The Economic Crunch and Rising Defense Expenditures of Pakistan: Issues and Problems

• Main Authors: Muhammad Kaleem, Prof. Dr. Shah Jehan, Abdul Manan
• Format: Article
• Language: Arabic
• Published: SZIC University of Peshawar 2007-12-01
• Series: الإيضاح
• Online Access: http://al-idah.szic.pk/index.php/al-idah/article/view/414

Pakistan’s military top brass had never got so susceptible to such wide criticism from masses. A myriad of reasons can be attributed to this deluge of critique write-ups. This study, contrary to the popular trends, seeks and discusses some rationale behind the defense budgetary allocations of Pakistan. The study aims to analyze the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) along with threat perceptions of Pakistan with a view to assess the defense expenditure and work out rational recommendations. The premise of research is to sketch our new paradigms of internal threats and the resulting sizeable deployments of military resources in tribal unrest areas. Its approach consists of mixed methodology, mostly relying on secondary data, obtained by some numerical crunching of military statistics, financial journals, handouts, periodicals and economic reviews. The details of internal threat perceptions and military capability to cope with it are directed from qualitative analysis, observations and discussions with academicians and intellectuals. It is further supplemented with the reasons underlying the fallout of insurgency in Afghanistan which on the one hand proved to be a stimulus of tribal uprising in Pakistan and on the other, caused a massive reshuffle in pecking order of American designs of regional manipulation. It concludes with recommendations of self-sustained armed forces as “the best way to avoid war is to be prepared for it”. Besides the threats must be offset with development of agriculture sector, construction of directly needed water reservoirs and technology transfer on priority basis to boost GDP and per capita income.