Through much of its history, the Pakistan Army (PA) was the military’s service arm that had been defined (relative to the Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Navy, at least) by strength in numbers. It needed to be as its immediate adversary, the Indian Army (IA), itself was a much larger force.
There was perhaps a point in the overall equation where qualitative strength, be it borne of technology or higher proportions of higher quality or newer systems, would not be enough.
The PA had to balance its capabilities by ensuring that a certain level of quantitative mass was always maintained. This, of course, forced the trade-off of moving slowly, at least compared to the Air Force and Navy, on adopting the latest in technology and doctrine.
Thus, a great many programs – e.g., the ill-fated assault rifle tender or large aviation corps – have yet to receive the investment that General Headquarters (GHQ) would otherwise prefer to give them.
However, against the backdrop of these structural challenges, the PA made relatively significant strides in network-enabled warfare, specifically in the ‘connective’ tissue that enables its armour, artillery, and other systems to interoperate. And it has done so relatively quietly.
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