Amidst the newly instilled sense of pride following the successful completion of Operation Bunyan al Marsoos a surge of public trust in the military swept across the country. It marked the Pakistani military’s undisputed superiority, especially with the momentous downing of as many as five warplanes. Alongside calls for a ceasefire, there emerged a palpable sense of reassurance and triumph: a belief that Pakistan had decisively won a war against its long-standing rival neighbour, whose self-initiated and embarrassing attack was cloaked in the rhetoric of self-defence.
Yet, behind the scenes, silent players continue to observe the situation from afar. These are the bigger players-the military-industrial complex-who profit directly from such warmongering and have little concern for the cost of two rival neighbours sliding into conflict.
Defence contractors, who view war as a business opportunity and military conflict as a means to field-test their weaponry, count the dollars pouring into their pockets-not the lives lost on the battlefield. The performance of their prized inventions, more than diplomatic negotiations or humanitarian concerns, often determines the direction of the global war economy. This dynamic was recently on full display: just two days after reports emerged that Pakistan had shot down multiple Indian warplanes-including Rafales-France’s Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of the Rafale fighter jet, experienced a 3.3 percent plunge in its share value. In stark contrast, China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC), the producer of Pakistan’s J-10C and JF-17 jets said to have been used in the operation, saw its shares surge by more than 30 percent. In essence, Western defence contractors were left reeling-and the global war economy shifted overnight.
Defence contractors, who view war as a business opportunity and military conflict as a meansto field-test their weaponry, count the dollars pouring into their pockets-not the lives lost on the battlefield.
The Telegraph reported: “At 4 a.m. on Wednesday, China’s ambassador to Pakistan hurried to the foreign ministry to celebrate an unprecedented military success.” This was, therefore, not merely an Indo-Pak conflict-it was a confrontation that, like many before it, drew the world’s superpowers into an indirect display of their military capabilities. This time, Chinese weaponry emerged as the superior force. Hu Xijin, former editor of the Chinese state-owned
Global Times, remarked that the battle demonstrated how “China’s level of military manufacturing has completely surpassed that of Russia and France.” The peripheries, once again, became experimental ground for the centres of power-a place where the global elite tested the profitability of their war machines. Consequently, also changing the global security situation such as that in Taiwan.
But this is not the first time. Kashmiri, Pakistani, and Indian blood has long been spilled-not just to feed into the legitimacy of Modi’s regime, but to sustain the military-industrial complex in both countries. These are not wars waged for strategic dominance or any meaningful post-conflict peace. Rather, they are the result of carefully orchestrated emotional engineering, designed to manufacture consent for war.
And we need not look far for a blueprint. The so-called “mediators” of this ceasefire offer the clearest example. Perhaps, no country exemplifies the success of the war economy more than the United States-a nation whose trillion-dollar military-industrial complex has been thriving because of the blood shed by countless victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Even today, Palestinian blood continues to fuel this relentless machine. A
After all, who got rich from the 20-year war in Afghanistan? And whose legacy is being carried forward in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians? Every bomb dropped on Gaza, every missile fired, every drone strike launched, and every tank deployed translates into soaring stock prices and widening profit margins for arms manufacturers and their political backers. The occupation of Palestine is not only a political project; it is an economic enterprise-one in which defence contractors, arms dealers, and war profiteers thrive off the endless flow of Western military aid.
Unfortunately, this industry not only costs trillions of dollars but also comes with an enormous human cost. Every dollar spent on weapons is a dollar stolen from food, healthcare, education, and human dignity. Military spending is draining global resources in a world already grappling with violence, hunger, disease, and economic instability. The Middle East remains the largest market for American weapons-a grim testament to just how deeply entrenched the war economy has become, and how urgent it is to dismantle it.
Closer to home, the military-industrial complexes in Pakistan and India once again will likely seize upon this moment as an opportunity to demand a greater share of the national budget-justified, as always, by the looming threat of a nuclear neighbour. Once more, the nations of the Global South are forced to divert their already scarce resources towards arms and defence-often in the name of protecting themselves from more powerful, heavily militarised adversaries.
The writer is a law student at Lahore University of Management Sciences.