Military branches:
Army, Navy, Air Force
Military service age and obligation: 16 years of age for voluntary military service; soldiers cannot be deployed for combat until age of 18 (2001)
Manpower available for military service:
males age 16-49: 39,028,014 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:
males age 16-49: 29,428,747 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males: 1,969,055 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$3.848 billion (2004)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
4.9% (2004)
Transnational Issues Pakistan
Disputes - international:
recent talks and confidence-building measures have begun to defuse
tensions over Kashmir, site of the world's largest and most
militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto
administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and
Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas); UN Military Observer
Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has maintained a small group
of peacekeepers since 1949; India does not recognize Pakistan's
ceding historic Kashmir lands to China in 1964; in 2004, India and
Pakistan instituted a cease fire in the Kashmir, and in 2005
restored bus service across the highly militarized Line of Control;
Pakistan has taken its dispute on the impact and benefits of India's
building the Baglihar dam on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir
to the World Bank for arbitration and in general the two states
still dispute Indus River water sharing; to defuse tensions and
prepare for discussions on a maritime boundary, India and Pakistan
resurveyed a portion of the disputed Sir Creek estuary at the mouth
of the Rann of Kutch in 2004; Pakistani maps continue to show
Junagadh in India's Gujarat State; by 2005, Pakistan with UN
assistance had repatriated 2.3 million Afghan refugees and has
undertaken a census to count the remaining million or more, many of
whom remain at their own choosing; Pakistan maintains troops in
remote tribal areas to control the border with Afghanistan and root
out organized terrorist and other illegal cross-border activities;
regular meetings with Afghan and Coalition allies aim to resolve
periodic claims of boundary encroachments
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 1,064,230 (Afghanistan)
IDPs: undetermined (government strikes on Islamic militants in South
Waziristan) (2004)