Shahzad Masood Roomi
Keeping in mind the precarious security situation on the western border, Pakistan has decided to increase the numerical strength of its ground forces. In this regard, Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul will increase the recruitment of its cadets who are trained and inducted in Pakistan Army as commissioned officers. The increase will be one third of current recruitment strength of PMA which is around 500 officers annually.
Chief of Army Staff, Gen Raheel Sharif visited PMA on Wednesday, earlier this week, and reviewed the progress of PMA's capacity enhancement project.
“The visit focused on reviewing the current training regime for cadets and PMA’s capacity enhancement projects including progress work on the 4th Pakistan Battalion,” read a statement issued by ISPR.
Right now, PMA intakes 500 cadets each year in two batches who then divided into three battalions during the training. Now that strength would increase to around 650 as addition 150 cadets would make 4th battalion at PMA.
As the number of commissioned officers would increase after this decision it implies that number of troops would also increase proportionally.
No timeline was given for the setting up of the new battalion at PMA, but insiders say the academy could be ready for the increased intake within 12-18 months.
Apart from mounting threats of non-state violent actors from across the Afghan border there are other factors which necessitated the requirement of additional troops and increase in size of Pakistan Army. These includes continuing involvement in tribal areas, where troops are expected to stay at least till 2019; the creation of a security division for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor; and increased requirement of officers for paramilitary forces like Frontier Corps and Rangers. Additionally, troops are getting increasingly engaged with UN peacekeeping operations and disaster relief operations.Last and most importantly, Indian escalation along the LoC and aggressive posturing towards Pakistan also played its role.
The internal factors behind this increase in Army's size are more worrisome indicator of collapse of civilian law and order institutions and forcing Pakistan Army and paramilitary forces to police the cities. In Karachi and Baluchistan paramilitary forces are involved in complex urban operations and their disengagement from these areas seems less likely in foreseeable future. Similarly, Pakistan Army may have to remain in FATA beyond 2019 as the security profile of Afghanistan is getting bleaker with every passing day. Politicizing regular police force has created severe challenge for Pakistan Army which is already fighting a asymmetrical and distributed war amid growing regional tension with India. Pakistan will have to remain watchful in this regards as the plan to convert Pakistan Army into a glorify police force is well known agenda of hostile forces.
