Mansoor Tariq Khattak is a native of Shakardara, Kohat. Professionally, he is serving as an assistant director in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the Board of Revenue (BoR) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Additionally, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in remote sensing and GIS from the prestigious Punjab University, Lahore.

Asia and the Middle East are a tapestry of multiple nuclear-armed states’ ambitions and competition. All the nations in question—China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and Russia—play consequential roles in regional and global security dynamics. The regional landscape of defense postures and geopolitical alignments is derived from their internal political landscapes, defense strategies, and nuclear capabilities. A defense spending comparison between these nuclear powers will elaborate on how each is tackling its respective internal and external challenges.

China’s massive defense budget of $296 billion is an expression of its desire to assume supremacy in regional military might. Its presidency under Xi Jinping has been oriented toward the modernization of the military forces and technological capabilities. The PLA today is heavily oriented toward further advances in cyber warfare, missile systems, and naval powers to improve their positions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

On the home front, however, China poses major challenges, especially in the Xinjiang and Tibet areas, where political uprising and autonomy have become major concerns. The browbeating of China internationally for the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang has become a significant challenge to China’s stature in the world despite its economic and military progression. Meanwhile, Taiwan is a cause that has led Beijing to expand and modernize its military with a defense budget of $6.0 to 11.2 billion, setting indications of resistance against China’s territorial claims.

India is concerned not only by the threat from its neighbors, China and Pakistan but also faces internal challenges that warrant this level of defense spending. India has expanded its defense budget up to $83.6 billion making it a top global military spender. The modernization of India’s military is motivated by the need to counter conventional and nuclear threats issued by its neighbors. Disputed Kashmir........

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