Pakistan is a constitutional republic with a parliamentary system of government, and a former British colony. It is the world’s 29th biggest military spender, spending US$ 10.2 billion in 2024, 2.7% of its total GDP.
It is the world’s fifth largest arms importer and has a robust domestic defence technology and arms sector which enjoys significant government financing. This is in part due to the past eight decades of military and diplomatic clashes with neighbouring India over Kashmir, and the activities of various domestic and regional terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates. The Pakistani military also contributes many troops to overseas UN peacekeeping missions – over 235,000 Pakistani troops have served in 48 missions – and maintains a naval presence in Oman and Mauritius, among other locations.
As the world’s fifth most populous country, Pakistan has an ethnically and linguistically diverse though predominately Muslim population. Human Rights Watch reports that the government continues to employ draconian counterterrorism, blasphemy and sedition laws to impede peaceful protest. Pakistan also has a long history, since at least the 1980s, of using paramilitary police units to forcibly disappear and kill critics, particularly since the advent of the ‘war on terror’.
Pakistan has been engaged in a long-standing territorial dispute with India since the partition of British colonial India into separate independent countries in 1947. This has principally centred on the Kashmir region. Pakistan has supported separatist groups in Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir, and the conflict has erupted into full-scale war between the countries on several occasions. Most recently, India launched Operation Sindoor in May 2025 during which it fired missiles it claimed targeted military infrastructure of terrorist groups following a terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam, while Pakistan claimed India targeted civilian infrastructure. Pakistan retaliated with its own Operation Bunyan al-Marsus targeting Indian military infrastructure. The parties reached a ceasefire after four days, though the larger territorial and military issues remain unresolved and skirmishes continue across the line of control, the de facto border between Indian- and Pakistani-administered regions. In June 2025, Pakistan increased its defence spending by more than 20 percent – reportedly the most substantial hike in a decade – following the conflict.
Pakistan’s arms suppliers
Pakistan is one of the few countries to be both a significant importer of arms that also produces its own arms and is increasingly exporting them worldwide.
Pakistan was the world’s seventh largest arms importer between 2015 and 2024, according to SIPRI data. China was overwhelmingly its main arms supplier in that period (78%), followed by Turkey (3.6%), and the Netherlands (3.4%). The UK trailed far behind with only a 0.3% contribution, according to SIPRI data.
China and Pakistan
Almost 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports come from China. Pakistan’s military reliance on China is in part due to the cutoff of US military aid following the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965. The two countries are heavily economically intertwined, with significant investment by China in developing Pakistan’s nuclear energy industry, and the establishment in 2015 of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 3,000 kilometre Chinese infrastructure network being built in Pakistan to facilitate Chinese energy imports in exchange for billions of dollars in infrastructure and power generation projects across Pakistan.
China therefore has a significant military relationship with Pakistan: the latter has used Chinese fighter jets since the 1960s and has acquired many Chinese naval vessels, some co-produced with Pakistani companies. To some alarm at the Pentagon, China delivered J-10C JETS to Pakistan following the May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan, and Pakistan also acquired Shenyang FC-31 ‘Gyrfalcon’ multirole stealth fighter aircraft, acquisition date unknown. In 2025, the Chinese government offered Shenyang J-35 stealth aircraft to Pakistan. The Pakistani and Saudi governments were in late 2025 negotiating a potential deal involving he sale of military fighter jets co-developed by China and Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. As noted below, some state-owned Pakistani arms companies have joint production agreements with Chinese state companies, notably Norinco.
Turkey and Pakistan
After China, Turkey is Pakistan’s biggest foreign arms supplier. The two countries have a longstanding defence relationship, in part due to Turkey’s vacillating relationship with Europe. Since 2000, the two countries have had an armed forces training exchange programme, which has seen around 1,500 Pakistani military officers trained in Turkey.
Among the Turkish defence products acquired by Pakistan include 4×4 tactical wheeled vehicles produced by Otokar, in service with the Pakistan military in 2010. The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 armed drone, developed with the assistance of UK technology for the bomb racks, was also delivered to Pakistan in 2024, according to SIPRI. In 2009, Turkish Aerospace Industries, a major Turkish defence company, won a significant contract to modernise Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jet fleet. In October 2018, the Pakistan Navy commissioned a 17,000-tonne fleet tanker, built in collaboration with Turkish company STM in Pakistan. In February 2022, Turkey and Pakistan were engaged in the “a Turkish-Pakistani fighter programme,” according to Turkish Aerospace Industries, intended to replace both countries Lockheed Martin F-16 fleets. That year, Pakistan pulled out of an intended procurement of Turkish-made T129 attack helicopters. It opted for a Chinese option, reportedly due to US pressure. In 2023, the Pakistani navy acquired a Babur-class corvette from Turkish state-owned ASFAT Inc.
The relationship may become even closer. In January 2026, Turkey sought to join the Saudi–Pakistan mutual defence pact, which had been agreed between the latter two countries in late 2025.
The Netherlands and Pakistan
Among European countries, only the Netherlands is a significant military supplier to Pakistan. Analysts attribute their relationship to historical military cooperation, pragmatic export policies, and strategic economic interests; India has lobbied the Dutch government to cut ties with “terror sponsor” Pakistan, particularly after the two countries’ May 2025 conflict.
