Regardless of how any analyst perceives this pact, an additional layer of regional stability or a mere reactive token to send a message. It still signals a shift in Middle East security structures, a need for a boost in south-south cooperation architecture, and a receding unipolar world order.

The decades-long security partnership between Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan amid ceaseless regional tensions has been given an additional layer of formality when the two countries signed a mutual defense pact on 17 September 2025. But does it really represent a sign of the crumbling of the old security architecture?

Well, the signing of such a treaty by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was certainly more than just a diplomatic ceremony, as it really signals a big hint of geopolitical shift with implications that are worth considering.

The first hint would be that this treaty seems like a more-than-subtle declaration by KSA that the American security umbrella doesn’t feel sufficiently safe anymore in a region afflicted - till addicted - to security volatility. Furthermore, it represents a wider calculation shift for the Gulf region, beyond the bounds of the two signatory parties.

Qatar’s Alarm: No More Snoozes!

The Israeli strike on Qatar was an alarm that awakened Gulf capitals beyond Doha, as it gave no snooze option that revolves around the decades-long perception that the presence of American protection is a security guarantee against regional threats.

This barefaced strike exposed how vulnerable and increasingly unreliable Gulf security arrangements are becoming, especially given that Qatar is the host of the biggest US air base in the region (Al Udeid), and that fact didn’t stop such a strategic partner of the US from being targeted with the usual American impunity towards its most strategic ally in the so-called Middle East.

It goes without any need for explanation, how all the peninsula’s royal courts can’t avoid facing the uncomfortable truth about the limits of US protection, which rendered the Qatari event a transformative moment that turned Gulf security doubts into a push and need for urgent security actions.

From “New Sunni Coalition” to Strategic Abandonment

Remember Trump’s much-vaunted “New Sunni Coalition”? The concept seemed brilliant on paper, but the message was brutally simple in practice: defend yourselves with your own money while containing Iran for American strategic benefit. Washington wanted Gulf states to fight American battles without American commitments and to serve as proxies without receiving the protection that typically accompanies such arrangements.

Unlike Japan or South Korea, which enjoy formal defense treaties with clear Article 5-style commitments, Gulf allies have been systematically denied automatic defense commitments. Instead, they receive arms sales, profitable for American defense contractors, and vague assurances that ring increasingly hollow when tested against regional realities.

The asymmetry became impossible to ignore: maximum expectations of loyalty with minimum guarantees of protection. The Arabic saying captures this perfectly: “He who seeks cover with America is actually naked.” When your security guarantor refuses formal treaties while expecting you to confront regional adversaries with harmful capabilities, dependency becomes liability rather than strength.

The Saudis learned that even powerful patrons can suffer attention deficit disorder when facing what Mehul Srivastava and Humza Jilani aptly described in their Financial Times September 19th article as “unrestrained Israel, a wounded Iran, and an unpredictable US.”

Beyond Convenience Marriage

This isn’t a hasty marriage of convenience; it’s the formalization of a relationship dating back to the 1951 Amicable Agreement.

This partnership has endured through various regional tempests within both countries and across their respective “neighbourhoods.” While Pakistani military forces have reinforced KSA’s internal security during the 8-year Iran-Iraq War, in return, the Gulf kingdom extended financial support to Pakistan when it was hit by sanctions following the 1998 nuclear tests. Such instances of mutual support have understandably forged deep institutional relations that transcended royal reigns and prime minister terms.

However, tensions have always existed. Saudi Arabia’s refusal to grant Pakistan interest-free loans in 2023 unless Islamabad complied with IMF conditions revealed clear limits of solidarity. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s desire for relations with India - a far more lucrative trading partner - has consistently stressed the limits of amicability. That’s the conundrum!

The Nuclear Question

“This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means,” officials stated with deliberate ambiguity about whether the pact includes Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. While Saudi officials maintain strategic ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying the nuclear dimension, the mere implication fundamentally rattles regional calculations.

Whether Riyadh gains actual nuclear deterrence or merely nuclear-adjacent assurances, the strategic landscape has shifted. The ambiguity itself becomes a strategic asset, forcing potential aggressors to consider previously dismissed scenarios in an era where definitive commitments carry enormous risks.

Beyond Sunni-Shia Narratives

Pakistan’s cautious approach to Gulf conflicts reveals a complexity that defies simple sectarian explanations. For example, Pakistan, like Egypt, despite significant pressure and financial incentives, refused boots-on-the-ground participation in “Operation Decisive Storm,” launched by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Houthis of Yemen in 2015.

