Bangladesh–Pakistan Army Cooperation: Confronting the Common Indian Threat

For over half a century, India has sought to consolidate dominance in South Asia through coercion, pressure, and selective intervention. Its military doctrine has consistently cast Pakistan as the principal adversary while treating Bangladesh as a peripheral buffer to be kept under strategic influence. Today, as India pursues an ambitious military modernisation and increasingly assertive foreign policy, the armies of Bangladesh and Pakistan face a common challenge that cannot be ignored.

The historical record illustrates this reality. India’s intervention in 1971 was driven by strategic calculation rather than altruism, aimed at permanently weakening Pakistan and reshaping the regional balance. In the years since, New Delhi has repeatedly interfered in Bangladeshi domestic affairs, supported insurgent movements along the border, and exerted pressure over trade and water disputes. With Pakistan, the story is marked by open wars, skirmishes, and constant diplomatic friction. For both Dhaka and Islamabad, the underlying pattern is the same: India seeks to keep its neighbours divided and strategically constrained.

While India’s armed forces enjoy numerical superiority, their obligations are equally vast. The Indian Army is simultaneously tied down along the northern frontiers with China, engaged in internal security operations, and deployed across the Line of Control with Pakistan. This dispersion creates vulnerabilities. Bangladesh and Pakistan, by pooling strengths and sharing lessons, can exploit these vulnerabilities to enhance deterrence.

Bangladesh has developed specialised capabilities in riverine and amphibious operations, structured around its deltaic terrain. Pakistan, on the other hand, has unrivalled experience in mountain and high-altitude warfare, gained through decades of operational exposure in Kashmir and Kargil. A framework of joint training exchanges would allow each army to benefit from the other’s expertise, ensuring greater adaptability in terrains where the Indian Army would prefer to dictate the terms of engagement.

On the modern battlefield, India’s rapid induction of drones and loitering munitions is altering the tactical balance. Bangladesh, with its Bayraktar TB2 systems and move towards indigenous UAV development, brings valuable operational experience in tactical drone employment. Pakistan contributes depth in electronic warfare and layered air defence integration. Combining these strengths into a joint approach for counter-UAV doctrine, air defence deception, and rapid displacement tactics would directly mitigate India’s evolving capabilities.

Sustainment is another critical area. India’s strategy of attrition assumes its adversaries can be worn down through pressure on supply chains and reliance on sanctions. Here, Bangladesh and Pakistan can cooperate to build resilience by sharing spare-parts pools for Chinese and Turkish-origin systems, investing in localised 3D printing for non-critical components, and coordinating procurement of radios, optics, and counter-drone systems. Such measures would reduce costs, enhance interoperability, and deny India the ability to weaponise logistics vulnerabilities.

Force protection and troop survivability are equally important. India’s emphasis on deep strikes and leadership decapitation requires countermeasures that Bangladesh and Pakistan can develop together. Bangladesh’s experience in disaster relief and mass-casualty management, combined with Pakistan’s battlefield medicine and combat sustainment, could produce robust joint protocols for base defence, mass-casualty evacuation, and telemedicine-enabled frontline care.

A practical roadmap can be envisioned. In the immediate term, this should include a joint working group on counter-drone warfare, engineer exchanges focusing on riverine and mountain operations, and combined medical and logistics exercises. Over the medium term, establishing a joint UAV and electronic warfare centre of excellence, conducting integrated river-crossing exercises with air defence elements, and standardising selected categories of equipment would deepen cooperation.

India’s strategic advantage lies in keeping its neighbours divided. It pressures Bangladesh to make concessions in the east while sustaining a permanent state of hostility with Pakistan in the west. Operating in isolation, both armies remain within India’s comfort zone. But if Bangladesh and Pakistan enrich each other’s capabilities, they alter the strategic equation. India would be forced to contend with adversaries able to contest multiple domains, across multiple terrains, and on terms less favourable to its own planning.

This does not require political alignment, nor does it necessitate erasing history. It demands only a recognition of present realities: that India respects strength, and that strength in South Asia depends on unity of purpose among those who resist its dominance. By building on complementary strengths and fostering military-to-military cooperation, Bangladesh and Pakistan can secure a deterrent posture that is both credible and sustainable. In the evolving balance of power, that cooperation could mean the difference between vulnerability and survival.