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Pakistan
NATIONAL SECURITY
Armed forces: Active army strength in 1994 was
520,000, with 300,000 reserve personnel; navy, 22,000 personnel
and 5,000 reserves in 1994; air force, 45,000 active personnel
and 8,000 reserve personnel; paramilitary forces including National
Guard, Frontier Corps, Pakistan Rangers, Mehran Force, Coast Guard,
and Maritime Security Agency, exceed 300,000.
Major Military Units: Army: organized in nine
corps. Under corps headquarters, twenty-one divisions. Navy: organized
in four commands, COMPAK--the fleet; COMLOG--logistics; COMFORNAV--naval
installations in the north of Pakistan; and COMKAR--naval headquarters
at Karachi. Air Force: organized in eighteen squadrons to defend
three air defense districts--north, central, and south.
Military Equipment: Army: Tank inventory mostly
Chinese manufacture but includes some United States-made armored
personnel carriers; artillery pieces, motorized rocket launchers,
mortars, air defense guns, TOW antitank guided weapons, surface-to-surface
missiles, ship-to-surface missiles, and surface-to-air missile.
Navy: submarines with United States Harpoon missiles; destroyers,
guided missile frigates, frigates, surface-to-air missiles, torpedo
craft, minehunters, combat aircraft, and armed helicopters. Air
Force: mainstay is F-16 fighter; other fighters include Chinese
J-6s and J-5s, French Mirages, also C-130 Hercules transportation
planes.
Defense Budget: US$3.5 billion in FY 1994, which
represented 26 percent of government spending and close to 9 percent
of the gross national product.
Foreign Military Relations: Principal military
tie with United States but relationship periodically strained.
China, a steady source of military equipment, has joined Pakistan
in cooperative ventures in weapons production. Security relationships
also with Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf states, Iran, and Turkey.
International Security Forces: Troops contributed
to various international security initiatives, including the United
States-led alliance in the Persian Gulf War; and the United Nations
peacekeeping efforts in Somalia and Bosnia. Pakistan has sent
peacekeeping observers to Croatia, Iraq-Kuwait border zones, Liberia,
Mozambique, and the Western Sahara.
Internal Security and Police: Internal security
occasionally threatened by regional interests, particularly by
sectarian violence in Sindh in early 1990s. Police often perceived
as abusers of civil rights. Widespread violent crime and narcotics-related
incidents potential threats to domestic security.
Data as of April 1994
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