Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army or Pak Army is the land service branch and the largest component of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The president of Pakistan is the supreme commander of the army. As of the 2025 reforms, the Pakistan Army is commanded by the Chief of Defence Forces, a position held concurrently by the Chief of Army Staff, who is typically a four-star general. The Army was officially established in August 1947 after the Partition of India. According to statistics provided by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2025, the Pakistan Army has approximately 560,000 active duty personnel, supported by the National Guard and the Civil Armed Forces.
In accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan, Pakistani citizens can voluntarily enlist in military service as early as age 17, but cannot be deployed for combat until age 18.
The primary objective and constitutional mission of the Pakistan Army is to ensure the national security and national unity of Pakistan by defending it against external aggression or the threat of war. It can also be requisitioned by the Pakistani federal government to respond to internal threats within its borders. During national or international calamities or emergencies, it conducts humanitarian rescue operations at home and is an active participant in peacekeeping missions mandated by the United Nations. Notably, it played a major role in rescuing trapped American soldiers who had requested the assistance of a quick reaction force during Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia. Pakistan Army troops also had a relatively strong presence as part of a UN and NATO coalition during the Bosnian War and the larger Yugoslav Wars.
The Pakistan Army, a major component of the Pakistani military alongside the Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Air Force, is a volunteer force that saw extensive combat during three major wars with India, several border skirmishes with Afghanistan at the Durand Line, and a long-running insurgency in the Balochistan region that it has been combatting alongside Iranian security forces since 1948. Since the 1960s, elements of the army have repeatedly been deployed in an advisory capacity in the Arab states during the Arab–Israeli wars, and to aid the United States-led coalition against Iraq during the First Gulf War. Other notable military operations during the global war on terrorism in the 21st century have included: Zarb-e-Azb, Black Thunderstorm, and Rah-e-Nijat.
In violation of its constitutional mandate, it has repeatedly overthrown elected civilian governments, overreaching its protected constitutional mandate to "act in the aid of civilian federal governments when called upon to do so". The army has been involved in enforcing martial law against the federal government with the claim of restoring law and order in the country by dismissing the legislative branch and parliament on multiple occasions in past decades—while maintaining a wider commercial, foreign and political interest in the country. This has led to allegations that it has acted as a state within a state.
The Pakistan Army is operationally and geographically divided into various corps. The Pakistani constitution mandates the role of the president of Pakistan as the civilian commander-in-chief of the Pakistani military. The Pakistan Army is commanded by the Chief of Army Staff, also known as '' who is by statute a four-star general and a senior member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee appointed by the prime minister and subsequently affirmed by the president., the current Chief of Army Staff is Field Marshal Asim Munir, who was appointed to the position on 29 November 2022.
Mission
Its existence and constitutional role are protected by the Constitution of Pakistan, where its role is to serve as the land-based uniform service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The Constitution of Pakistan establishes the principal land warfare uniform branch in the Pakistan Armed Forces as its states:History
Division of British Indian Army and the first war with India (1947–1952)
The Pakistan Army came into its modern birth from the division of the British Indian Army that ceased to exist as a result of the partition of India that resulted in the creation of Pakistan on 14 August 1947. Before even the partition took place, there were plans ahead of dividing the British Indian Army into different parts based on the religious and ethnic influence on the areas of India.On 30 June 1947, the War Department of the British administration in India began planning the dividing of the ~400,000 men strong British Indian Army, but that only began few weeks before the partition of India that resulted in violent religious violence in India. The Armed Forces Reconstitution Committee under the chairmanship of British Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck had devised the formula to divide the military assets between India and Pakistan with ratio of 2:1, respectively.
A major division of the army was overseen by Sir Chandulal Madhavlal Trivedi, an Indian civil servant who was influential in making sure that ~260,000 men would be transferred into forming the Indian Army whilst the remaining balance going to Pakistan after the independence act was enacted by the United Kingdom on the night of 14/15 August 1947.
Command and control at all levels of the new army was extremely difficult, as Pakistan had received six armoured, eight artillery and eight infantry regiments compared to the twelve armoured, forty artillery and twenty-one infantry regiments that went to India. In total, the size of the new army was about ~150,000 men strong. To fill the vacancy in the command positions of the new army, around 13,500 military officers from the British Army had to be employed in the Pakistan Army, which was quite a large number, under the command of Lieutenant-General Frank Messervy, the first commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army.
