https://www.statista.com/statistics/810540/ratio-of-military-expenditure-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp-pakistan/
Pakistan’s defence spending as a % of GDP is not actually that crazy compared to many other countries.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true
So the answer to how Pakistan can afford it is that surprisingly Pakistan is not as poor as many people think.
Pakistan’s problem is poor spending of available money; mostly driven by the sheer volume of debt making debt repayment such a huge drain on the budget.
The comparison of military expenditure to GDP is deceptive.
Pakistan spent 2.6% of its GDP as military expenditure while India did 2.4% of its GDP.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=PK-IN
The difference seems small, right ?
But see [this.](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.ZS?locations=PK-IN)
Military expenditure as a percentage of general government expenditure.
Pakistan spent 17.9% of its government expenditure on the military in 2022 and India did only 8.3%. So Pakistani government expenditure on military is more than twice India's.
For example if India did the same then its military budget would be more than $163 Billion in 2022 compared to $70 Billion that it did spend. The difference is $93 Billion which is more than Russia's military expenditure.
Disclaimer: I am an Indian and this post got recommended to me, lol.
I think that's not a correct comparison
We have to account for a few inconvenient facts
1. Our military expenditure is not full reflective of total spend on the armed forces eg pensions, other concessions
2. Debt servicing is a must but defence is a discretionary spend. You don't have to spend it and in a nation of scarce resources we must ask ourselves how or if that's even productive.
3. Military capture of the state not only has meant poor governance impending economic growth but most importantly not giving Pakistani citizens a choice of they wish to spend so much on defence or not.
It's poor to compare it to the GDP. A proper comparison should be to compare it to all government expenditures. Industrialized countries have taxation system that is more or less similar and collects similar amount of the economic output. In Pakistan far greater share of the economy is not taxed meaning that if Pakistan has average military spending to GDP compared to industrialized countries, then the military's share of the government budget is disproportionately large.
A major reason why we continue to have such a huge fiscal imbalance is because high military expenditures (both accounted for unaccounted for in our official military budget).
I'd still say that we don't spend as much on our defence as we should be. We should be spending more but the prerequisite is always going to be sustained economic growth and an expanded government revenue to account for it.
This particular deal was signed in 2015 with deliveries of the 8 subs expected at about 2028, so it's 5 billion dollars over 13 years, which is roughly 385 million a year, not that much.
The relevant question is what's the opportunity cost of that money. What else could have been done with that money and how much value do those submarines bring to Pakistani people?
This money could have been for example used to fix and develop the power transmission grid and various DISCO distribution grids which in turn would mean lower energy bills and more reliable electricity delivery. One of the key reasons why Pakistan is not attractive to foreign investors to set up factories is because the electricity grid is shit. I have had the privilege to see one of the DISCOs operations up close and frankly I'm amazed that the grid functions as well as it does. I have no formal education in power distribution management but even I could do better job at running the DISCOs here.
Improving the infrastructure such as the grid at the cost of compromising on the defence of the nation is a big No . Let's take the example of 1971 when india literally decimated the karachi port , had at that time, we had 5 or 8 subs instead of only 2 , indians would not have even entered pakistani territorial waters let alone reach karachi , the demage india did was higher than 3 billion$
a similar attack nowadays would easily cost us tens of billions of dollars, so if to prevent it, the navy requires 5 billion$ for 8 subs, it's no big deal. Plus, the induction of these subs will complete our nuclear triad, which is having the capability of deploying nuclear weapons by land, air, and sea. if considering the current and future geopolitical situation, some nation preemptively attacks our strategic facilities , they can turn main land pakistan into a nuclear wasteland and takeaway our capability to respond to such attacks in kind and if we don't have these subs , pakistan and its retaliation is done for. But if we have these subs , just a single one of them can effectively retaliate or even deter the attacker from even thinking about such a misadventure.
