New Delhi, Oct 13 : Pakistan's economy stands as a textbook example of what happens when a country's most powerful institution serves itself instead of its citizens. The World Bank's recent findings ' showing that one in four Pakistanis now lives below the poverty line ' merely confirm what has long been obvious: the country's poverty is not accidental.

It is the predictable result of a state captured by its own army. Once, there was cautious optimism. From 2001 to 2018, Pakistan's poverty rate declined from more than 64 per cent to under 22 per cent, helped by remittances and foreign aid. That fragile progress has collapsed. In just three years, poverty has surged again to 25 per cent, undoing nearly two decades of gains.

While inflation, natural disasters, and weak reforms play their part, the deeper cause lies in a political-economic structure that diverts national wealth from the poor to an unaccountable military elite. Pakistan's federal budget tells its own story of misplaced priorities.

Defence spending continues to expand at double-digit rates, while public health and education remain chronically underfunded. In the last budget cycle, the government raised military expenditure by nearly 20 per cent, crossing 2.5 trillion rupees.

When hidden costs ' pensions, procurement, and secret allocations ' are included, defence consumes roughly 15 percent of total spending, far higher than comparable developing economies.

By contrast, health and education together often receive less than 2 percent of GDP. Every rupee that could have trained teachers or stocked clinics instead sustains tanks, missiles, and the lifestyle of retired officers housed in exclusive real-estate colonies.

The imbalance is moral as well as fiscal: a system that rewards power over service inevitably drains the future from its citizens. The consequences are devastating.

Nearly 40 per cent of children are stunted due to malnutrition; a quarter of school-aged children receive no schooling at all. Among those who attend, three-quarters cannot read a basic text by the end of primary school.

Half of households lack safe water, and a third live without sanitation. These are not random outcomes of poverty but symptoms of deliberate neglect by a state that spends on barracks rather than on people.

Military Empire, Civilian Ruin

Pakistan's labour market mirrors this distortion. More than 85 per cent of all jobs are informal, offering no security or social protection. Female participation in the workforce remains among the lowest in Asia. Talent is not the problem; allocation is.

Capital that should fund small enterprises or rural infrastructure instead sustains a sprawling military-commercial empire ' a network of factories, banks, real-estate ventures, and logistics firms owned by military foundations or retired officers.

This system crowds out genuine private enterprise, leaving citizens dependent on patronage rather than productivity. The military's economic footprint has become so vast that it effectively competes with the very market it is supposed to defend. A state where the army doubles as both regulator and competitor cannot expect sustainable growth.

The tragedy is compounded by the claim that such spending ensures security. In practice, Pakistan's security establishment has repeatedly empowered militant proxies and fostered regional instability, actions that have cost the country billions in lost trade, investment, and international credibility.

Funds that might have built schools in Sindh or clinics in Balochistan have instead financed militant infrastructure in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The outcome is predictable: isolation abroad and deprivation at home.

The 2022 floods exposed the depth of the governance crisis. Millions were displaced, crops destroyed, and villages washed away. International donors pledged billions in relief, yet mismanagement and corruption meant large portions of aid never reached victims. Military procurement, however, continued uninterrupted.

New housing schemes for officers were approved even as displaced families languished in camps. It was a grim illustration of priorities: when the poor drown, bureaucracy expands its privileges.

Pakistan's economic dependence on external lifelines ' IMF bailouts, Chinese loans, and expatriate remittances ' is inseparable from this military dominance.

Instead of using funds to reform institutions, the state channels them into maintaining a bloated defence apparatus. Analysts have long warned that foreign loans intended for stabilisation often underwrite military projects.

The burden of repayment then falls on citizens through inflation, taxes, and currency collapse, while accountability remains elusive.

A Youthful Nation, a Wasted Future

Pakistan's median age is barely twenty, one of the youngest in the world. Yet this demographic dividend has turned into a demographic threat. Without jobs or opportunity, millions of young people face idleness or exploitation.

Some seek dangerous work abroad; others are drawn into extremist networks. Each lost opportunity is a silent indictment of a system that prioritizes power over progress. The exodus of skilled professionals continues to accelerate, draining the country of its most valuable resource ' human capital.

Those who remain confront widening inequality. The military and political elite reside in gated colonies with uninterrupted electricity, private healthcare, and foreign education for their children.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens endure daily blackouts, collapsing hospitals, and unaffordable food. One Pakistan lives behind guarded walls; the other struggles merely to survive.

The army's public image as a disciplined, patriotic institution hides a record of opaque dealings. Land allotments, insider contracts, and monopoly privileges enrich those in uniform while starving public institutions of resources. Civilian governments that attempt to impose transparency face coercion or dismissal.

Judges, journalists, and activists who expose military corruption risk intimidation or imprisonment. Under such conditions, reform is performative; real authority lies elsewhere.

This concentration of power explains why every economic recovery in Pakistan is short-lived. Growth collapses whenever external funding dries up because the structural imbalance ' a military state masquerading as a democracy ' remains untouched. No amount of aid can compensate for an economy that serves its rulers rather than its workers.

Pakistan possesses everything it needs to prosper: fertile land, entrepreneurial people, and strategic access to regional markets. Yet potential is meaningless when captured by a single institution.

As long as the military claims the lion's share of the national budget, meddles in politics, and shelters militant networks, poverty will deepen and governance will decay.

One in four citizens is poor. Forty percent of children are malnourished. Women are excluded from the workforce. Inflation erodes savings. Debt mounts.

Meanwhile, the army continues to expand its economic footprint, acquiring land, industries, and influence. This is not a misfortune; it is a design ' a state constructed to serve the few at the expense of the many.

The World Bank's warning could not be clearer: unless Pakistan redefines its civil-military balance and redirects spending toward health, education, and enterprise, social collapse will accelerate. Reform cannot emerge from within the current hierarchy; it requires reclaiming civilian authority and restoring accountability.

Pakistan today resembles an army with a state attached rather than a state with an army. Generals preside over an economic model that extracts from the poor to fund their privileges, while citizens shoulder the consequences ' poverty, debt, and disillusionment.

The nation's crisis is not a lack of resources but the systematic theft of those resources by its own power structure. Until civilian institutions regain supremacy and the military retreats to its constitutional role, no loan, reform, or foreign promise will lift Pakistan from this spiral.

The numbers speak plainly; the responsibility is undeniable. A state that allows its protectors to become its profiteers ultimately destroys itself from within.

/IANS