This, military analysts warn, is leading to an abnormally high percentage of Pak troops on active duty — a dangerous factor that has the potential to crack open the Pak army.

Indian intelligence data says that out of the 66 Infantry Brigades (about 1.65 lakh troops) in the Pak army, 33 brigades are currently on active duty. Of these, 18 brigades (45,000 troops) are deployed for counter-terror operations.

With half its troops committed to active duty, the army is finding it hard to rotate and relive formations. “It is a major operational constraint. In the event of war, the whole army gets mobilized but in an ideal scenario, one-third of the troops should be on duty while the rest are in transit or in a peace area. In long term, it will get increasingly difficult to manage the men,” an official said.

However, a broken up Pakistani army, armed with nuclear weapons, is the last thing India would like to see. A worst case scenario for Pakistan, drawn up by strategic affairs expert Stephen Cohen in an article on the Brookings Institution website on Monday, paints a worrisome picture.

“One (of the two desperate scenarios) is that the army itself might lose its coherence. It is a multi-ethnic army, derived from the old British Indian army, and from time to time it, like its predecessor, has had ethnic-based mutinies (the most notable being the revolt of the Bengali elements of all three services in 1970). At present, about eighteen per cent of the Pakistan army are Pushtuns or of Pushtun-origin. There are reports of officers refusing to attack targets, and the astonishing case, still unexplained, of nearly 300 officers and jawans surrendering to the militants in Waziristan — where they are still being held hostage,” writes Cohen, explaining that the US is in for a tough ride as far as its Pakistan policy is concerned.