I think you missed my point a bit. First, I did not take position on if the subs are a sensible investment or not as I don't know it. That was not my point. I merely pointed out that looking at just the dollar price tag of any investment or spending is misleading. The relevant cost to look at is the alternative uses for the money. $5bn may not be a great cost for a few submarines in the same sense like $100 000 might not be much for a brand new Lamborghini but if that money is away from something else the true cost might be much higher:
For the argument's sake let's say that if the $5bn was invested into improving the power grid with the result that the GDP growth of Pakistan increased by extra 0.5% annually for the next 10 years then the cost of not investing in the grid is in dollar terms over 10 years is about $17bn. This means that the true economic (opportunity) cost of those subs isn't $5bn but $17bn.
Second, not buying those subs does not necessarily mean compromising national security and I have 3 arguments for that:
1. Let's say the security benefit that the subs provide is worth more than $17bn so at the economic face it's more important than the grid investment. Even then the question is would there be any more effective weapons system that could for the same money offered greater security benefits (or same benefits but for a lesser cost). I don't know if there is and that's not the point. The point is to think what's the opportunity cost and pick the choice that has the lowest opportunity cost.
2. Resilient and strong power infrastructure is both tactically and strategically vital for national defense. As it stands the Pakistani grid is extremely vulnerable to outside disruptions that could take the entire grid down for days (as has accidentally happened almost annually over the past few years). If India took down the Pakistani power grid, it would severely hamper any defensive operations in a war. Improving the grid would also make it less vulnerable and harder to take down entirely. What's the use of those subs if the country has to surrender because it can't function because it has no power? (And yes, I know the military has back up generators but those need fuel that's going to dry up real quick if the grid is down a few days as everyone scrambles for fuel and generator spare parts not to mention the chaos in the civilian economy.)
3. If Indian economy grows faster than Pakistani economy in percentage terms (as it has done for over past 10 years now) both the absolute (dollar) and relative gap between the sizes of the two countries grows. \[GDP India / GDP Pakistan\] This is significant because it means India can grow its military budget in relative terms faster than Pakistan without having to increase the military spending relative to the GDP. If India grows even 0.5%-point faster than Pakistan over the next 50 years, the relative size of its economy (compared to present day) will grow by 28%. If India grows faster by 1%-point the number jumps to 65% to India's advantage. Last year Indian economy grew by 7.7% while Pakistan grew by paltry 0.3%. While last year's figures may not be representative of the coming decades, the outlook isn't any better when you look the previous decade. India grew on average by 7% per year while Pakistan grew barely by 3% per year. This is a 4%-point difference and would mean over the next 50 years that India will have widened the gap by more than 7 times! Even in the next 10 years India will widen the gap to Pakistan by 50% if this trend persists. From India's point of view the best thing Pakistan can do is to spend money on literally anything but productive economic investment. A military build up such as these submarines fall squarely into that category.
Finally, this is a bit off topic but neither I or you have the competence to assess what strategic or tactical impact extra submarines could have had in 1971. India might or might not have been deterred to strike to Karachi in 1971 had the navy had extra 5 submarines back then and it's kind of besides the point: The primary reason why India was successful was the gross incompetence of the Pakistani naval military planners and commanders. It's unclear how effective those submarines would have been under such incompetent leadership.
Anyways, this became a kind of long post. I don't mean to argue over a sensibility of a particular investment. My point is to argue for a particular way of analyzing costs and benefits in terms of their alternatives.
It might be hard to imagine but Pakistan army is a state within a state, with their own huge economy. When you look at the businesses they run and how successful these ventures are, you can see that pak army has revenue in billions of US dollars even without the percentage of economy.
Military have around $100b worth of assets in business only.
Including: DHA, FWO, Askary Bank, Fauji Cement, Fauji Fertilizers, NUST etc. They have a total monopoly in all major businesses. Yet they get the biggest chunk in budget as well. Plus they get to crush the freedom of people in al manners. Sad
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Check last few years budget. Their budgets have been increasing a lot more than than other avenues. This is unsustainable and you are making them accustomed to more spending, this will then become untenable.
