A trilateral partnership involving Pakistan, KSA and Turkey

The last two years, geopolitics in the Middle East has been volatile, unpredictable and explosive. War in Gaza acted as a catalyst and what followed was Israel's 12-day war with Iran, a volatile situation in Yemen, a fragile peace plan in Gaza, reintroduction of the Abraham Accords, Pakistan's defence deal with Saudi Arabia, the uncertainty on the formulation of an international peace force in Gaza and the current uprising in Iran.

In the remilitarisation of regional politics, not just the Middle Eastern States but the Iranian-aligned non-state actors in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria find themselves at the threshold of an escalating security situation. In the midst of this fluid geopolitical situation, the role of external powers is clearly determined by their regional and global preferences. The United States, as a global hegemon, has at best managed crises rather than shaped any significant outcome. China is content managing economic pursuits rather than becoming a stakeholder in Middle Eastern security leadership and Russia is visibly constrained by Ukraine from performing a security leadership role in the Middle East. The result is that the United States is unilaterally pushing the security agenda and formulating a new security architecture in the Middle East.

In a diplomatically fluid, highly militarised and structurally unstable Middle East, relying and depending on one great power's assurance is a dodgy business. It reflects a time-tested historical assumption that the less dependency a state has, the greater autonomy it holds in state affairs. It is in this context that I view Saudi Arabia's defence agreement with Pakistan and also the current dialogue on the formulation of a possible trilateral defence agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey.

This likely trilateral defence agreement and security partnership seems a response to ongoing ambiguity in an era of declining alliance certainty. Saudi Arabia seeks to diversify its security partnership; Turkey wishes to enlarge its Middle Eastern role, signified by its NATO membership and strategic autonomy; and Pakistan seeks to enlarge its Middle Eastern presence and look beyond the Gulf to draw multiple benefits from this strategic engagement. All three states are constrained by different priorities and that does not make them natural allies or partners. Saudi Arabia prioritises its Vision 2030, its flagship project of Neom City closer to the Yemeni border, diplomatic and military containment of Iran and its own regime security. Turkey's attention is perennially drawn towards the Kurdish militancy, Greece and the spillover effects of Black Sea conflict between Russia and Ukraine into the Mediterranean Sea — the entry to which it controls through the Bosporus Strait. Turkey also sits on the natural boundary that divides Asia and Europe.

Hence, it is deeply involved in preventing illegal crossings and the anti-immigration European war. Pakistan's threat perception is India- and Afghanistan-centric, and so all three countries conveniently diverge in how they prioritise their national security interests. What geopolitical compulsions or security interests draw these three countries together? What are those common geopolitical and security interests?

Barry Buzan in his book, Regions and Power, published in 2003, divided the Middle East into three sub-security complexes; Gulf Complex, comprising the Gulf States and Iran; Levant Complex, comprising Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine; and the Maghreb Complex, comprising Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara. Today, it is the Levant and the Gulf that are the hotbed of Middle Eastern politics, and whatever geopolitical advancements or constraints that this trilateral partnership is likely to create will be in these two theatres of operations or complexes. Based on the likelihood of a defence agreement or partnership between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, one can expect little to change in these mini security complexes. This assessment is based on two critical assumptions:

One, historically, the Middle East has never determined and driven the international security agenda. The international security agenda is determined and driven by regions that proliferate the fear of an alliance-wide war, like the fear of the confrontation of NATO and Russia in the Ukraine war or the fear of the United States and its allies confronting China over the issue of Taiwan. These geopolitical conflicts are the conflicts that can set conditions for a global war. All wars fought in the Middle East are localised and there is no actor in the Middle East that seeks a total war with a great power — not even Iran, which in the 12 days of war agreed to a quick ceasefire and even today seeks to engage with the United States to find a diplomatic end to its current crisis. Therefore, this projected trilateral defence alliance has little potential to shift the balance of power in the Middle East, which will remain in an imbalance as long as the United States supports Israel, which continues to manage and drive Middle Eastern security on its own terms.

Two, what the three countries bring to the table is a diverse set of competencies and capabilities. Saudi Arabia brings its financial power, its proximity to the strategic geography of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and the political weight it enjoys in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Turkey brings its core competency in advance and indigenous defence industry, its military experience in the Caucasus, Syria and Libya, and its NATO military experience. Pakistan brings to the table its combat-hardened and tested military, an air force that has proven its superiority in a four-day war against India and its nuclear deterrence. But all these capabilities add up to creating a soft security architecture and not a new power bloc in the Middle East. No bloc in the Middle East is ever likely to confront the United States or its client state, Israel.

So, what we will get to witness whenever this trilateral defence deal is done is joint military exercises, defence industrial cooperation, air war trainings, intelligence sharing, counterterrorism cooperation drills and exercises. There is only one external hegemon in the Middle East, the United States, which maintains its security primacy in the region by supporting the internal hegemon, Israel. I see no change in this equation, thus no reason for Israel to realign its strategic calculations or a change in the balance of power in the Middle East in view of this future trilateral defence partnership.