Eminent fears of India's seizing the control over the state of Kashmir, the armed tribes and the irregular militia entered in the Muslim-majority valley of Kashmir to oppose the rule of Hari Singh, a Hindu and the ruling Maharaja of Kashmir, in October 1947. Attempting to maintain his control over the princely state, Hari Singh deployed his troops to check on the tribal advances but his troops failed to halt the advancing tribes towards the valley. Eventually, Hari Singh appealed to Louis Mountbatten, the Governor-General of India, requesting for the deployment of the Indian Armed Forces but Indian government maintained that the troops could be committed if Hari Singh acceded to India. Hari Singh eventually agreed to concede to the Indian government terms which eventually led to the deployment of the Indian Army in Kashmir– this agreement, however, was contested by Pakistan since the agreement did not include the consent of the Kashmiri people. Sporadic fighting between militia and Indian Army broke out, and units of the Pakistan Army under Maj-Gen. Akbar Khan, eventually joined the militia in their fight against the Indian Army.
Although, it was Lieutenant-General Sir Frank Messervy who opposed the tribal invasion in a cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1947, later leaving the command of the army in 1947, in a view of that British officers in the Indian and Pakistan Army would be fighting with each other in the war front. It was Lt-Gen. Douglas Gracey who reportedly disobeyed the direct orders from Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Governor-General of Pakistan, for the deployment of the army units and ultimately issued standing orders that refrained the units of Pakistan Army to further participate in the conflict.
By 1948, when it became imperative in Pakistan that India was about to mount a large-scale operation against Pakistan, Gen. Gracey did not object to the deployment of the army units in the conflict against the Indian Army.
This earlier insubordination of Gen. Gracey eventually forced India and Pakistan to reach a compromise through the United Nations' intervention, with Pakistan controlling the Western Kashmir and India controlling the Eastern Kashmir.
20th century: Cold war and conflict performances
Reorganization under the United States Army (1952–1958)
At the time of the partition of British India, British Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck favored the transfer of the infantry divisions to the Pakistan Army including the 7th, 8th and 9th. In 1948, the British army officers in the Pakistan Army established and raised the 10th, 12th, and the 14th infantry divisions— with the 14th being established in East Bengal. In 1950, the 15th Infantry Division was raised with the help from the United States Army, followed by the establishment of the 15th Lancers in Sialkot. Dependence on the United States grew furthermore by the Pakistan Army despite it had worrisome concerns to the country's politicians. Between 1950 and 1954, Pakistan Army raised six more armoured regiments under the U.S. Army's guidance: including, 4th Cavalry, 12th Cavalry, 15th Lancers, and 20th Lancers.After the incident involving Gracey's disobedience, there was a strong belief that a native commander of the Pakistan army should be appointed, which resulted in the Government of Pakistan rejecting the British Army Board's replacement of Gen. Gracey upon his replacement, in 1951. Eventually, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan approved the promotion paper of Maj-Gen. Iftikhar Khan as the first native commander-in-chief, a graduate of the Imperial Defence College in England, but died in an aviation accident en route to Pakistan from the United Kingdom.
After the death of Maj-Gen. Iftikhar, there were four senior major-generals in the army in the race of promotion but the most junior, Maj-Gen. Ayub Khan, whose name was not included in the promotion list was elevated to the promotion that resulted in a lobbying provided by Iskandar Mirza, the Defense Secretary in Ali Khan administration. A tradition of appointment based on favoritism and qualification that is still in practice by the civilian Prime Ministers in Pakistan. Ayub was promoted to the acting rank of full general to command the army as his predecessors Frank Messervy and Douglas Gracey were performing the duty of commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army in the acting rank of general, the neighboring country India's first commanders-in-chief were same in this context.
The department of the army under General Ayub Khan steered the army's needs towards heavy focus and dependence towards the imported hardware acquired from the United States, in spite of acquiring it from the domestic industry, under the Military Assistance Advisory Group attached to Pakistan in 1954–56. In 1953, the 6th Infantry Division was raised and disbanded the 6th Division in 1956 followed by the disbandment of the 9th Infantry Division as the American assistance was available only for one armored and six infantry divisions. During this time, an army combat brigade team was readily made available by Gen. Ayub Khan to deploy to support the American Army's fighting troops in the Korean war.
Working as cabinet minister in Bogra administration, Gen. Ayub's impartiality was greatly questioned by country's politicians and drove Pakistan's defence policy towards the dependence on the United States when the country becoming the party of the CENTO and the SEATO, the U.S. active measures against the expansion of the global communism.
In 1956, the 1st Armored Division in Multan was established, followed by the Special Forces in Cherat under the supervision of the U.S Army's Special Forces. Under Gen. Ayub's control, the army had eradicated the British influence but invited the American expansion and had reorganized the East Bengal Regiment in East Bengal, the Frontier Force Regiment in Northern Pakistan, Kashmir Regiment in Kashmir, and Frontier Corps in the Western Pakistan. The order of precedence change from Navy–Army–Air Force to Army–Navy-Air Force, with army being the most senior service branch in the structure of the Pakistani military.
In 1957, the I Corps was established and headquarter was located in Punjab. Between 1956 and 1958, the schools of infantry and tactics, artillery, ordnance, armoured, medical, engineering, services, aviation, and several other schools and training centers were established with or without U.S. participation.