Pakistan is increasing its defense budget 17 percent for the coming year, to $5.2 billion. While Pakistan increases its defense spending every year, to try and keep up with archrival India, it rarely goes up this much. The increase this year was mostly due to the war against the Taliban in the tribal territories, and Islamic terrorism in general. At the same time, most of the increase is covered by military aid from the United States (which has provided some $10 billion in military aid in the last eight years.). Two years ago, for the first time in over four decades, Pakistan released information on its defense spending. That year's spending was $4.1 billion. That figure explains why this data has been kept secret for so long. That's because Pakistan's military rival, and neighbor, India was, two years ago, increasing its defense budget by nearly 50 percent, to $39 billion. The difference should be no surprise. India has six times the population (at 1.1 billion) and 7.5 times the GDP ($1.1 trillion compared to $145 billion). India's economy has been booming for over a decade, while Pakistan's largely stagnates.