The Pakistani government last week presented a draft budget to lawmakers that hikes defense spending by 18% to 3 trillion rupees ($10.8 billion/€9.3 billion).
Pakistan's finance minister, Muhammad Aurangzeb, said the increase was intended to make the country "invincible due to the uncertainty in the region." Analysts say key considerations are evolving military technologies and emerging threats.
"Future conflicts will no longer be confined to two adversaries," said Islamabad-based defense analyst Maria Sultan. "They will be shaped by weapons and technology flowing from multiple countries, fought across land, air, cyber and electronic domains simultaneously."
A changing security environment
Sultan told DW that wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as last year's India-Pakistan conflict — which brought the nuclear-armed neighbors to the brink of all-out war — have reshaped how military planners think.
