Freezing the Defence Budget

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema

Given the existing strategic environment, justifying a freeze for defence budget would certainly appear far more difficult than arguing for the increased defence spending. Despite the existence of many factors that provide adequate justifications for increased allocation to the defence sector, a news report appearing on 13th June clearly indicated that the government has decided to freeze the defence budget for the financial year 2001-2002. Last year defence allocation was around Rs.133.5 billion, which had also registered a decrease of Rs.10 billion if compared with preceding year of 1999-2000. In view of the existing rate of inflation, freeze implies that the defence budget has been once again cut in real terms.

Among the arguments that easily justify increased allocation to defence, none equals or contributes more impressively than the ongoing adversarial relationships between India and Pakistan. This becomes even more convincing when one takes note of massive increases registered in the Indian defence sector somewhat regularly. Since partition of British India, both Pakistan and India have generally maintained a remarkable consistency and regularly allocated a large chunk of their limited resources to defence. However it needs to be mentioned that compared to India, Pakistan has applied restraint on defence allocations and has actually reduced the defence expenditure. Increased allocation to defence sector automatically implies less than desired allocation to other important areas.

While the post cold war era has been somewhat regularly witnessing a gradual reduction in defence spending in almost all regions of the world, South Asia is perhaps the only region where the defence spending has gone up. Not only the global military spending has been regularly demonstrating downward trend since 1987 but it also registered a decline around 37% during the years 1987-94. Interestingly South Asia witnessed an increase of 12% during the same period. Perhaps that's why South Asia is now frequently referred as the most militarized region of the world.

Five aspects of Pakistan's latest move of freezing defence budget deserve to be highlighted. First, the resource allocation to various sectors is directly linked with the state of economy. Despite the existence of convincing justification for desired allocations, all areas are competing for a larger share of available resources. What the resource managers have to do is to set a priority ladder in congruence with the real needs and operative compulsions. The competition becomes even fierce when one realizes that the available resources are extremely limited. Taking into cognizance the weak nature of Pakistan's economy, a careful calculus of opportunity cost is worked out. Realizing the efforts that have gone into the revival of economy, freezing must have been carefully evaluated in terms of its impact on overall security situation in the area. Indeed this move could be viewed as anther tangible effort to boost the economy and also make available resources to relatively more deprived sectors.

Second, Pakistan's successive injection of cut and freeze during last two years could result in a much desired rational approach towards overall defence spending in South Asia. If such moves are transformed into a trend, South Asia could certainly move closer to the incumbent global trends. Even freezing by itself could becomes a useful trend as the freezing actual mean cut in real spending in view of the incumbent rate of inflations in South Asian countries.

Third, the freeze itself provides an opportunity to all the various sections of the armed forces to re-examine carefully their own needs and requirements and how to accommodate the latest cuts in all areas without affecting their efficiency. Such an exercise enable the various arms to undertake an internal defence review enabling them to re-arrange their own priorities and recognize the importance of flexibility which may have to be exercised in such similar future eventualities.

Four, freezing reflects incumbent government's determination to avoid indulgence in arms race. Unfortunately South Asia has experienced a somewhat never ending arms race. The acute sense of insecurity and helplessness during the earlier years of independence pushed Pakistan into the arms of the west. It joined the western sponsored cold war alliance primarily to avert the perceived Indian threat and to acquire the much needed economic and military aid. The Indians saw Pakistani move as its attempt to attain parity with India. They were unable to properly assess the compulsions that pushed Pakistan into the cold war alliances. Thus Pakistani moves to remove the then incumbent sense of insecurity was seen in wrong perspective and was interpreted as dangerous drive aimed at distorting the existing regional balance. This difference in perceptions of each other's intrinsic aims and intentions not only influenced the Indians to bring the Soviets into the area but also initiated the undesired arms race in the region. The latest positive move by the Pakistani resource managers may generate vibes that could eventually result in reversing the incumbent armament trend in India.

Five, the freezing could also be viewed as part of the peace process. Among the plethora of peace moves which were initiated by Hizb ul Mujahideen's ceasefire in last July-August and has been sustained by many constructive moves from both the Indians and the Pakistanis, this latest demonstration of Pakistan's determination to take the peace process forward is indeed a significant development. Even if there were no corresponding somewhat similar move on the part of the Indian authorities, freezing by itself would impressively contribute in improving the atmosphere. Many peace lovers have welcomed the move. Already Vajpayee's invitation to Gen.Musharraf to visit Delhi has considerably improved the atmosphere.

Freezing the defence budget for a year does not necessarily imply lowering the guards, it merely reflects a realistically orientated constructive attitude aimed to help the struggling economy and to strengthen regional peace efforts.