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