Paper Fleet, Real Leverage: Pakistan’s Import-Dependent Navy And What It Means For Somalia | World News

The Pakistan Navy, externally disguised as modernity, is a structure that favors foreigners, not its own foundries. Their hulls are forged in Chinese and Turkish shipyards, their electronics are equipped with imported circuits, and their sustainability is chained to the generosity of foreign creditors. The Memorandum of Understanding signed with Somalia, which promises to create a ‘self-sufficient naval power’, therefore carries a paradox: How can a navy floating on borrowed steel teach autonomy to another navy still finding its feet at sea?

To understand the illusion, one must look beneath the veneer of press releases and patriotic fanfare.


Since 2010, more than 75 percent of Pakistan’s naval inventory has come from abroad, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Modeled on China’s Type-039A, the Hangor-class submarines are being built in Wuhan, not Karachi; Type-054A/P frigates are delivered turnkey from Shanghai; and Milgem (Babur) class corvettes, although they were assembled at the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Factories, they are actually Turkish ships bearing Pakistani colours. Even the surveillance drones hovering over the Karachi coastline keep their sights on Shenzhen. The entire fleet is essentially a maritime exhibition hall of Chinese and Turkish craftsmanship.

These acquisitions are financed not by domestic capital, but through a network of concessional loans and deferred payments. The Beijing Export-Import Bank insures the submarines; Türkiye gives soft loans to Milgems; maintenance contracts are tied to long-term service agreements that make foreign technicians indispensable.

When Islamabad signs the ‘technology transfer’ articles, what it gets is not the machine to be built, but the assembly license. The difference is subtle but fatal to sovereignty. For each valve or sonar array imported, some of the autonomy is pawned.

Now this dependency is being exported. Somalia’s defense agreement with Pakistan provides for technical training, platform maintenance and development of naval capacity. But each of these deliveries goes back to Pakistan’s foreign suppliers.

The expertise Pakistan offers to Mogadishu is itself derivative; It is a translated transfer of Chinese manuals and Turkish doctrine from a debtor’s perspective. If a Somali patrol boat trained under this program needs spare parts or upgrades, these are likely to come from shipyards in Istanbul or Shanghai, not Karachi. In this sense, Somalia’s maritime independence will come to be owed to the same community of lenders that already surrounds Pakistan.

Consider the delays in the Hangor project; A two-year delay caused by financing difficulties in Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves.

The State Bank’s balance sheets reveal that the defense import bill has ballooned even as development spending has decreased. How credible is another country’s promise to continue maritime education when Islamabad struggles to service its own maritime credit lines? If Islamabad falters, will Beijing or Ankara quietly step in to directly ‘aid’ Somalia, thereby expanding their own reach under Pakistan’s diplomatic banner? The geometry of dependency thickens with each layer.

Supporters in Rawalpindi frame the MoU as a gesture of solidarity between Muslim countries, but the subtext appears to be a balance sheet transaction. China gains a proxy channel to the Horn of Africa without officially hoisting its flag; Türkiye is gaining a foothold in a developing maritime corridor; Pakistan is gaining diplomatic importance as an intermediary, although its influence is borrowed.

For Somalia, this triangulation may seem like an opportunity (new ships, new training, new friends), but beneath the surface lies the risk of a foreign echo chamber where every decision, every supply, must pass through multiple capitals before reaching Mogadishu’s.

Its effects are not abstract. If a Somali officer graduates from the Pakistan Naval Academy, his curriculum will reflect doctrines imported by Islamabad: joint anti-submarine operations developed during the China-Pakistan ‘Sea Guardian’ exercises, convoy tactics modeled on PLA(N) standards, even communications protocols modeled on Turkish fleet manoeuvres. So what Somalia gets is a mixed maritime identity, part Chinese, part Turkish, part Pakistani, but not quite Somali.

Strategically, such an arrangement brings the Horn of Africa into the broader framework of China’s Belt and Road maritime strategy. A navy trained by Pakistan is, in a sense, trained according to China’s templates. This is not the transfer of knowledge, but the dissemination of influence elegantly disguised as collaboration.

Somalia’s ports may soon echo the same emphasis on dependency echoed in the ports of Gwadar or Hambantota, where local control is traded for distant patronage.

After all, the shining hulls of the Pakistan Navy tell the story of supply rather than power. They float because creditors allow it. And thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Somalia, this vulnerability can now spread to another coastline. If the intention is to fortify the seas against future pirates, the irony is cruel: A new kind of piracy emerges; a piracy in which sovereignty is quietly taken over the ships, the flag is lowered, and command is handed over to those who sell the ships.