For years, Saudi Arabia’s strategic patience was mistaken for strategic dependence. Riyadh absorbed provocations, avoided unnecessary wars, preserved its relationship with the United States, and concentrated on internal transformation and development. That restraint was never an acceptance that an American-designed regional security order would endure indefinitely.
The mutual defence agreement signed in Mecca yesterday between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye shows that it will not. It brings together the three most powerful and influential countries of the Sunni Muslim world. An armed attack against one will now be regarded as an attack against all three. This is the institutional beginning of a new regional security architecture.
The US-Iran war accelerated a transformation already under way. Iranian retaliatory strikes exposed the vulnerability of the US basing structure in the Gulf and forced the repositioning of substantial combat forces. Several American bases will eventually close, as they have lost strategic utility. Washington will increasingly struggle to justify the resources required to sustain the overstretched posture of an earlier era.
America is not disappearing from the Middle East. Its intelligence relationships, military power, technology and economic influence will remain formidable. But the war exposed the limits of American dominance. Regional states are now bound to organise their own security.
The military logic of the new pact is compelling. Pakistan possesses the Muslim world’s most powerful army and its only nuclear arsenal. Turkiye possesses its second-most powerful army, NATO experience, substantial naval power and a sophisticated defence industry. Both maintain large air forces, although significant portions of their combat-air inventories are ageing.
Saudi Arabia provides the complementary capability. The Royal Saudi Air Force has become the Muslim world’s most powerful air force, centred on one of the world’s largest concentrations of advanced 4.5-generation combat aircraft and sophisticated intelligence, command-and-control, air-defence and precision-strike capabilities.
Pakistan’s involvement in providing regional security is already tangible. Pakistani forces are deployed alongside Saudi forces and have participated in the kingdom’s defence. Pakistani capabilities are integrated into Saudi-led structures, while Islamabad has warned Tehran against coordinated attacks on Saudi Arabia’s principal strategic infrastructure. Turkiye is joining an established Saudi-Pakistani strategic relationship.
The next logical step is the rest of the Gulf. Nabeel Alhamar, media adviser to Bahrain’s monarch, has advocated moving beyond the Gulf Cooperation Council towards a Gulf Union in which Bahrain’s future defence becomes increasingly integrated with Saudi Arabia’s. Similar arguments for stronger collective security have emerged in Kuwait and Qatar.