[🇧🇩-Land] Military Capability of Bangladesh

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Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnT8T4riWU&t=8s

The following video talks about military capability of Bangladesh. The video is in English.

 

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Armed forces chiefs with the prime minister.

 

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Bangladesh army has procured RPG-29 from Russia. This will augment our anti tank capability.

 

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Winter military exercise of Bangladesh army. The nickname of this exercise is Nabadiganta.

 

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The following video is about a battle drill of Bangladesh army.

 

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Induction Ceremony of Turkish TB-2 Attack Drone.

 

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A cool video on training of Bangladesh army.

 

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Induction of Turkish TG-300 MLRS and Chinese FM-90 SHORAD SAM into Bangladesh Army.

 

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More TRG-300 MLRS for Bangladesh Army. The range of TRG-300 MLRS is 120km.

 

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Hand to hand close combat of Bangladesh army.

 

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Army chief urges soldiers to be ready to face any challenge

Army Chief General SM Shafiuddin Ahmed emphasizes the importance of readiness and modern training in facing 21st-century challenges. Read more about his call to the members of Bangladesh Army to be prepared for any obstacle that may arise.

en.prothomalo.com

Army chief urges soldiers to be ready to face any challenge

Chief of Army Staff General SM Shafiuddin Ahmed on Monday urged the members of Bangladesh Army to be prepared for all times to face the challenges of 21st century obtaining epoch making modern training.

"We had infused our lives in the great Liberation War, when it was necessary for the country and its people and if needed we will do it again," he said.

The army chief was addressing at the 6th Core Reunion and the 42nd Annual Commander Conference-2023 of the Army Service Core at the ASC Center and School at Zahanabad Cantonment in Khulna as the chief guest, said an ISPR press release.

He also remembered the important role and contribution of the Bangladesh army during the Great Liberation War.

General Ahmed paid rich tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Freedom Fighters including Army men during Liberation War at the beginning of his speech.

Remembering the glorious heritage of ASC core of the Army and their active contribution in the infrastructural development of the country as well as service to the motherland when it was necessary, the Army top boss asked to enhance their total skills during their duty in and outside the country.

Stimulation has been created among the Army persons in presence of its Chief and conviction has been reiterated among each of the members (Core) for serving the motherland in future, the ISPR press Release added.
Besides, the Army Chief unveiled the foundation stone of the 50-Bed Combined Military Hospital at the Zahanabad Cantonment.

The army chief later paid homage at the monument 'Sangsaptok', at Zahanabad, built in Memory of the martyred and visited different military establishments.

Army high officials and media personnel, among others, were present at the event.

 

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The following article has been extracted from the official army webpage. It's a good overview of Bangladesh army.

About Bangladesh Army - Bangladesh Army

HeadQuater of Bangladesh Army, All about Bangladesh Army

www.army.mil.bd

About Bangladesh Army

General

Bangladesh Army emerged during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. The mission of Bangladesh Army is to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bangladesh. In addition to its primary mission, the Bangladesh Army is also assisting the civilian government during times of national emergency.

Role of Bangladesh Army

Bangladesh Army intends to build a well trained and well-equipped deterrent land force to meet the traditional and non-traditional threats and challenges of 21st century. However, the roles of Bangladesh Army are:

· To defend sovereignty and territorial integrity.
· To plan and develop the mobilization of civil resources in support of land operations.

· To aid the civil administrations in maintenance of internal security and law and order situation, when assigned.

· To assist the civil administration in managing the disasters and natural calamities, when requested.

· To take part in nation development activities as and when asked for.
· To support United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.

· To take part in coalition operations with other nations if authorized by the parliament.


Achievement and Contribution

Achievement and contribution of Bangladesh Army has to be traced back through 5 broad categories of operational engagements. These are Internal Security Operations, Counter Insurgency Operations (CIO) in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), infrastructure and nation building activities, role in disaster management and UN peacekeeping operations.

Nation Building Activities and In Aid of Civil Power

Bangladesh Army has made commendable contributions in number of nation building activities assigned by government and could earn trust and confidence of common mass. It includes preparation of voter list with picture and National ID cards, Machine Readable Passport, construction of roads, flyover, underpass etc. So far, Bangladesh Army carried out good number of internal security operations in aid to the civil administration to bring back normalcy in life. Besides, in the wake of any disaster like flood, cyclone, earth-quake, building collapse and accidental fire incidents etc, Bangladesh Army provides the quickest support to the affected people.