With approximately 20 million Shiite citizens, Islamabad couldn’t risk joining what appeared to be a purely “Sunni alliance” against Iran-led resistance movements, conveniently labelled in Western discourse as the “Axis of Evil,” of course.

Pakistan shares extensive borders with Iran and maintains important diplomatic and economic ties, making it extremely unlikely to serve as a simple Saudi anti-Iranian instrument, regardless of any financial inducements.

India’s Strategic Nightmare

India views this as a strategic headache of the first order, watching its traditional rival suddenly enjoy formal defense guarantees from the Gulf’s leading power. India relies on Gulf oil for nearly half its energy needs, making it vulnerable to potential Pakistani influence over maritime shipping and energy security. The timing couldn’t be worse for India’s “Look West” policy.

This development also intersects with broader great power confrontations, China’s Belt and Road Initiative versus America’s proposed India-Europe corridor through the Middle East (including Israel, right?). Saudi Arabia finds itself centered in this strategic conundrum, revealing that the Global South lacks the luxury of partial solutions in an era of intensifying competition.

But how can any country pass through all these tension checkpoints afflicting Global South relations? That’s a huge question, that I don’t claim to have the answer for.

The Global South Awakening: BRICS and Beyond

This agreement exemplifies the Global South’s growing assertiveness in shaping alternative security architectures challenging Western dominance. Pakistan maintains excellent relations with Russia and China, faces no complications with Brazil and South Africa, but its conflict with India remains a fundamental obstacle for BRICS integration.

Pakistan has called for a comprehensive military alliance of Arab and Islamic states modelled after NATO amid perceived Western abandonment. This vision extends toward a multilateral Islamic security architecture that could fundamentally reshape regional power dynamics. But is an Islamic alliance really the comprehensive solution these challenges demand? Will alternative approaches face significant challenges?

Yes, traditional powers struggle to adapt to a multipolar reality, while the West ceaselessly incites historical, sectarian, and territorial disputes among Global South countries, making comprehensive solutions seem frustratingly unachievable. But this doesn’t mean doing nothing, does it?!

The Skeptics’ Reality Check

Although the Saudi-Pakistani connection was mostly tight and mutually beneficial, practical and pragmatic limitations are hard to dismiss. Not to mention existing geopolitical power structures that the two countries can’t simply escape from or overturn by a mere signing of such a pact.

For these reasons and others, some analysts limit their expectations from such an agreement to non-belligerent arrangements, such as military training and limited weaponry procurements and technology transfer, which most probably will stay clear of anything “radiative”.

Pakistan’s own pressing security challenges raise legitimate questions about its Gulf power projection capacity, while Saudi’s military modernization remains heavily dependent on American /Western technology, creating potential complications. Yet, dismissing this agreement as mere symbolism fundamentally misses the crucial strategic signal about shifting alliance patterns and emerging alternatives to traditional security arrangements.

The Nuclear Threshold Question

Included in the signed agreement is the following: “Any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.” An unavoidable Article 5 echo resonates from such a pronouncement, but unlike NATO’s conventional model, this potentially introduces nuclear considerations into regional calculations in unprecedented ways, while strategic ambiguity about such profound considerations serves both parties perfectly.

As Pakistanis maintain nuclear commitment deniability while extending regional influence, Saudis gain deterrent credibility without approaching proliferation barricades or provoking any potential international sanctions.

Mission Impossible, Yet Unavoidable

This development signals the definitive end of regional powers successfully playing “friends to everybody” in an increasingly complex and polarized world. Saudi Arabia’s quest seems like a sequel out of the “Mission Impossible” franchise, as it tries to synchronize partnerships with both Pakistan and India, balance US security needs with Chinese economic possibilities, and lead a Sunni assignment to overcome regional sectarian tensions by any means.

But these regional and international geopolitical pressures that are undeniably hard to juggle do not negate the message such an agreement intended to send to the United States, whose security guarantees would continue to be “unavoidably” valued, but they are neither sufficient nor exclusive anymore.

In an era of superpower strategic overstretch, the Gulf countries in particular, and the Global South on a wider scale, are learning that hedging is becoming a survival strategy. Regardless of how any analyst perceives this pact, an additional layer of regional stability or a mere reactive token to send a message. It still signals a shift in Middle East security structures, a need for a boost in south-south cooperation architecture, and a receding unipolar world order.

The age of exclusive dependencies is ending; the question is whether what emerges will prove more stable or simply more chaotic? That’s up to us.

Tamer Mansour, Egyptian Independent Writer & Researcher. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/10/12/saudi-pakistan-pact-a-token-sunni-coalition-or-a-south-south-security-alliance-boost/