Produced by: Manoj Kumar
India’s $79B defence budget dwarfs Pakistan’s $7.6B. According to SIPRI, this staggering gap limits Islamabad’s ability to fund or survive even a brief conventional war.
India fields 1.46M active troops to Pakistan’s 700K. With superior tanks, jets, and ships, India’s quantitative and qualitative edge is a battlefield game-changer.
While India rolls out Rafales and S-400s, Pakistan grapples with canceled drills and grounded aircraft—economic woes stalling critical military upkeep.
IMF bailouts, mounting debt, and near-bankrupt reserves leave Pakistan barely afloat. Experts warn it simply lacks the economic bandwidth to sustain real war.
In 2023, fuel shortages forced Pakistan to cancel joint exercises. War readiness is fading—not from lack of will, but lack of wallet.
Pakistan’s strategy leans on early nuclear use. But RAND Corporation analysts warn: tactical nukes escalate conflicts, not win them.
Unable to match India’s might, Pakistan’s doctrine defaults to asymmetric warfare—low-cost, high-risk, and strategically fragile in the long term.
Beijing backs Islamabad diplomatically—but military support during a hot war? Far from guaranteed if global backlash risks China’s economic interests.
A full-scale war risks crippling sanctions. For a nation already teetering economically, global isolation could hit harder than missiles.