On September 17, amidst the grandeur of Riyadh’s Al-Yamamah Palace, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan formalised their nearly fifty-year ad hoc security partnership. In 1967, the two countries struck a deal: a consistent flow of Saudi funds would reach Pakistan’s depleted treasury in exchange for the provision of Pakistani arms along Saudi Arabia’s fragile borders.
Intense media and analytical speculation soon centred on the possible ramifications of a security pact that deems ‘any act of aggression against either country . . . an act of aggression against both’, between a nuclear-armed state and a regional power frequently involved in conflict. Despite this flurry of media attention however, few recognised how the pact could serve to further consolidate Saudi influence in the Middle East.
The pact formalises an existing strategic partnership between Riyadh and Islamabad, as opposed to forming a comprehensive military alliance. Pakistani troops are currently deployed in Saudi Arabia and have been periodically since the 1960s. Riyadh owes the training of over 8,000 military personnel to this arrangement, while the Saudi provision of significant economic relief has extended a fiscal lifeline to Islamabad throughout the state’s protracted financial strain. Several analysts have done well to highlight this history, and negate the nuclear alarmism which has become a prominent feature of several articles concerning the pact.
Although more modest headlines have identified the pact as a simple tool for Saudi securitisation, such analyses have failed to recognise the shrewd political maneuvering which rests in the agreement’s formulation. Iran’s regional influence is faltering amidst the dismantling of its proxy forces in Yemen, Gaza and Lebanon, and the loss of its key ally, Syria, following the collapse of the Assad regime. Iran is haemorrhaging both power and influence, and Riyadh could sense an opportunity to reconfigure regional power politics in its favour. Despite the broader regional politics at hand, media attention has primarily underscored the nuclear element of the deal.
There is legitimacy to concerns surrounding the prospect of Saudi Arabia’s de facto nuclearisation, spurred on by Pakistan’s Minister of Defence, Khawaja Asif. After broadcasting that Pakistan’s military capabilities ‘will be made available’ to Riyadh shortly after discussing Islamabad’s established nuclear deterrent, Asif later clarified in the same interview that nuclear guarantees were ‘not on the radar’. This revision has done little to quell the swathes of media outlets and analysts who have, in some instances, rather operatically cited the surety of Saudi Arabia’s newfound shelter under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella, and how the pact marks the potential genesis of an ‘Islamic NATO’.
Substantively, however, the pact fails to introduce anything new to the quid-pro-quo arrangement between Riyadh and Islamabad. Instead, it represents a formal recognition of their established relationship, and the ‘bonds of brotherhood and Islamic solidarity’ which have, alongside a notable sum of Saudi riyals, facilitated this partnership. There are already a handful of security pacts between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and despite several assaults on Saudi territory during the period, no assailant has faced Pakistan’s arsenal of 170 nuclear warheads.
Rejection of the pact’s purportedly binding nature is with precedent. Pakistan has lent its signature to several security pacts before, notably with the US in a 1954 Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement, and with the UK, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey as a member of the Central Treaty Organisation from 1955. When Pakistan entered conflict with India in 1965 and 1971, its calls for military support from pact partners went unanswered. Often, regional security pacts serve a purpose of deterrence and strategic cooperation rather than as unconditional war guarantees irrespective of regional context and political nuance. So, for now, concerns citing the potential devastation caused by a nuclear-armed Riyadh can be placed on the backburner.
This passive stance would be consistent with historical trends – both states have exhibited apprehensions regarding providing the war guarantees which their previous security pacts have dictated. In 2015, Pakistan declined Riyadh’s invitation to join the Saudi-led intervention against the Houthis in Yemen, whilst Saudi Arabia has continued to host India for talks concerning broader diplomatic and trade cooperation throughout New Delhi’s fluctuating tensions with Pakistan. It is unlikely that Pakistan will enter conflict for the sake of Saudi Arabia, especially at a time when Islamabad must concentrate its military forces along her Eastern border amidst ongoing tensions with India. Saudi Arabia also enjoys an established diplomatic relationship with India, and it is equally unlikely that Riyadh would sacrifice this relationship with an important economic and trade partner to satisfy Pakistan’s security needs, further negating the potential comprehensiveness of the pact’s military scope.
The United States and Saudi Arabia: Shattered Illusions
Headlines which herald Saudi Arabia’s entry into the nuclear fold are bound to draw greater attention than repeated platitudes which point to more modest realities. Yet there are profound motivations which lie behind Saudi desires to revisit the arrangement at this time. Media outlets have, correctly, pointed to Saudi perceptions of a waning US commitment to provide security as a motivation in its signing of the pact, but how this development relates to the agreement’s ulterior role in strengthening Riyadh’s regional influence represents a comparatively neglected incentive.
Established onboard the sizeable USS Quincy in 1945, the long-standing Saudi-US alliance exists on a similarly transactional footing to the Saudi-Pakistan arrangement. Built on mutual benefit, the partnership has entailed the provision of US security guarantees in exchange for plentiful shipments of Saudi oil to US ports at a favourable rate. The US has adopted this role in similar arrangements with several other Gulf states, but prolonged regional turmoil following the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war has complicated these matters considerably.
On June 23, Iran launched a barrage of air strikes on US air base Al Udeid in Qatar. On September 9, Israel unleashed a volley of missiles into a residential building in Doha, targeting senior members of Hamas leadership. In both instances the US response was muted. This response to an attack against a recipient of US security guarantees, limited to a passive condemnation of violence, sent a wave of doubt through Gulf states which possess similar guarantees from Washington. At an emergency Arab-Islamic summit held in response to the strike, this doubt was keenly expressed and the US implored to rein in Israel.
