Pakistan Army

The Pakistan Army has grown steadily since 1947, when Pakistan was formed from the erstwhile British Raj. During the 1950s, it received considerable assistance from the United Kingdom and the United States, with which it was variously allied through the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Baghdad Pact (subsequently renamed the Central Treaty Organization [CENTO]). This assistance enabled Pakistan to increase the size of the army, expand the quantity and quality of its inventory, and enlarge its cantonments to meet the growing Indian threat. While the 1960s and 1970s were turbulent times for US-Pakistan ties, Pakistan again became closely allied with the United States in the 1980s, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. That alliance, based on the need to expand the Pakistan Army to enable it to better counter the emerging Soviet threat and continue to aid the US effort, enabled further expansion of the army and Pakistan’s acquisition of US weapons systems. By 1989, the Pakistan Army had grown to nearly 450,000. Pakistan had to modify the army’s organizational structure to keep step with its expanding size. At independence, all of the army’s divisions were commanded directly from General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. As the army continued to grow and as it fought (and lost) several wars with India (in 1947, 1965, and 1971), army leadership realized the need to add additional corps headquarters. The first addition was I Corps (now located in Mangla), which was formed in 1957. The IV Corps (in Lahore) was formed in 1965. Several corps headquarters (II, V, X, and XI) were added in the 1970s, and several more (XII, XXX, and XXXI) were added during the 1980s. The current Pakistan Army is comprised of nine corps and the Army Strategic Forces Command, which was formed in 1999 to exercise control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and is thus treated as an equivalent to a corps command. It has an end strength of 560,000 active-duty personnel.