terms of defense-related expenditures, behind the USA at number 1 and China at number 2.
India is expected to spend a whopping $70 billion in the year 2020 on Military Power Projection leaving Pakistan so far behind that it would be virtually impossible for Pakistan to even dream of matching the Indian military spending.
India is building and inducting Aircraft Carriers, Su-30MKI jets, artillery guns, stealth destroyers, stealth frigates, conventional and nuclear submarines, various offensive and defensive missile systems, military satellites, new mountain strike corps, attack helicopters and much more every year.
Pakistan’s economy in comparison to its Indian counterpart has serious size limitations, but in wake of such weapon frenzy by India, it will be foolhardy for it to sit idle and not work on developing a credible defense to safeguard its sovereignty.
Pakistan has been facing the threat of Indian aggression since its inception in 1947. Pakistan and India have fought two full scale wars in 1965 and 1971 while many small scale conflicts have also been witnessed between the two nuclear armed neighbors.
The rising military might of India depicted not only in defence budgetary allocations despite of being the house to world's most poor people is matter of serious concern for Pakistan.
Indian Armed Forces modernisation plan to match the Chinese Military might has disturbed the strategic military balance in the South Asian region.
The rising strategic imbalance in South Asia in terms of traditional military imbalance is matter of great concern for the strategists in Pakistan.
Indian ambitions of military might and the defence allocations rise depicts the increasing threat to Pakistan National Security in times to come.