Pakistan and the Netherlands have a strong relationship on naval affairs, in part due to the Netherlands’ role in supporting water management, education, and governance in Pakistan since the 1960s to address irrigation, flood control, and water conservation challenges. For example, in 2022, Dutch firm Damen was building vessels for the Pakistan Navy based on the company’s OPV 2600 design. In 2024, Pakistan’s naval chief toured Damen’s Dutch shipyard and met with the Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy to discuss naval cooperation.
The UK and Pakistan
The UK has a long history of arming Pakistan, as its former colonial power. For example, UK officials knew Pakistan was directly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and continued to arm it, according to files reviewed by Declassified. The two countries have long-standing military cooperation programmes that include collaboration in counterterrorism, joint training programs and intelligence training, with UK defence officials and their Pakistani equivalents regularly meeting to discuss security in the region. Pakistan was at least officially a major enabler of the military campaign of the US-led coalition, of which the UK was the most important partner, in Afghanistan from the 2000’s through the Taliban takeover in 2021. Shortly after the takeover, then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab declared Pakistan “a vital UK partner on Afghanistan,” despite concerns voiced by the former MI6 chief that Taliban could not have completed its takeover of Afghanistan “without Pakistani backing”. In July 2025, Pakistan and the UK formally signed the Trade Dialogue Mechanism Agreement and announced the establishment of the UK-Pakistan Business Advisory Council with defence as a key area of cooperation.
Though it is not currently a major arms supplier to Pakistan, since 2015, UK companies have obtained licenses to export goods worth UK£ 104 million to Pakistan, the largest category of which is UK£ 29 million for aircraft, helicopter and drone components. The top four companies that have obtained licences to export to Pakistan, in order of volume, include Aviation & Defence Spares Ltd, Elbit Systems, Repaircraft, and Hayward and Green Aviation Ltd. Notable other British exporters to Pakistan include Rangemaster Precision Arm, BAE Systems, Teledyne, RTX, and Rolls-Royce. Recent UK contracts with Pakistan include the sale of three Royal Marines hovercraft to the Pakistani Navy in 2025.
Pakistan’s defence industry and exports
Pakistan has had a well-established domestic defence industry since 1951, with the establishment of the government Ministry of Defence Production. Pakistan’s domestic arms industry is supported by the government’s Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO). While Pakistan is not a globally significant exporter of arms – it did not rank among the top 25 exporters in 2024, unlike neighbouring India – its domestic arms industry is growing. In 2025, Pakistan’s exports were at an “all-time high,” according to media reports, with estimated US$ 10 billion in contracts, particularly for JF-17 fighter jets and the Mushshak trainer aircraft. Yet this is still relatively insignificant on the global scale. No Pakistani companies feature on SIPRI’s ranking of top 100 global arms companies.
Pakistan’s major defence companies, all state owned, offer a range of products, mostly for use by Pakistan’s armed forces. Global Industrial Defence Solutions, “Pakistan’s largest defence conglomerate”, produces a wide range of products. These include the Shahpar III combat drone and various kamikaze drones, the Spider anti-UAV system, the FATAH – I rocket launcher, the Baktar Shikan anti-tank missile, as well as various riot control products like tear gas. Pakistan Ordnance Factories produces conventional arms and ammunition, ranging from infantry weapons to mortar shells, military explosives, rockets and anti-submarine ammunition.
Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) mainly produces tracked vehicles and guns for the Pakistani army. Among its offerings is the Haider Main Battle Tank (MBT), a variant of the Chinese VT-4 MBT, in collaboration with Chinese state-owned Norinco; it was first unveiled in May 2024. Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KS&EW) produces and maintains Pakistan’s naval fleet, including submarines, and civilian vessels.
Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), founded by the Pakistan Air Force, produces the JF-17 fighter jet, the K-8 trainer jet and the Super Mushshak trainer jet. The JF-17 is the jewel in the crown of Pakistan’s export offerings; orders reportedly surged after the May 2025 conflict with India, where a JF-17 is credited with destroying India’s S-400 surface-to-missile system deployed at Adampur.
In December 2025, Libya entered into a US$ 4.6 billion deal to procure 16 JF-17 and 12 Super Mushshak, according to local media. That year, Pakistan agreed to sell JF-17 jets to Azerbaijan. In 2026, Sudan was reported by media to be set to acquire K-8 trainers, MFI-395 Super Mushshaks, and possibly JF-17 jets for a cost of US$ 1.5 billion.
Domestic arms research and development benefits from funding from the Pakistani military Directorate-General Research and Development Establishment, a wing of the Ministry of Defence Production, which promotes “self-reliance through indigenization.”
Pakistan and arms fairs
The Pakistani defence industry hosts a bi-annual major arms trade expos that is attended by international companies including UK companies, the International Defense Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS), organised by DEPO. “A strategic platform to showcase Pakistan’s defence capabilities, promote international collaboration,” the 2024 IDEAS hosted delegates from 55 countries, including the US, China, Russia, Italy, Iran, the UK, and Azerbaijan.
