SECURITY PACT LINKING GULF AND SOUTH ASIA TESTS REGIONAL CAPACITY FOR INDEPENDENT DETERRENCE
Citizens across the Gulf, South Asia and beyond have a direct stake in whether the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye on August 7, can deliver genuine stability or remains a political declaration. The accord attempts to build deterrence capacity without relying exclusively on external guarantees, particularly those historically provided by the United States. Whether the three governments can translate political commitment into credible military cooperation is the central question facing the arrangement, and the answer will shape the security environment for hundreds of millions of people living in and around these regions.
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has advocated for a NATO-like collective-defence framework among Muslim countries, while Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has described the Makkah agreement as technically comparable to NATO’s Article 5 and discussed plans for a ministerial mechanism and permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been more cautious, avoiding an official characterisation of the pact as another NATO. This difference in rhetoric reflects deeper questions about what the three governments actually intend to build.
The NATO comparison, while capturing political ambition, obscures the practical challenges ahead. NATO’s credibility rests on decades of integrated military planning, command structures, interoperability, intelligence coordination and political consultation. The Makkah pact has yet to demonstrate anything comparable. Its real significance lies in connecting Gulf and South Asian security within a common framework as regional powers seek additional mechanisms for managing uncertainty without abandoning established external partnerships.
For the populations of the Gulf, the accord reflects a reassessment of security in an increasingly volatile region. Attacks on Gulf infrastructure, threats to energy routes and successive regional crises have exposed the risks of relying overwhelmingly on one external security provider. Saudi Arabia remains deeply connected to the United States through defence, economic and strategic ties, but Riyadh appears determined to supplement that relationship with additional partnerships that give it greater control over its own security arrangements. The practical effect for ordinary people is that the architecture protecting critical infrastructure, energy supplies and civilian safety is being deliberately broadened.
By bringing Turkiye and Pakistan into a collective-defence framework, Saudi Arabia broadens the range of actors a potential aggressor must consider. The agreement does not publicly specify a predetermined military response, but that uncertainty may itself contribute to deterrence: aggression could generate wider political, logistical or military consequences.
Turkiye brings NATO experience, a large conventional military and a rapidly expanding defence industry. Its capabilities complement Saudi efforts to strengthen domestic defence production and diversify procurement. Joint production, technology partnerships, exercises and greater interoperability could eventually prove more consequential than the pact’s headline collective-defence provision. For Ankara, the pact offers greater strategic reach without replacing NATO with a regional bloc, adding another partnership to a foreign policy increasingly characterised by overlapping relationships.
Pakistan brings different assets. Decades of military cooperation with Saudi Arabia, substantial manpower and operational experience make Islamabad a natural security partner. Pakistan’s nuclear status adds to its broader strategic weight, although the agreement provides no basis for assuming that Islamabad has extended a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s diplomatic position is equally significant. Islamabad has sought workable relations with competing regional actors and positioned itself as a potential intermediary during periods of tension. Pakistan’s participation therefore complicates attempts to portray the pact as an explicitly anti-Iran coalition. Islamabad shares a border with Iran and has strong strategic incentives to preserve stable relations with Tehran.
Iran remains an important strategic variable despite not being named in the agreement. Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, Iran-aligned armed groups, Houthi operations and threats to maritime routes have become important factors in Gulf threat perceptions. Yet none of the three signatories has an interest in institutionalising permanent confrontation with Tehran. Turkiye combines strategic competition with economic and diplomatic engagement. Pakistan has strong incentives to maintain stability along its Iranian border. Saudi Arabia also has reasons to prevent regional instability from undermining its economic transformation.
The accord attempts something more subtle than constructing an anti-Iran bloc. It seeks to raise the potential costs of aggression without formally identifying where that aggression might originate. This preserves diplomatic space while allowing the agreement to address a broader range of threats. But strategic ambiguity works only if potential adversaries believe the collective-defence commitment carries real consequences.
A more complicated challenge emerges when aggression does not come directly from another state. The Middle East’s security environment is shaped by drones, missiles, militias and proxy networks as much as conventional warfare. Would a major Houthi missile or drone attack on Saudi territory activate the agreement? Would Turkiye and Pakistan respond militarily, provide intelligence or air-defence assistance, or offer diplomatic support? Similar questions arise beyond the Gulf. If another India-Pakistan confrontation escalated, how would Riyadh and Ankara interpret the scope of their commitments to Islamabad?
These questions go directly to the public interest in stable governance and protected civilian infrastructure. Collective defence becomes credible when adversaries believe an attack will impose costs, but members also need sufficient flexibility to prevent a local confrontation from producing uncontrolled escalation. The pact’s credibility will therefore depend on institution-building. A permanent secretariat and ministerial mechanism could provide political coordination, but military credibility would require intelligence sharing, joint exercises, contingency planning, logistical arrangements and agreed consultation procedures. Without such mechanisms, the pact will remain primarily a political signal.
Meanwhile, perhaps the pact’s most consequential feature is that it begins to institutionalise a strategic bridge between two security theatres traditionally treated as distinct. Pakistan’s participation means a collective-defence framework centred partly on Gulf security now reaches into an environment shaped by India-Pakistan rivalry, China’s regional role and nuclear deterrence. The connection works in the opposite direction too. Gulf instability has direct implications for Pakistan through energy security, investment, military cooperation and relations with Iran. This does not mean Saudi Arabia or Turkiye will automatically become parties to South Asian conflicts, or that Pakistan will participate in every Gulf confrontation. The absence of such automaticity may be precisely what allows the arrangement to function.
For decades, much of the Middle East’s security architecture revolved around external guarantees, particularly those provided by the United States. The Makkah pact suggests that regional states increasingly want arrangements they can shape themselves alongside established partnerships. This is neither necessarily an American retreat nor a rejection of Washington. The United States retains military capabilities, intelligence networks and logistical reach that Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan cannot collectively reproduce. What is changing is exclusivity. Saudi Arabia can retain its American security relationship while deepening defence cooperation with Turkiye and Pakistan. Turkiye can remain in NATO while developing additional regional frameworks. Pakistan can sustain its strategic partnership with China while maintaining relationships with Washington, Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran.
The three signatories bring distinct assets: Saudi economic and political weight, Turkish military and defence-industrial capabilities, and Pakistani military experience and diplomatic reach. But collective defence is easier to declare than to implement. The pact must establish how members consult during crises, distinguish state aggression from attacks by non-state actors, and determine what assistance each is prepared to provide. Its durability will also depend on whether the governments can manage relationships outside the pact, particularly with Iran. If effective consultation, military coordination and crisis-management mechanisms develop, Makkah could become an early institutional expression of a more diversified regional security order. The pact’s ultimate test will not be whether its leaders compare it with NATO, but whether it can make aggression more costly without making escalation more likely, and whether the populations living under its shadow are safer as a result.