DEFENDERS OF PAKISTAN 2009 (photo)

PAKISTAN - DEFENDERS OF PAKISTAN - Pakistan Navy commandos undergo training in an amphibious exercise, honing their combat edge to perfection. The Pakistan Navy is equipped with some of the most modern weapons systems of the 21 century: exocet air-to-surface missiles, acoustic torpedoes, anti-submarine rockets and others. Pakistan, born on 14 August 1947, is bound in the East by India, in the North by China and the Russia, and in the West by Afghanistan and in the southwest by Iran. From the Pamir Knot, a complex citadel in the north of Pakistan known as the 'Roof of the World’ runs the Himalaya curve more than 3,000 kilometers to the junction of Upper Assam with China and Burma. This immense wall deters would-be invaders and has served as a natural fortress. To the northwest where the barrier deflects off the buttress of the Hindu Kush and runs southwards, its composition changes. The range of arid mountains stretching to the shores of the Arabian Sea is riven with many passes. Bounded on three sides by landmasses of the sub-continent, Pakistan defends a thousand-kilometer long coastline running from Iran to the Indian border.