MILITARY BUDGETS in INDIA and PAKISTAN

Military Budgets in India and Pakistan: Trajectories, Priorities, and Risks
PREFACE
The Stimson Center prides itself in fact-driven analysis, as exemplified in Shane Mason’s
report, Military Budgets in India and Pakistan: Trajectories, Priorities, and Risks.
Shane’s analysis and policy-relevant conclusions are properly caveated, because India
does not reveal some important data about defense spending, and Pakistan, while doing
better to offer its citizens defense budget information, still reveals less than India. While
Shane has found it necessary to draw inferences about spending for nuclear weaponrelated
programs, for which there is little publicly available information, he has been
transparent about his sources and methodology.
Those who appreciate reading the pages of The Economist will find comfort immersing
themselves in Shane’s charts and graphs comparing trends in Indian and Pakistani
defense expenditures. This Stimson report is also accessible to those who prefer analysis
to numerology.
Shane’s analytical bottom lines are worth highlighting. The growth of India’s defense
expenditures relative to Pakistan are noteworthy, but the full impact of this differential
will be diminished absent reforms in familiar organizational, bureaucratic, and
procurement practices, as well as by growth in benefit payments. Nonetheless, Pakistan
will feel increasingly uncomfortable with growing defense budget differentials over time.
The tradeoffs between spending for conventional and internal security capabilities on the
one hand, and for nuclear capabilities on the other, are likely to grow as US military
assistance, Coalition Support Funds, and subsidized financing for arms sales diminish.
Growing support from China is unlikely to cover these shortfalls. Absent a
reconsideration of the military utility of nuclear weapons in Pakistan’s overall defense
posture, and absent reconciliation with India, Rawalpindi’s discomfort with growing
conventional force disparities could lead to increased reliance on nuclear weapons. Other
states have faced this dilemma, and have concluded that there is no substitute for
capabilities necessary for conventional defense and internal security.
The Stimson Center welcomes comments and critiques of this report. We are grateful to
the funders of the Stimson Center’s South Asia Program—the MacArthur Foundation, the
Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the National Nuclear Security Administration—
for making our work possible.
Michael Krepon
Co-Founder, The Stimson Center
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