The Pakistan Navy, long the smallest and most fiscally restricted branch of the nation’s armed forces, is undergoing a significant strategic pivot.
Shaped by the enduring legacy of its 1971 defeat—where Indian naval operations Trident and Python severely crippled its fleet—the naval establishment is moving away from direct conventional competition.
Instead, it is embracing an asymmetric doctrine centred on unmanned systems to counter the widening disparity with the Indian Navy.
A Widening Naval Imbalance
In the five decades since the 1971 conflict, the gap between the two maritime forces has expanded dramatically.While India has pursued a blue-water capability—fielding aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered submarines, and an extensive fleet of indigenously built destroyers and frigates—Pakistan has faced significant hurdles in keeping pace.
A critical vulnerability remains Pakistan’s limited domestic shipbuilding infrastructure.
Unlike India, which boasts a robust industrial base comprising shipyards such as Mazagon Dock and Garden Reach, Pakistan relies heavily on external partners.
The backbone of its current modernization effort depends on government-to-government deals with China and Turkey for the supply of Hangor-class submarines and Babur-class corvettes.
This reliance is exacerbated by chronic funding shortages, as the lion’s share of the national defence budget is traditionally allocated to the Army and Air Force, placing high-capital assets like aircraft carriers or large surface combatants firmly out of reach.
The Pivot to Unmanned Warfare
Faced with these financial and industrial realities, naval planners in Islamabad have accelerated the adoption of asymmetric tactics.The objective is no longer to match the Indian Navy ship-for-ship, but to employ cost-effective "force multipliers" that can complicate Indian operations.
Recent exercises in the North Arabian Sea have highlighted this shift.
The Pakistan Navy has begun showcasing a new, indigenous Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV), reportedly developed by the Naval Research and Development Institute (NRDI).
Designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, these USVs can operate in contested waters with reduced risk to human crews.
In a potential conflict, these platforms could be networked to act as forward sensors or even reconfigured for "swarm" attacks, carrying explosives to strike high-value targets.
New Strike Capabilities
Complementing the USV programme is the induction of long-range loitering munitions, most notably the Mudamir-LR.Developed by the Pakistani firm Sysverve Aerospace, this system offers a stand-off strike capability, allowing operators to loiter over a target area before engaging.
By deploying such systems, the Pakistan Navy aims to threaten Indian surface units operating in the northern Arabian Sea without exposing its own crewed vessels to immediate counter-fire.
The emerging doctrine envisions a distributed and "attritable" force—assets that are relatively inexpensive and expendable—which can impose disproportionate costs on a technologically superior adversary.
Strategic Limitations
Despite these advancements, defence analysts caution that this shift is unlikely to fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Indian Ocean Region.India’s multi-layered maritime defences, which include carrier battle groups, long-range maritime patrol aircraft, and a growing nuclear submarine fleet, provide a depth of capability that unmanned skiffs and loitering munitions cannot easily negate.
Ultimately, the Pakistan Navy’s turn towards unmanned warfare is a reflection of necessity rather than choice.
Constrained by budgets and a lack of indigenous industrial capacity, Islamabad is forced to rely on asymmetric tools to maintain relevance in a maritime domain increasingly dominated by India’s expanding naval footprint.
