Daily Times

Undeniably, the traditional core of Pakistan’s national security is justifiably emblematic of our defence spending which remains paramount to sustaining a credible deterrence accompanied by the uncompromising response to our defence and geopolitical challenges posed to our western and eastern borders. Pakistan’s defence policy/ military spending has largely remained India-centric. The exponential increase in India’s current defence expenditure/ military arsenal is much alarming for regional peace. Though the urge of a paradigm shift in our budget-dashboard holds leverage, albeit, in the given scenario, a restraint approach towards our defence spending is not advisable. Our sovereignty and security imperatives are interwoven with each other.

The Pakistani search for a fifth-generation fighter aircraft notwithstanding, Islamabad has recently bought military equipment from China, Italy, Russia and Turkey. But verily, the imports only comprise limited major weapons systems and have reduced by over 30 per cent as compared to 2010. Yet discernibly, the GHQ seems not to be in a mood to redefine its options and pragmatically this notion holds a considerable justification. The fact remains that Covid-19 would bring no intrinsic change in military expenditure. As for our national security concern, we can’t resign to our economic limitations. Pakistan Navy’s recent missile test is the endorsement of this fact.

While looking into Pakistan’s budgetary dynamics reflected within the last three years, we find that The Government of Pakistan announced a 2019-20 defence budget of PKR1.15 trillion (USD7.6 billion), a 1.3% increase over the revised military expenditure in 2018-19. The previous defence budget – announced on 11 June – amounts to about 16% of total government expenditure for the year and about 3% of GDP. However, the lack of growth in the allocation was attributed by the government to “austerity measures”, a reflection of the continuing fiscal challenges facing the South Asian country. Budgetary documents released by the Ministry of Finance show that the bulk of defence spending in 2019-20 was allocated to employee-related expenses, which receives PKR450.4 billion, a 5.5% increase against the revised budget for 2018-19.

Fortunately, today Pakistan has received commitments of $2.7 billion from the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank to meet the challenges of our derailing economy

In this regard, we cannot ignore the impending notion of our national security vis-à-vis the South Asian perspectives. Notably, the South Asian history is largely marred in multiple inter- and intra-state conflicts: most exclusively–India and Pakistan belligerent relationship. The rivalry between India and Pakistan vindicated by the dynamics of power relations continue to be driven by hostility, lack of trust, conflict and war. Insecurity, fear and suspicion of the other continue to keep South Asia as the ‘nuclear flash point-more clearly engulfed by the Kashmir issue. In this context, the scope of regional Peace, cooperation, the economic partnership remains elusive. The relations between Islamabad and New Delhi fundamentally shape the political and strategic outlook of the South Asian region.

A South Asian expert Stephen Philip Cohen astutely argued: “One of the most important puzzles of India-Pakistan relations is not why the smaller Pakistan feels encircled and threatened, but why the larger India does”. India’s growing geopolitical position in the region, sharing a border with most of the South Asian states, enflames its aspiration to become the powerful state in the region. With the rise of Narendra Modi in 2014 power in India, the South Asian strategic culture has become more inflammatory and hostile towards Pakistan. And further, the ongoing mistrust accompanied by the threat perception, and security dilemma have virtually accelerated a continual arms race including nuclear and conventional weapons in the sub-continent–where both Islamabad and New Delhi are ensnared in hardware myopia of requiring traditional military approaches/doctrines for attaining national security.

Though the argument that with India’s economy expanding at a much higher pace than Pakistan’s – India’s GDP is growing at +7%, whereas, Pakistan’s GDP growth still hovers around the 4% mark – and given that the existing Indian economy is already nearly 8 times the size of Pakistan’s economy, essentially in economic terms India virtually adds one whole of Pakistan’s total economic turnover to its economy every year. Put in simple terms, India’s armed forces are readily expanding in the same proportion thereby adding to their military might every year equivalent to the whole of Pakistan’s annual defence budget.

Indian federal government has announced $66.9 billion defence budget for fiscal year 2020/21 which represents a 9.4 percent increase in Modi’s overall allocation as compared to the allocation for the previous fiscal year 2019. According to the Indian government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB), the defence budget accounted for 15.49 percent of the federal government’s total expenditure for the upcoming fiscal year. During a recent visit of President Trump to India in February 2020, both the US and India agreed to develop their defence cooperation by signing US$ 3 billion dollar deal. History of India-Pakistan defence rivalry is paramount to understanding the strategic logic to maintain our defence spending .The Pakistani military is justified in maintaining its security and diplomatic balance/competition with Modi’s India (whose growing belligerence towards Pakistan has become the core of Modi’s South Asia policy).

While setting the priorities of our national budget last year, the Finance minister Hafeez Sheikh said, ”Pakistan is Placed in a difficult neighbourhood, it was the most important thing for a sovereign country”. He said, adding “Nevertheless, we are all on the same page whether these are civilians or armed forces that there should be serious, sustained and structured reforms through difficult decisions and all would participate in this effort and you would see this in the new budget”. It goes obvious that the ground realities remain unchanged and hence, by no means, Islamabad could hardly rethink to revise our military budget. Nonetheless, compromising on our defence spending will be a bad fit for our national defence. Objectively, given the national security exigency our defence spending –automatically takes a higher priority than allocating resources for more productive purposes like education and healthcare.

Fortunately, today Pakistan has received commitments of $2.7 billion from the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank to meet the challenges of our derailing economy. And also most importantly, the G20 debt relief has earned it another $1.8 billion. This cumulative amount is significant given that the country is currently part of a $6 billion IMF program. International lenders such as the IMF are likely to be more lenient on the government if it fails to meet budgetary targets. As a nation, we have to unitedly confront the forthcoming challenges—eying us in the phase of a corona-led crisis. Our resolve to have no compromise on our national security remains the echo of our national conscience. Therefore, while crafting the budget (for the economic year 2020-2021), the Government has to pragmatically manage our defence needs by prioritising our enviable national security imperatives.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan