By Alex Calvo

Traditionally the junior service, operating in the Army’s shadow and receiving a ten percent share of the 2015 defence budget of $6.6 billion, Pakistan’s Navy personnel numbers more than 22,000 active, plus 5,000 in the reserve. This secondary role stands in contrast with the economy’s dependence on the sea, with the port city of Karachi contributing 25 percent of GDP and the proposed China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) raising the country’s maritime profile even further.

Much of the Navy’s backbone, including its seven submarines, five French-made ‘Khalid’ class conventional hunter-killer (SSKs) acquired in the 1990s plus two ‘Hashmat’ class SSKs from the 1970s, is nearing retirement. The Navy is working to acquire new surface and undersea combatants, boosting domestic shipbuilding in the process and in cooperation with Beijing.

Plans include procuring an additional four 3000-ton F-22P/’Zulfiqar’ (Sword) class frigates with improved sensors and weapons (including HQ-17 surface-to-air missiles, developed from Russia’s Tor 1/SA-N-9), as well as six Type-022 Houbei stealth catamaran missile boats. State-owned shipbuilder Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works (KSEW) is responsible for these programs, and is expanding its facilities with a new foundry, manufacturing areas, and two dry docks of 26,000 and 18,000 dead weight tons, spread over 71 acres. Islamabad had been hoping to procure six Perry-class frigates from the US on easy terms, but congressional hostility has prompted greater reliance on China, a country heavily committed at all levels to Pakistan, being a key to Beijing’s strategy of securing access to the Indian Ocean and keeping New Delhi distracted by a regional rival.

Karachi is the traditional home of the Pakistani Navy, and remains of the utmost importance, despite diversification into other bases, among them PNS Siddique (in Turbat, in the south-west, close to the strategic deepwater port of Gwadar and the border with Iran), Pasni, and Jinnah Naval Base (also in the south-west). Asked whether security is considered by the Pakistani Navy as a reason to push for further diversification away from the city, Zoha Waseem (PhD Candidate at King’s College London and an expert in Pakistani security and policing) explains that “the situation in Karachi in terms of the ongoing operation is linked with the need of the military to keep investing in Karachi. The construction of military bases, infrastructure, and training centres and accommodation does not appear to be decreasing. Karachi is an ATM machine, and a prime location for any stakeholder to have its assets here.”

While new ships are seen as essential in terms of maritime security and the fight against piracy, it is Pakistani plans to acquire new submarines that have met with the greatest concern in New Delhi. In March 2015, Islamabad announced plans to procure eight new Chinese submarines, and in October 2015 confirmed that four would be purchased from Beijing and four built at KSEW. The package includes a training centre in Karachi and probably includes access to China’s Beidou-II (BDS-2) satellite navigation network. Thanks to similar designs, Beijing, in turn, gets to enjoy the necessary maintenance personnel and facilities enabling her to operate her own submarines much more efficiently in the Indian Ocean, home to vital SLOCs (sea lanes of communication) for China. Ideally the Navy would like a total of 12 new boats. These Chinese-designed submarines will probably be based on the air independent propulsion (AIP) equipped Type 39B Yuan SSK (known as S-20 in its export version). Displacing 2,300 tons, they can fire both cruise missiles and 533 mm torpedoes, and can also deploy mines and special forces. Pakistan, already working on a version of the National Defence Complex Babur missile capable of launch from her old Khalid submarines, sees the S-20 as more than a conventional platform, although preventing an Indian blockade is certainly a major goal in and by itself. A sea-based deterrent would provide Islamabad with a second strike capability, while avoiding perceptions of falling behind India in the nuclear sphere. The resulting improvement in survivability is seen by Mansoor Ahmed (Stanton Nuclear Security junior faculty fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center), as providing greater strategic stability to South Asia, given that India could not be sure of completely destroying Pakistani nuclear forces and thus escape unacceptable damage herself.

Work on a sea-based deterrent may also be closely linked to the Navy’s status within the military. According to Scott Cheney-Peters (US Navy reserve officer and CIMSEC founder) “Unless Pakistan’s Navy can develop an at-sea strategic nuclear deterrent it is likely to remain the ‘junior service.’ This means it has a strong institutional incentive to pursue an SLBM second-strike capability. But just as this incentive may not be enough to bring the capability to fruition any time soon, so the second-capability may not be enough to remove the perception of the Navy as a junior partner in the nation’s armed forces.”

Alex Calvo is a guest professor at Nagoya University (Japan) focusing on security and defence policy, international law, and military history in the Indian-Pacific Ocean Region. A member of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) and Taiwan’s South China Sea Think-Tank, he is currently writing a book about Asia’s role and contribution to the Allied victory in the Great War. He tweets @Alex__Calvo and his work can be found here.

The 1.18-million strong Army, grappling with critical operational deficiencies on several fronts, is finally going to get some much-needed missiles, thermal imagers, weapon-locating radars and multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS).

