In any serious nation, governance and economic stability are not luxuries — they are lifelines. Pakistan, a country of 250 million people wedged between geopolitical fault lines and a hostile eastern neighbor, is behaving as if it has the time, wealth, and luxury to tolerate incompetent, corrupt, and parasitic leadership. It does not.
While India openly threatens to block Pakistan’s water — a weapon far deadlier than any missile — our ruling elite continues their petty games. The country’s economy, already fragile, cannot sustain such shocks, and without immediate reform and assertive governance, the consequences will be catastrophic.
The Real Crisis Is Governance
The governance crisis in Pakistan runs far deeper than bad policies or weak leadership. It is structural rot. The highest office holders in this country — men who should be setting an example — are instead running sugar mills, refusing to submit sales tax returns, and stealing from the very government they are meant to serve. The Federal Board of Revenue chairman himself admitted that cabinet members openly defy tax laws. This isn’t mere negligence. This is state-sanctioned looting.
They shamelessly extract taxes from the poor on every packet of sugar and every basic necessity — yet refuse to deposit that money into the national treasury. It’s no different from putting a fox in charge of the henhouse and then feigning surprise when the chickens vanish. When crisis strikes, these same politicians will be the first to hop on a plane and disappear abroad. And, as history repeatedly shows, it will be the military that’s left to clean up the mess — the only institution still standing.
But by propping up this discredited political class, the military is damaging its own credibility. These politicians have lost all public trust; continuing to support them is a reputational liability. If the military wants to preserve its standing and truly serve the nation, it must decisively sever ties with these failed figures — the sooner, the better.
A Weak Economy Means National Vulnerability
The delusion that Pakistan can survive as a weak economy while confronting existential threats is suicidal. Pakistan, with 250 million people, has a GDP of around $400 billion — less than tiny nations like Singapore (GDP: $500+ billion, population: 6 million) and Taiwan (GDP: $800+ billion, population: 23 million). This economic disparity isn’t just a number on paper. It translates into weaker defense budgets, poorer infrastructure, lower education and health outcomes, and diminished global leverage.
What Pakistan Needs is an IT-Driven, Modern Economy — Not a Rusting Relic of the Past. Pakistan is hurtling towards demographic and economic disaster. The population is exploding, yet it behaves more like an untrained, unproductive mass of zombies — disconnected from the demands of a modern world. What this country desperately needs is an IT-driven, knowledge-based economy anchored in innovation, digital skills, and modern enterprise. The world has moved on, but we remain stuck in a crumbling, obsolete economic model from the 1970s.
Our state-run institutions are not assets — they are black holes bleeding this country dry. From WAPDA to Pakistan Steel Mills, from Pakistan Railways to PIA, every major public-sector entity has become a staggering liability. These rusted relics rack up losses worth hundreds of billions of rupees annually, subsidized by a bankrupt state to protect political patronage networks and cronies. No serious nation in the 21st century runs airlines, power utilities, or railways the way we do — through bloated, inefficient, corruption-infested dinosaurs.
Yet the irony is that while the world is investing in AI, cloud computing, robotics, biotech, fintech, and clean energy solutions, we’re still busy propping up obsolete industries and ancient bureaucratic empires. Our education system, with its rote-learning and zero connection to market needs, churns out unemployable graduates with no digital or technical skills.
This has to end. Pakistan needs to fundamentally restructure its economy around modern, high-productivity sectors — IT services, software development, AI solutions, e-commerce, digital manufacturing, data centers, and renewable energy technologies. Our youth must be re-skilled, not in medieval textbooks, but in coding, app development, cybersecurity, AI engineering, cloud services, and blockchain technology.
Let’s be blunt: without this shift, Pakistan will not survive as a viable, competitive state. A country of 250 million cannot sustain itself on agriculture, textiles, and state-owned white elephants. The region is changing fast — India, Bangladesh, and even African economies are investing in human capital and technology. If we don’t catch up, we’ll become a welfare colony dependent on IMF loans and handouts.
The military, which is the only organized, disciplined, and decisive institution left in the country, must lead this transformation. Civil bureaucracy and the political class have proven themselves incompetent, corrupt, and parasitic. It’s time for decisive, unapologetic leadership to dismantle the outdated structures and build a lean, efficient, technology-driven economic framework that can secure Pakistan’s future.
This isn’t a policy choice anymore. It’s a matter of survival.
If India stops our rivers tomorrow — what will we do? Protest in press clubs? Write op-eds? Or pass condemnations in a rubber-stamp parliament? No nation survives on moral victories and empty rhetoric.
It’s Time for Military-Led Systemic Reform
Let’s be clear: Pakistan’s civilian bureaucracy and political class are not fit to govern this nation. The military, having defended this country against a six-times larger enemy, has earned the moral authority to restructure this failed governance model.
There are 16 federal ministries that should have been abolished after the 18th Amendment devolved their functions to the provinces. But the Pakistan Administrative Service — a colonial relic — refuses to let go because it means fewer cushy federal jobs, fewer ministries for politicians to loot, and less public money to waste on self-promotion. Where else in the world do Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, and ministers shamelessly plaster their faces across private television channels and newspapers to advertise routine public duties — all at the taxpayer’s expense? That money belongs to the nation and should be directed toward national defense or genuine development projects, not spent inflating the egos of failed politicians. If the military can fulfill its responsibilities, why can’t the politicians and bureaucrats, whose only talent seems to be looting public funds and selling empty promises?
With this collapsing economy and rotten governance, Pakistan can neither survive nor compete with its adversaries. And if anyone still harbors the delusion that America, China, the IMF, or the World Bank will rescue us, they are living in a fool’s paradise. No one is coming to save us. The only institution capable of pulling Pakistan back from the edge is the military — if it chooses to act decisively and with national interest above all else.
Technocratic, Accountable Governance Is the Only Way Forward
A government that can neither collect taxes nor electricity bills has no moral or practical legitimacy. What economic indicator can this government boast about? Inflation is crushing the poor, the rupee is in freefall, industries are shutting down, and youth unemployment is soaring.
Pakistan’s survival now depends on a clean, efficient, technocratic government with the military playing a decisive supervisory role. This isn’t about martial law. It’s about national survival.
Reform or Collapse.
The country’s current trajectory is not sustainable. Without decisive and revolutionary governance reforms and a serious economic overhaul, Pakistan will neither be able to defend its borders nor its future. India is preparing to choke our water supply. Our enemies are modernizing their economies, militaries, and statecraft while we continue to debate non-issues and protect thieves in high office.
The writing is on the wall. Pakistan needs bold, unapologetic leadership that prioritizes national survival over personal gain. The military, whether critics like it or not, remains the only institution capable of leading this national correction. Either we reform now — or we perish as a footnote in history.