PAKISTAN does not have the luxury of choosing between a well-funded military and economic growth. We share a border with an increasingly belligerent adversary several times our size. Defence is not a policy preference; it is an existential requirement. The relevant question, therefore, is not whether we can afford our defence sector, but whether we can afford for it to remain economically unproductive.

The historical record is unforgiving. Nations that industrialised successfully did so by keeping defence spending modest during their critical growth phases. America before World War II, China after 1978, post-war Europe and Japan all followed this pattern. They developed first and armed later (in Europe’s case, they chose to not arm much at all.) The implication is grim: large militaries and lower-income economies do not coexist with ra­­pid development. Pakistan appears locked into the wrong side of this equation.

But there are exceptions, and they matter more than the rule. South Korea maintained defence expenditure above five per cent of GDP throughout the 1970s and 1980s, higher than Pakistan’s current ratio, while achieving the most compressed industrialisation in modern history. It managed this because........

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