Defence ministry sources on Friday said the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has cleared four long-pending arms deals worth 6,600 crore, while two others for over 8,300 crore are on the verge of getting the final nod.

“Contracts for the four cleared deals will now be inked,” said a source. They will include the 1,200 crore acquisition of 65,000 new-generation 84mm rockets, with greater range and better armour-penetration capabilities, for the Swedish-origin Carl Gustaf man-portable rocket launchers.

The other contracts are for 4,000 hand-held thermal imagers with laser-range finders ( 1,400 crore), 5,000 Milan-2T anti-tank guided missiles ( 2,000 crore) and 30 indigenous ‘Swati’ weapon-locating radars ( 2,000 crore).

The two projects headed for CCS nod are for two more Pinaka MLRS regiments for 3,300 crore and another regiment of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles for over 5,000 crore.

The two Pinaka regiments, which will add to the two such regiments already inducted by the Army, will help plug gaps in the force’s medium-range, high-volume firepower. With a strike range of 40km, the Pinaka is manufactured by the Tatas and L&T based on technology developed by DRDO.

Similarly, the BrahMos land-attack missile, which flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8 to targets 290km away, will help boost the Army’s precision-strike capabilities.

With the Army already having three BrahMos regiments, the government has approved deployment of the missile’s Block-III version in Arunachal Pradesh to counter China’s huge build-up of military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control. This missile variant has “trajectory maneuver and steep dive capabilities” for mountain warfare, as reported by TOI earlier.

But the lack of third-generation anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), with fire-and-forget capabilities, remains a big operational gap on the western front with Pakistan. The case for inducting these shoulder-fired tank-killers has been meandering for almost a decade now.

The acquisition of ‘Spike’ ATGMs from Israel, however, is still stuck in the commercial negotiations stage. Consequently, infantry battalions are making do with the second-generation Milan (2-km range) and Konkurs (4-km) ATGMs, which are produced by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics under licence from French and Russian companies. Being wire-guided, they have to be directed to the target.

Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has cleared four long-pending arms deals worth 6,600 crore, while two others for over 8,300 crore are on the verge of getting the final nod.

Pakistan is trying to get more F-16s from the US as well as looking towards countries like Russia and France for new aircraft to replace old ones to match India’s defence purchases.

Pakistan would seek to purchase ten F-16 additional planes from the US if the current deal for eight of these fighter jets is successfully concluded. Pakistan Air Force needs to retire 190 planes by 2020, forcing the country to look for various options.

India’s weapons purchases have always influenced Pakistan’s search for a matching technology irrespective of whether or not Pakistan can afford to pay for it. Pakistan’s obsession of India has remained since the time it gained independence in 1947. It fear of a 5th consecutive defeat in another possible war with India is forcing Pakistan to spend all that it has on military toys.

Pakistan’s Mounting External Debt and its Failing Economy ::

Pakistan’s external debt is projected to grow to a whopping $90 billion in the next four years and the country will need US $20 billion a year just to meet its external financing requirements.

The external debt figures compiled by renowned economist and the country’s former finance minister Dr Hafiz Pasha are about $14 billion higher than the projections made by the International Monetary Fund.

Dr Pasha on Saturday shared his doomsday scenario and his projections are based on official data. The $14 billion difference was mainly on account of foreign loans that will fly in to financing the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

The debt-to-GDP ratio has become irrelevant in case of Pakistan as the country lacks the capacity to repay the debt even at its current 65% level of debt-to-GDP ratio.

AID is Pakistan’s answer to Bankruptcy ::

Time and again Pakistani ministers fly to Saudi Arabia, the United States and China for financial aid to keep their economy afloat and prolong the collapse of the financial institutions of Pakistan.

For how long will its so-called allies keep rescuing Pakistan from declaring bankruptcy?

AMERICA – Patience in America is wearing out and this is clearly visible on Capitol Hill where the sale of F-16s is vocally objected. America might call Pakistan an ally in the ‘War on Terror’ but that is far from the truth. Pakistan has become a blood sucking parasite that leaves no stone unturned in draining out American Taxpayers money into funding terrorist across the world.

S. ARABIA – Saudi Arabia is already facing a strong financial crunch with global crude prices falling to $36 a barrel. The demand for Oil from the two largest importers (US and China) is constantly dropping. Relations between S.Arabia and Pakistan are not that rosy since Pakistan refused to join the Saudi led 34-nation coalition to fight ‘terrorism’.

CHINA – China is currently facing the worst economic slowdown in more than a decade. It’s GDP is growing at less than 7% and has lost around $600 billion in the last one year from its foreign exchange reserves.

The question now is whether the corrupt Pakistani leadership will pull up its sock and rescue its failing economy or continue on a multi-billion dollar weapons acquisition plan that it cannot afford to pay for. It is time for Pakistan to shed its ‘India centric obsession’ and look after its own internal problems before it’s too late.

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This article has been written by Darshil Patel exclusively for www.DefenceNews.in
Bsc. in CASFX – U.K.
Location : Mumbai