Pak-Saudi defence pact

Geopolitics, like seasons, moves in cycles. Metaphorically, as much as seasons depict the change in nature, geopolitics is also speculation about the future and represents the impending change in the regional and global geopolitics. After a long time, Pakistan is at the centre of the regional and global geopolitics. In recent days, our geography, resources, both economic and military, and our role in the great power competition have prominently put us on the geopolitical map of the world. Be it the SCO, Arab-Islamic Summit or the recent defence pact signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, we are being looked upon as a balancing force in an unstable and anarchic regional and international environment.

Today, I am focused on writing something on the changing geopolitical environment, the understanding of which is an absolute necessity. Correctly understanding the geopolitical environment will help us ask the right questions and build a reasonable and realistic premise on which to build the right assumptions and take policy decisions based on our national interests.

Pakistan harbours no aggressive designs; and its strategic alliance with any power, including a major power like Saudi Arabia, cannot be at the expense of its own interests. For me, the most important factor in the defence pact signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is the correct perception about the threat faced by the two countries. Geopolitically, countries are losing their sovereignty at a scale that has never been witnessed before.

In the last few months, six countries have been bombed in violation of international laws, and their sovereignty has been violated. All this has happened under the watchful eyes of the world policeman – the United States. Saudi Arabia may feel threatened by Israel after Israel bombs Qatar, but if one looks at the Israeli grand design of creating Greater Israel, it is Israel's weak neighbouring countries – Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Sinai (Egypt) – that are the targets of Israel's policy of lebensraum, spatial and aggressive expansion in the neighbouring territories to create Greater Israel. Qatar bombing is a minnow; the big fish that has scared Saudi Arabia to conclude a defence pact with Pakistan is the United States. Let me explain how?

The decline of Saudi satisfaction with the United States started with the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003, which the Saudi government opposed. Saudi Arabia was unhappy with the Obama administration for the nuclear deal it executed with Iran. It was unhappy with the United States for not supporting Saudi interests in Yemen and Syria, and very upset when the United States did nothing at the time the Saudi oil facilities were attacked by Iran in 2019.

When the United States came up with an alternative plan of Middle Eastern security, Saudi Arabia nodded and considered seeking better ties with Israel. The Middle Eastern alternative plan, driven by Washington, conceived regional security that favoured isolating Iran and which did not rule out war. Eventually, the world witnessed a twelve-day war (13-24 June 2025) between Iran and Israel. Before this war, the Trump Administration had brokered the Abraham Accords, which entailed closer military and intelligence coordination between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel, later extended to Morocco and Sudan.

Even President Joe Biden, during his visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2022, urged the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to join with Israel to contain Iran. This US-designed plan of regional security, unfortunately, brought the shadow of war between Israel and Iran to the Gulf. The method to the madness of this Washington plan was to either curb Iran's revolutionary impulses or bring regime change there. None of this has been achieved, and the threat of an attack on Iran by Israel with the US support still looms large on the Gulf horizon.

I don't wish to share the details of Sir Alfred Mackinder's Heartland Theory, or Nicholas Spykman's Rimland Theory, but it would suffice to quote the belief of many international relations scholars that Iran is where Heartland and Rimland meet. Iran threatened, and even bombed Doha, for providing a military base to the United States, which was its adversary during the twelve-day war. If Iran is attacked again, and there is a reasonable possibility of this happening, and if Iran retaliates by attacking Qatar, Bahrain or Saudi Arabia for hosting American bases, what would then be the response of Pakistan? Will it come to the aid of Saudi Arabia, considering the NATO Article 5-type condition of the pact that states ''attack on one will be considered as an attack on another"? What is the catch here?

In 2023, Beijing poured cold water on Washington's Middle Eastern plan by brokering a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The deal ensured that Iran no longer supplied Houthi rebels in Yemen with military assistance, and so both Saudi Arabia and Iran upheld a ceasefire in Yemen that has held till today. To the disappointment of the United States and Israel, a new regional security framework was now taking shape.

Pakistan's defence pact with Saudi Arabia is a link in the chain of this new security framework. Beijing leads in advancing the strategic and security priorities and challenging the waning influence of the United States in the Middle East. Iran would not like to jeopardise its relations with China; and in the season of changing geopolitics, China, as the rising power, will ensure the participation of Iran in the building of the new security framework in the Middle East.

Indians will not be happy. The Indian diaspora in Saudi Arabia numbers approximately 3 million people, driving remittances that India can ill afford to lose. So, all this Indian breast-beating about Operation Sindoor being on a pause may force PM Modi to reach out to the stop button and put an end to the war mongering. For Pakistan, it is the spring season of geopolitics, and I hope it takes all the right decisions to blossom as a nation-state.

The American strategy of attempting to assemble an anti-China and anti-Iran, containment coalition in the Middle East is backfiring. And the reason for that is the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, which has the support of the United States. Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, seem to be convinced that the United States and Israel's Middle Eastern policy is filled with ingredients of regional fracture and eventual war, and the Pak-Saudi defence pact is the link in the chain that can wind up and shackle this policy.