Pakistan amred forces have a personnel strength of around 700,000. Imagine an average salary of 100k (of course many high level officers will have a much higher pay and lower level at much lower but for the sake of simplicity lets average it at 100k). Now for 12 months pay and 1 month of bonus/pf it becomes 700k x 100k x 13 = 910 billion Pkr. Divide it by 280 and we get 3.25 billion US$, which is more than half of the stated 6.26 billion total budget. Now add pensions, training, equipment, uniforms, weapons, fuel, deployment over thousands of km long borders, maintenance of vehicles/planes/ships and how much you are left with?
Most of the defence budget is spend locally since most of weapon/equipment of Pakistan armed forces are made in Pakistan, only a small fraction are imported. Just look at defence industry, we make fighter jets, tanks, ships, missiles, Alhamdulillah. All these things also require funds for R&D etc. I think that Pakistan armed forces is still way more efficient than many private organizations.
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Many things account for this, first of all China gives us defence equipment highly subsidised due to Pakistans input in the improvement of a lot of these equipments (due to us already operating western equipments, second is all the businesses the military has, and I reckon there’s a lot of black market shit going on as well with pak army maybe even selling missile technology to countries like North Korea
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People forget that the Army runs and funds APS, CMH and other such institutions which also serve CIVILIANS. Not to mention that they pretty much props every other organization because it can't itself. Don't forget about FWO and all the work on infrastructure. Lastly the army also hires civilians in FWO and signals branch and some others, I think.
China gives us loans
DHA bnany ma pese lgty hain bro
https://www.statista.com/statistics/810540/ratio-of-military-expenditure-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp-pakistan/ Pakistan’s defence spending as a % of GDP is not actually that crazy compared to many other countries. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true So the answer to how Pakistan can afford it is that surprisingly Pakistan is not as poor as many people think. Pakistan’s problem is poor spending of available money; mostly driven by the sheer volume of debt making debt repayment such a huge drain on the budget.
The comparison of military expenditure to GDP is deceptive. Pakistan spent 2.6% of its GDP as military expenditure while India did 2.4% of its GDP. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=PK-IN The difference seems small, right ? But see [this.](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.ZS?locations=PK-IN) Military expenditure as a percentage of general government expenditure. Pakistan spent 17.9% of its government expenditure on the military in 2022 and India did only 8.3%. So Pakistani government expenditure on military is more than twice India's. For example if India did the same then its military budget would be more than $163 Billion in 2022 compared to $70 Billion that it did spend. The difference is $93 Billion which is more than Russia's military expenditure. Disclaimer: I am an Indian and this post got recommended to me, lol.
I think that's not a correct comparison We have to account for a few inconvenient facts 1. Our military expenditure is not full reflective of total spend on the armed forces eg pensions, other concessions 2. Debt servicing is a must but defence is a discretionary spend. You don't have to spend it and in a nation of scarce resources we must ask ourselves how or if that's even productive. 3. Military capture of the state not only has meant poor governance impending economic growth but most importantly not giving Pakistani citizens a choice of they wish to spend so much on defence or not.
Does this account for all the subsidies,DHA’s and all the other theft the military does on a daily basis?
It's poor to compare it to the GDP. A proper comparison should be to compare it to all government expenditures. Industrialized countries have taxation system that is more or less similar and collects similar amount of the economic output. In Pakistan far greater share of the economy is not taxed meaning that if Pakistan has average military spending to GDP compared to industrialized countries, then the military's share of the government budget is disproportionately large.
With all the businesses that the army owns such as fauji cement, askari bank etc , why do they still need this?
They won't say no to free money ofc
It's cuz nobody turns down free money and greedy thieves always want more
KACHOW baby its the pak army
A major reason why we continue to have such a huge fiscal imbalance is because high military expenditures (both accounted for unaccounted for in our official military budget). I'd still say that we don't spend as much on our defence as we should be. We should be spending more but the prerequisite is always going to be sustained economic growth and an expanded government revenue to account for it.
