Pakistan Army Transformed Intervention into Infrastructure

July 5, 2026

Pakistan Army is not content with acting as the unelected custodian of the state, being the largest industrial conglomerate in the country with billions of dollars in turnover. With its network and commercial interests spread across almost every sector of the country’s economy, “the Pakistani Army does not simply manage military affairs. It does not merely influence foreign policy.

It is not even content with acting as the unelected custodian of the state. At the centre of this empire stands the Fauji Foundation, founded in 1954 by General Ayub Khan and Defence Secretary Major General Iskandar Mirza, and still presented abroad with the touching innocence of a welfare organisation for veterans and military families. In theory, it is charity. In practice, it is Military Inc.

Fauji Foundation and its associated networks produce steel, energy, fertilisers, cement, furniture, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, food, cereals and processed meat. Owns clinics, hospitals, schools and universities. It operates in oil, gas and wind power.

It also holds a major share of national urea output. Through Askari Bank, among the country’s major financial institutions, it sits inside the bloodstream of the economy. It is connected to construction, insurance, power, mining, food supply, finance and infrastructure. There is no clean separation between barracks and balance sheets, between national security and private profit, between retirement benefits and corporate capture.

Showing the perfect symbols of capitalism, Pakistan’s military often acquired state land or got it allocated on favourable terms, which later turned into gated luxury and was sold at extraordinary margins. Islamabad and Karachi are textbook examples of this transformation: public geography converted into elite real estate, with the military acting not as defender of the nation but as developer of the nation’s most profitable enclaves.