No matter which way one slices or dices it, the only way out for Riyadh is to talk to Ansar Allah and also leash the government it backs in Yemen. Pakistan, instead of being sucked into an ill-conceived Saudi war, should help in diplomatically resolving the issue.

Reports in various news outlets, including Reuters, suggest that Pakistan has sent four planeloads of military equipment to Saudi Arabia. About 7/8000 Pakistani military personnel are already based in the Saudi kingdom. Some are advising and training the Saudi military. The equipment includes drones, ground air defence systems and light artillery.

Pakistan’s troops presence in KSA is not new and in and of itself is not a matter of concern. However, we are told that the current deployment and military supplies are necessitated by the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA), specifically the collective defence clause, and renewed hostilities between KSA and Ansar Allah in Yemen. 

 I have already criticised that clause in this space so I won’t go into why we should have avoided that millstone around our neck. What I intend to do here is to (a) give the reader a comparison of KSA’s and Pakistan’s defence expenditures and (b) analyse four possibilities that exist for any military undertaking if one is actually undertaken and why none is likely to deter Ansar Allah.

Riyadh made it to the list of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) top fifteen global defence spenders in 2013 when a massive 14% surge in spending pushed its military budget to $67 billion. In that year it surpassed the United Kingdom and France to rank as the 4th largest military spender globally. This upward trajectory peaked in 2015 at an all-time high of $87.2 billion, briefly making the Kingdom the 3rd largest military spender in the world, trailing only behind the United States and China and a notch above Russia.

For 2025, Riyadh’s defence spending is $83.2 billion and it occupies 8th position on the SIPRI list as a global defence spender. This budget consumes 6.5% of Riyadh’s GDP, which is one of the heaviest defence burdens in the world, and accounts for approximately 21% of total budget allocations. Let me now give the reader two estimates on Pakistan’s defence spending: one by Janes, the other by SIPRI. 

Janes’ puts Pakistan’s official defence at approximately $10.8 billion for FY 2026–27. This represents a nearly 16% increase over previous year’s revised budget. It accounts for roughly 2.08% of the country’s projected GDP and consumes about 16% of the total federal budget outlay.

SIPRI works the figures differently. It factors in military pensions (which cost PKR 822 billion and are handled under a separate government ledger), paramilitary forces and strategic procurement contracts and estimates Pakistan’s overall defence-related spending to reach $11.9 billion. This raises the defence burden to 2.91% of Pakistan’s total GDP. I will go with the SIPRI calculation, round it off to $12 billion and work out the differential between KSA’s and Pakistan’s defence spending. It stands at a staggering $71.2 billion.

Why am I giving these figures? If it’s not clear, let me state it clearly. A country spending $71.2 billion less on defence is sending military equipment to a country that is globally the eighth largest spender on defence. But wait. We are missing out on another fact. Riyadh entered this exclusive club in 2013 (quite another thing that it spent $56.5 billion in 2012). We are in 2026. That’s 13 years of high spending. And it still needs us to fight or help it fight Ansar Allah?! While no decision has been made so far, official statements indicate that we might just be sleepwalking into a quagmire. In any case, it is very different from 2015 when we decided, correctly, to stay out of Riyadh’s decision to launch a war against Ansar Allah. But let’s leave aside the obvious fact that getting dragged........

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