The strikes shattered the illusion of a US-shaped safety net for Gulf states. The formalisation of the Saudi-Pakistan defence pact, signed a little over a week following the Israeli strikes and days following the Arab-Islamic summit, was doubtlessly streamlined in response to this disillusionment. This précis contradicts the official narrative that the pact was ‘not a response to specific countries or specific events’ according to one Saudi official. Yet there is likely an element of truth to this statement, given how Riyadh’s faith in the veracity of US security guarantees has been waning for some time.
Since the start of the first Trump Administration in 2017, US depictions of Saudi Arabia have ranged from President Trump’s hailing of a ‘spectacular ally’ to President Biden’s wish to render the Saudis a ‘pariah state’. These diverging claims evidence a turbulent relationship which has fostered doubt and mistrust. Saudi attempts to gently depart from an overreliance on the US for its security by expanding diplomatic ties with other powerful states has also bred its own brand of tension with Washington.
This Saudi realignment has come at the sacrifice of its oil guarantees to the United States. At the outbreak of the Global pandemic in 2020, Riyadh cooperated with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by restricting oil exports, consequently drumming up oil prices in the process. In response, US Senator Chris Murphy decried that Riyadh ‘chose Russia’ over the US – a sentiment which laid bare the fracturing relationship between the two states.
Countering Iran
While a direct invasion of Saudi Arabia is highly unlikely, the threat to Saudi oil exports (which account for 55% of total government revenue) posed by regional volatility imperils Riyadh’s economic security. Several Saudi oil facilities have recently suffered assault; Iran has directly struck Saudi Aramco sites while the Houthis have also bloodied Riyadh’s nose in this regard. The Saudi-Pakistan pact seeks to provide an additional deterrence to such hostilities as Riyadh navigates an uneasy relationship with the US, but it also serves as a diplomatic lever to further usurp Tehran’s regional influence.
Erupting from the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Saudi-Iran proxy war has innately influenced Saudi policymaking from its inception. The conflict’s focal points rest in an extreme sectarian divide, sustained Saudi ties with the US and Iran’s sponsorship of region-destabilising proxies as a so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ to US and Israeli influence. These tensions have fluctuated over time, and the states’ primary interest in securing regional hegemony has prompted comparisons to the Cold War.
Riyadh has increasingly engaged Iran on geopolitical, economic and military levels since 2015, launching a military intervention against the Houthis in Yemen in 2015, a diplomatic boycott of Qatar in 2017 (alleging the state’s links to Iran), and extending diplomatic overtures to Iranian allies such as Russia and China through increased energy cooperation and trade, in part, to alienate Tehran from its strategic allies. However, these affronts to Iranian influence have been comprehensively reduced following China-brokered peace talks and the subsequent restoration of diplomatic relations between the states in 2023. Its ability to directly engage Iran and its proxies neutered by this rapprochement, Saudi Arabia has since resorted to diplomatic measures to undermine Iran’s regional influence and further its own.
This diplomatic pivot is visible in Riyadh’s efforts to reform its image to that of a stable actor and moderator of conflict, worthy of both investment and allyship. Saudi Arabia has posited itself as a diplomatic hub to an international audience, through initiatives such as the state-transformative Vision 2030 project, increased socio-economic modernisation, talks regarding normalisation with Israel (suspended since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war), and the hosting of ceasefire negotiations for the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Pakistan, while not a strategic ally of Iran in the ilk of Russia and China, sustains a cooperative relationship with Tehran. In this regard, the fruits of Riyadh’s diplomatic manoeuvring are three-fold. Theoretically, the pact solidifies relations with a bordering state to Iran while ensuring the military support of the only nuclear-armed Muslim state, further homogenising the Islamic world in Riyadh’s favour. It is reasonable to postulate that Riyadh could now exert some influence in future cooperation between Pakistan and Iran. Furthermore, the pact alerts the US that Riyadh is willing to venture East to attain security guarantees.
A US New Deal?
It seems though, that an eastward quest may be unnecessary. On September 29, President Trump signed an executive order pledging that the United States would utilise ‘appropriate measures’, including military means, to protect Qatar’s interests going forward, while the US-brokered ceasefire plan for the Israel-Hamas war has resulted in an enduring ceasefire as of November 18. Several weeks ago, the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia had commenced negotiations concerning the drafting of its own security pact with the US. Today, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will meet with President Trump during the state visit of Saudi Arabia to the United States, and according to several reports, this prospective pact will be at the top of the summit’s agenda. It is from this perspective that the Saudi-Pakistan security pact is best understood, as a political lever used by Riyadh to bring the US back into its defence fold, and not as a concrete security treaty in its own right.
These developments indicate that while no formal statement has been issued in response to the Saudi-Pakistan pact, Washington has sought to undertake a marked recommittal to the region in its wake. Assurances are one thing, but Gulf states will not soon forget broken promises, and the democratic nature of American politics renders its policies subject to both frequent and drastic change. For Riyadh, the Rubicon may have already been crossed – and with it, the progression of its initial flirtation with the East to a formal courtship.
While a potentially significant development, the Saudi-Pakistan Defence Agreement exists in a fledgling state. Its only reference being a single joint statement paired with a loose collection of obscure comments from officials, predictions which attest to the ramifications of the pact cannot reasonably pass beyond the speculatory.
Intense media and analytical attention has orbited the nuclear element of the agreement, yet at this stage, the pact is best understood as a formalisation of the existing relationship between Riyadh and Islamabad rather than the genesis of a new and comprehensive alliance. Instead, the pact serves to prompt Washington into action amidst Saudi Arabia’s waning confidence in US security guarantees, and as a mechanism for Riyadh to accrue the regional influence that Iran has haemorrhaged while its proxies are further degraded by conflict. The extent to which this diplomatic flanking of Tehran will redraw the region’s power lines in Riyadh’s favour remains, for now, to be seen.