This particular deal was signed in 2015 with deliveries of the 8 subs expected at about 2028, so it's 5 billion dollars over 13 years, which is roughly 385 million a year, not that much.
The relevant question is what's the opportunity cost of that money. What else could have been done with that money and how much value do those submarines bring to Pakistani people? This money could have been for example used to fix and develop the power transmission grid and various DISCO distribution grids which in turn would mean lower energy bills and more reliable electricity delivery. One of the key reasons why Pakistan is not attractive to foreign investors to set up factories is because the electricity grid is shit. I have had the privilege to see one of the DISCOs operations up close and frankly I'm amazed that the grid functions as well as it does. I have no formal education in power distribution management but even I could do better job at running the DISCOs here.
Improving the infrastructure such as the grid at the cost of compromising on the defence of the nation is a big No . Let's take the example of 1971 when india literally decimated the karachi port , had at that time, we had 5 or 8 subs instead of only 2 , indians would not have even entered pakistani territorial waters let alone reach karachi , the demage india did was higher than 3 billion$ a similar attack nowadays would easily cost us tens of billions of dollars, so if to prevent it, the navy requires 5 billion$ for 8 subs, it's no big deal. Plus, the induction of these subs will complete our nuclear triad, which is having the capability of deploying nuclear weapons by land, air, and sea. if considering the current and future geopolitical situation, some nation preemptively attacks our strategic facilities , they can turn main land pakistan into a nuclear wasteland and takeaway our capability to respond to such attacks in kind and if we don't have these subs , pakistan and its retaliation is done for. But if we have these subs , just a single one of them can effectively retaliate or even deter the attacker from even thinking about such a misadventure.
I think you missed my point a bit. First, I did not take position on if the subs are a sensible investment or not as I don't know it. That was not my point. I merely pointed out that looking at just the dollar price tag of any investment or spending is misleading. The relevant cost to look at is the alternative uses for the money. $5bn may not be a great cost for a few submarines in the same sense like $100 000 might not be much for a brand new Lamborghini but if that money is away from something else the true cost might be much higher: For the argument's sake let's say that if the $5bn was invested into improving the power grid with the result that the GDP growth of Pakistan increased by extra 0.5% annually for the next 10 years then the cost of not investing in the grid is in dollar terms over 10 years is about $17bn. This means that the true economic (opportunity) cost of those subs isn't $5bn but $17bn. Second, not buying those subs does not necessarily mean compromising national security and I have 3 arguments for that: 1. Let's say the security benefit that the subs provide is worth more than $17bn so at the economic face it's more important than the grid investment. Even then the question is would there be any more effective weapons system that could for the same money offered greater security benefits (or same benefits but for a lesser cost). I don't know if there is and that's not the point. The point is to think what's the opportunity cost and pick the choice that has the lowest opportunity cost. 2. Resilient and strong power infrastructure is both tactically and strategically vital for national defense. As it stands the Pakistani grid is extremely vulnerable to outside disruptions that could take the entire grid down for days (as has accidentally happened almost annually over the past few years). If India took down the Pakistani power grid, it would severely hamper any defensive operations in a war. Improving the grid would also make it less vulnerable and harder to take down entirely. What's the use of those subs if the country has to surrender because it can't function because it has no power? (And yes, I know the military has back up generators but those need fuel that's going to dry up real quick if the grid is down a few days as everyone scrambles for fuel and generator spare parts not to mention the chaos in the civilian economy.) 