Chittagong Hill Tracts Conflict

At the outbreak of the insurgency in CHT, the Government of Bangladesh deployed the army to fight CIO. In the process of fighting, many officers and men sacrificed their valuable lives for their utmost dedication and patriotism which led to exemplary counter insurgency conflict termination in South Asia. Due to remarkable contribution of Bangladesh Army in the field of maintenance of security and socio-economic development of CHT, long conflict of more than two decade ended with the signing of CHT Peace Accord in 1997 between the government and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS). At present army is performing the role of post-CIO in order to support government machinery to perform its normal activities.

Contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations

The Bangladesh is actively involved in a United Nations Peace Support Operations under Blue Helmets since 1988. By this time Bangladesh Army has completed 50 missions in 40 countries. At present 7,085 peacekeepers from Bangladesh Army are deployed in 10 Missions of 10 different countries. Besides establishing world peace, our peacekeepers are earning huge amount of foreign remittance that contributes towards maintaining and increasing the growth rate of our National economy. In search of world peace, our peacekeepers dive deep in fathomless darkness; and they sacrifice their valuable lives. Till now 124 Bangladeshi peacekeepers have embraced martyrdom and many of our peacekeepers were injured.

Conclusion

Bangladesh Army has come a long way since its transformation from a non-descript entity to a credible defence forces in this sub-continent. As an institution, the Army today is self-confident and self-contained, with tremendous potentials to sustain growth, expansion and modernization. Army as deterrent land force is capable to meet the traditional and non-traditional security threats of 21st century in order to maintain territorial integrity of Bangladesh.

 

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Global Firepower Ranking 2023: Implications for Bangladesh

For a country to showcase its national strength, military capability and coercive endurance, power becomes an important denominator in international politics.

www.thedailystar.net

Global Firepower Ranking 2023: Implications for Bangladesh

For a country to showcase its national strength, military capability and coercive endurance, power becomes an important denominator in international politics. Despite the renewed focus on ideational power exercised by countries be it in international forums, ideology and diplomacy, military power remains the core tool of any country to advance its security image in international relations. Global Firepower (GFP) is an internationally recognised ranking system to understand the military rankings, status and development of countries. In its recent issue, the Global Firepower 2023 ranks Bangladesh as the first paramilitary power and 12th "Powers on the Rise" in the world, a milestone achievement for a South Asian country only after India and Pakistan.

However, what constitutes power itself, remains a contested definitional pursuit among scholars, academicians and practitioners in international relations. Joseph Nye, an influential scholar on American foreign policy, stated that power is not only about commanding others to do something rather it is also about persuading others to get what one wants. This suggests power can be both soft power or hard power, where soft power includes economic pursuit or diplomacy and hard power includes military strength, defence and warfare equipment. Such soft/hard-power distinction may not always be a useful analytical tool to understand a country's influence in global politics, but certainly understanding a country's military capabilities in numbers can provide a brief overview of a country's position in the global armament landscape.

Global Firepower (GFP) Index illustrates a country's conventional fighting capability measured by eight categorical groups such as financials, geography, manpower, airpower, land forces, naval forces, natural resources, and logistics. Under these categorical groups, the index uses over 60 factors to calculate the comparative military strength of each country – standardised by the perfect Power Index (PwrIndx) value of 0.0000. Currently, Global Firepower (GFP) comprises 145 nations in its list with an expanding range each year.

The USA, Russia and China top the first three positions of the 2023 GFP list with PwrIndx of 0.0712, 0.0714 and 0.0722, respectively. Comparatively, the USA excels in airpower, logistics and geography, whereas Russia excels in manpower, land power, naval power, natural resources and financials. Similarly, China excels in manpower, naval power, land power and financials over the USA. For South Asia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh tops the list with PwrIndx of 0.1025, 0.1694 and 0.5871 respectively. The ranks of India (4th), Pakistan (7th) and Bangladesh (40th) describe the stark power imbalance in the region.

In comparison, India and Pakistan both hold a stronger advantage over Bangladesh in almost all categories. However, one interesting finding is that Bangladesh, given its relatively small square land (143,998 km), shared border (4413 km), coastline (580 km) and waterways (8370 km), still holds the upper hand over India in its geographical position. The reason for this is that Bangladesh has significant shared borders and a critical coastline on the Bay of Bengal with strategic maritime advantage.

