Pakistan’s Defense Budget: Myths & Realities

Abstract

The Pakistani defense budget is an issue that vested interests have sought to politicize through the dissemination of myths and fabrications. This working paper seeks to dispel those myths by drawing upon international databases of international military spending, as well as budgetary documentation from the Government of Pakistan. The findings of the working paper suggest that the politicization of the defense budget reflects vested interest efforts to seize a larger share of a stagnant economic pie, and should be instead driven by fact-based analyses that consider the defense budget in a wider fiscal context.

Keywords: defense, budget, military, Pakistan