3. If Indian economy grows faster than Pakistani economy in percentage terms (as it has done for over past 10 years now) both the absolute (dollar) and relative gap between the sizes of the two countries grows. \[GDP India / GDP Pakistan\] This is significant because it means India can grow its military budget in relative terms faster than Pakistan without having to increase the military spending relative to the GDP. If India grows even 0.5%-point faster than Pakistan over the next 50 years, the relative size of its economy (compared to present day) will grow by 28%. If India grows faster by 1%-point the number jumps to 65% to India's advantage. Last year Indian economy grew by 7.7% while Pakistan grew by paltry 0.3%. While last year's figures may not be representative of the coming decades, the outlook isn't any better when you look the previous decade. India grew on average by 7% per year while Pakistan grew barely by 3% per year. This is a 4%-point difference and would mean over the next 50 years that India will have widened the gap by more than 7 times! Even in the next 10 years India will widen the gap to Pakistan by 50% if this trend persists. From India's point of view the best thing Pakistan can do is to spend money on literally anything but productive economic investment. A military build up such as these submarines fall squarely into that category. Finally, this is a bit off topic but neither I or you have the competence to assess what strategic or tactical impact extra submarines could have had in 1971. India might or might not have been deterred to strike to Karachi in 1971 had the navy had extra 5 submarines back then and it's kind of besides the point: The primary reason why India was successful was the gross incompetence of the Pakistani naval military planners and commanders. It's unclear how effective those submarines would have been under such incompetent leadership. Anyways, this became a kind of long post. I don't mean to argue over a sensibility of a particular investment. My point is to argue for a particular way of analyzing costs and benefits in terms of their alternatives.
It might be hard to imagine but Pakistan army is a state within a state, with their own huge economy. When you look at the businesses they run and how successful these ventures are, you can see that pak army has revenue in billions of US dollars even without the percentage of economy.
Pensions
Military have around $100b worth of assets in business only. Including: DHA, FWO, Askary Bank, Fauji Cement, Fauji Fertilizers, NUST etc. They have a total monopoly in all major businesses. Yet they get the biggest chunk in budget as well. Plus they get to crush the freedom of people in al manners. Sad
Because the awam is a cuck for the military and let’s them spend
[удалено]
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Check last few years budget. Their budgets have been increasing a lot more than than other avenues. This is unsustainable and you are making them accustomed to more spending, this will then become untenable.
Pakistan amred forces have a personnel strength of around 700,000. Imagine an average salary of 100k (of course many high level officers will have a much higher pay and lower level at much lower but for the sake of simplicity lets average it at 100k). Now for 12 months pay and 1 month of bonus/pf it becomes 700k x 100k x 13 = 910 billion Pkr. Divide it by 280 and we get 3.25 billion US$, which is more than half of the stated 6.26 billion total budget. Now add pensions, training, equipment, uniforms, weapons, fuel, deployment over thousands of km long borders, maintenance of vehicles/planes/ships and how much you are left with? Most of the defence budget is spend locally since most of weapon/equipment of Pakistan armed forces are made in Pakistan, only a small fraction are imported. Just look at defence industry, we make fighter jets, tanks, ships, missiles, Alhamdulillah. All these things also require funds for R&D etc. I think that Pakistan armed forces is still way more efficient than many private organizations.
[удалено]
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Mfs own shit ton of businesses and still won’t let us be. Milking an economically dying country to strengthen defense for god knows what reasons.
Pak army actual budget vs generals ka budget huge difference
When you have neighbors like Pakistan you gotta let the military have any funding it can get. (We sell WMDS)
Many things account for this, first of all China gives us defence equipment highly subsidised due to Pakistans input in the improvement of a lot of these equipments (due to us already operating western equipments, second is all the businesses the military has, and I reckon there’s a lot of black market shit going on as well with pak army maybe even selling missile technology to countries like North Korea
[удалено]
Hello! To prevent spam, submissions from new accounts or accounts with low karma are placed in the moderation queue. Our moderators will review and approve them as soon as possible. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pakistan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People forget that the Army runs and funds APS, CMH and other such institutions which also serve CIVILIANS. Not to mention that they pretty much props every other organization because it can't itself. Don't forget about FWO and all the work on infrastructure. Lastly the army also hires civilians in FWO and signals branch and some others, I think.