One of the main strengths of Bangladesh is its population counting over 165 million. This fact can be acutely observed in the manpower category of Bangladesh, where in all of the indicators (available manpower, paramilitary, fit-for-service, reaching military age annually, total military personnel, active personnel and air force/army/navy personnel) the country tops among the first 32. The country currently hosts the world's largest paramilitary force combining 6,800,000 personnel, making it first in the GFP list. Also, the country has one of the largest active military forces in the world with around 7 million personnel. This might be one of the finest examples of a country's security landscape bound with territorial limitation, that a heavy population can act as an asset if mobilised effectively.

Bangladesh's military modernisation has been facilitated by the increased defence expenditure of the government. Starting in 2009, Bangladesh Armed Forces has focused on modernising its core forces including the Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy and Bangladesh Air Forces often known as Force Goal 2030. The programme facilitated numerous upgradation programmes of tanks, tank missiles, light armoured vehicles, radar and aviation equipment, etc. Under this modernisation programme, Bangladesh currently stands 40th globally in terms of defence spending, amounting to USD 3.8 billion. In South Asia, the defence expenditure of Bangladesh ranks third only after India and Pakistan, which suggests in terms of strategic political calculation, the country is not limited only to soft power diplomacy.

However, the military landscape also suggests that Bangladesh is aptly equipped for conventional military warfare. On the contrary, the present global firepower landscape is increasingly shifting to the airspace and airborne military equipped with high-range missiles, advanced AI technology and data-enabled geo-precision. Adaptation to the global tech-military landscape will require heavy investment in military research and technology. Hence, Bangladesh needs to focus on increased R&D investment in the defence sector, instead of merely importing the logistics from other countries. This will enable the country to gather sufficient footing in the military research industry as well.

GFP 2023 signifies the fact that modern firepower capabilities depend not only on expenditure-reliant armed forces of a country's army, navy or air power, rather financialisation, logistics and geography also play a major role in determining a country's rank. Increased intra-state conflicts, growing polarisation, external allied pressure and existing security dilemmas all contributed to an increased securitisation and advancement of military power in recent decades. For South Asia, the implication will not only cover the uneasy tension between India and Pakistan, but also will extend to the other countries as well. Bangladesh's gradual climbing up in the ranks is the best example of this – that regional geopolitics has significant implications for a country's modernising military tendency.

Towkir Hossain is a Dhaka-based research analyst on international affairs

 

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US to Supply More Advanced Military Equipment to Bangladesh

The US government will provide the Bangladesh Armed Forces with more weapons and equipment to help defend its sovereignty.

www.thedefensepost.com

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US to Supply More Advanced Military Equipment to Bangladesh​

The US government will provide the Bangladesh Armed Forces with more weapons and equipment to help defend its sovereignty, US Ambassador to Dhaka Peter Haas has announced.

Speaking at the Defence Services Command and Staff College last week, the American diplomat revealed that the South Asian nation will soon take delivery of more state-of-the-art drones and surface ships from Washington.

The new defense hardware will support UN peacekeeping and other missions in Bangladesh.

“Over the next year, we expect to deliver the highly capable Blackjack UAS [unmanned aerial system], 35-foot SAFE patrol boats, and additional Zodiac rigid hull boats,” Haas disclosed.

The announcement came just before the US expressed concern about recent reports of violence in Dhaka, saying the Bangladeshi government must investigate “thoroughly, transparently, and impartially.”

Bolstering Defense Ties​

According to Haas, the US is one of the major countries to help boost Bangladesh’s defense capabilities through foreign military aid.

The US military regularly works with Bangladesh to strengthen its defense readiness and fortify their partnership, he said.

He added that the US has five goals for its Asian ally, including supporting a peaceful and stable nation, promoting democracy and human rights, and providing humanitarian protection.

Among the equipment delivered by the US to Dhaka were frigates, mine-resistant armored vehicles, and four C-130B tactical transport aircraft.

“This past year, we also delivered small UAS … [and] provided special operations units with modern weapons, ammunition, body armor, advanced radio systems, and first aid equipment,” Haas explained.

 

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Military exercise by Bangladesh Army.