Pakistan raises defense spending amid regional conflicts

The Pakistani government last week presented a draft budget to lawmakers that hikes defense spending by 18% to 3 trillion rupees ($10.8 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."

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.

In May 2025, New Delhi launched "Operation Sindoor" in retaliation for a deadly mass shooting at Pahalgam , a popular resort town in India-administered Kashmir, in which at least 26 mostly Indian Hindu tourists were killed.

India said the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, considered a terrorist organization by the UN, had carried out the attack. New Delhi also accused Islamabad of backing the group, with the Pakistani government denying the allegation.

India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety, but each country only controls a section of territory, making the Muslim-majority region a flashpoint in the larger India-Pakistan geopolitical rivalry.

The clashes following the Pahalgam attack raised concerns about strategic stability in South Asia and sparked debate about the limits of nuclear deterrence between rival nuclear powers.