Correct if I am wrong. They have 550,000 active military personnel and another 550,000 reserve personnel. That is a massive number for a country which is technically bankrupt. Imagine the amount you need to pay for the salaries and pensions in addition to maintaining and acquiring high tech weapons, that budget $8-10 billion they get every year is not going to cut it. So obviously most soldiers are getting paid peanuts with less training. Lot of soldiers are indeed cannon fodder for them.
The ordinary grunt even though he's paid peanuts enjoys perks most middle class Paxtanis can't even dream about in service or out of it be it in accomodation , food , access to health , education , plot of land while in service & post retirement , employment in one of the many concerns of Fauji Foundation etc .
Paxtan has always fancied itself as a true successor to the Delhi Sultanate & more importantly the Mughal Empire . They are , just not in the way they imagine it. Both the aforementioned entities were based on extraction by settler colonialists irrespective what our dumbphucks or sold out pimps of history sell us.
The ordinary person in those times existed to serve these settler colonialists . That was his only raison d'être . It was far worse if that ordinary man happened to be a kuffar. The very same principle applies to Paxtan & will soon apply to BD though the armies there aren't settler colonialists even if they behave in a similar fashion.
The original gamble was for Fauji Foundation to successfully black mail India which they did on various occasions until Balakote post acquiring Nuclear Weapons . However as they later discovered the more their nation sank , more than them it was the west which was worried sick.
This then became an useful tool to indirectly black mail the west after their Afghanistan scam ran its course. You may think Paxtan is on drip feed but have you seen any reduction in their procurement of armaments internationally or any reduction in their budget or curtailment in their lifestyle ? You won't for it's the ordinary Paxtani who's on drip feed yet sustains Fauji Foundation with his sweat & blood & which they've just about realised courtesy the most unlikely man in their history - a dunce named Dimran .
So now what ? Life goes on . The West will keep them on drip feed as long as they've NW & Fauji Foundation will keep propping up new tanzeems to counter old ones. However their space shrinks every day but that's true of all dynasties as well.
The Mughal Empire effectively ceased being one with the death of Zebu . Frankly how many emperors's names can you think of post Zebu up until Bahadur Shah Zafar ? There were only 6 in the nearly 200 years from Babur to Zebu & then there were dozens some lasting only a few months. Yet in spite of their decrepit condition the Mughals lasted a full 150 years post Zebu. Ditto for PA. Nothing lasts forever , hence make merry while it lasts.
It is impossible to satisfy million soldiers with all the goodies of modern life. I am sure only the top military elite are smoking and enjoying the good stuff. All that money which comes from their military enterprise and real estate is definitely not going to everyone in the military. There is definitely some hierarchy at play here. I believe they won't be able to continue this system for too long without breaking/destroying the abomination that is Pakistan.
There's this wonderful book by Ayesha Siddiqua on the phenomenon called Fauji Foundation & their MO which was so close to the truth that it landed her in a lot of trouble & forced her into exile.
