How much Pakistan spends on Defence?
Every Year with the Announcement of Annual Budget, the questions arises that how much Pakistan spends on Defence? Enemies Abroad & their Supporters within along with Some Ill-informed Friends. start saying that Pakistan Spends half of its Budget on Defence.
In this article, we will check the facts based on Data and try to answer this Propaganda with a factual approach and will be able to know how much Pakistan spends on Defence?.
Pakistan due to its Important Strategic Location and Islamic Ideology is under the threat spectrum of several countries. On the other hand, due to enemies’ nexus Pakistani Borders (Western, Eastern & Southern to some extent) has become an active conflict zone over the past two decades.
Notably, the country’s defence budget decided based on a threat from enemy number one. In this perspective, India’s Defence Budget and Military Strength are 5 Times higher than Pakistan.
We can see the same variance among China & India concerning Military Strength & Defence Spendings. This imbalance of Military Power clearly visible in recent India, China Escalation. In recent India, China stand-off on Line of Actual control we saw so-called 4th largest Military Power of the world (India) remained a sitting duck against a strong opponent.
Meanwhile, India’s analysts, Government & retired military officials that rant off & on against Pakistan, were absolutely silent on the recent escalation with China.
On checking the stats, we can see a clear picture of Defence Spending share of Pakistan’s accumulative Budget and comparison between defence, education sector spending’s.
Defence Share of Budget?
The first question raised on the defence budget is “What is the share of Defence in Total Budget of Pakistan?”
The answer is, it is neither 50% nor 80% of the Total Budget. Instead, the current fiscal year total budget is 44 Billion USD, Pakistan allocated 7.9 Billion USD for Defence. Which is 17.9% of the Accumulated Allocated Budget for the fiscal Year 2020-21.
Notably, over the past 8 fiscal years, Pakistan’s spending on defence fluctuated between 15 to 18% of the Total Budget. So quoting it 50% is thoroughly wrong.
Education Vs Pakistan’s Defence Spending?
Second Major allegation on Pakistan’s Budget is; that it spends more on defence as compared to education. After 18th Amendment Education & Health Sector are in Provincial domains while Defence is Federal subject.
So few ill-informed people started comparing the defence budget with Federal Education budget which allocates education budget for HEC & educational institution under Federal Jurisdiction.
For the said comparison one has to compare defence spending with Accumulative Education Budget of Provinces and Federal Govt.
Provincial budgets for the current fiscal year not announced yet. So we are sharing last year stats to see the actual picture.
Last fiscal year, Federal & Provincial Governments allocated PK Rs. 947/- Billion in total for Education Sector and PK Rs. 1100/- Billion for Defence by Pakistan.
Against GDP share (last year) the education budget sits at 2.5% of the GDP while the defence budget is at 2.6% of the GDP which is merely 0.1% higher than that of the Education budget share against the GDP.
Annual Spending on a Soldier
The other aspect is to see annual defence spending’s per soldier against different countries; For example, last year the US Spends $ 425,000/- per Anum on each soldier, Saudi Arabia Spends 360,000/- US $ per soldier, China 70,000/- Turkey 37,000/- US Dollars, India 18,000/- and Pakistan spends only 9,000/- US Dollars per year on each soldier.
As per the current fiscal year defence budget, per soldier spendings are mentioned in the graph below.
Ranking & Spending’s
Pakistan is at Number 15th on Global Military Power Index, however, its defence spending’s is at 24th position.
If we compare last fiscal year defence spending’s of different countries; we can see the US at Number One with 732 Billion USD, China on No. 2 with 261 Billion USD, India at Number 3 with 71.1 Billion USD, Israel is at 15th, Iran on 18th and Pakistan is on 24th Number.
Pakistan’s Current Total Budget is 44 Billion US Dollars. Current Defence allocation is 7.9 Billion USD, even though the requirement for defence is around 20 Billion USD. Meanwhile, India allocated 71.1 Billion USD for its defence only.
Conclusion
As a result of these facts, we can conclude that Pakistan’s Defence Spending is lower than that of the required Military Budget. Furthermore, Pakistan is spending less on their soldier as compare to Regional & International spending’s in this context.
Pakistan also spends a handsome amount on Education when we compare it to Defence. Pakistan’s Defence spendings are not half of the total budget rather it is 18% of the Accumulative budget.
Hope this article clarifies a lot of questions on the defence budget. Stay connected with us for the latest updates. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
The following is a response I wrote to this article on a SinodefenseForum, after someone posted this article there:
That article only shows half the picture. It’s true that in terms of the federal budget, the Pakistani army draws less than the perceived amount of funding. However, the chart provided in the article (dollars spent per soldier) is only looking at federal spending. The actual money spent per soldier/airman/seaman in the Pak Military is much higher than that number, due to the fact that the military in Pakistan has been forced to rely on its own internal economy, developed precisely to offset the burden on the federal budget.
The profits of the military’s commercial and real-estate enterprises go towards supporting its soldiers (their retirement, housing and medical expenses etc.) This is how the military manages to draw a high caliber of educated recruits for its military, which is an all-volunteer force. If it was left to the federal budget, there is no way that Pakistan could afford the military it has. For example, just in terms of the healthcare available to active and retired soldiers, Pakistan is ahead of even the United States. There are many reports of US veterans unable to secure proper medical care following discharge. Whereas in Pakistan, the entire immediate family of soldiers is given excellent medical care for life. Military hospitals in Pakistan are some of the best in the country, on par with private hospitals.
The Pakistani army is criticized by certain political elements in Pakistan for this internal economy it has created, but what they don’t understand is that this is a strategic necessity. In order for Pakistan to recruit and maintain a high caliber of educated individuals for its military, it needs to be able to offer them really good services to offset their low salary. This is what allows Pakistan to maintain a military which is actually above the standard that its actual economy allows.
Now, having said all of that, this is not a long term solution to the problem Pakistan faces. You can recruit and maintain a good caliber of individuals, but ultimately, we need to spend hard cash from the federal budget on R&D and big ticket purchases. This means that fixing the Pakistani economy, as the army has clearly stated, is a matter of national security of the highest order.
I must appreciate you on your financial comparison and geopolitical strategic awareness.
In fact i use to do and give these Comparative statements to, critics, those days pak defense budget was 313 billion pkrs approximately 12 % of federal budget.
Let’s conclude our argument only on fiscal year’ defense spendings of an islamic ideological state.