On 17 September 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia formalised a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) in Riyadh, under which aspects of defence cooperation between the two countries will be developed to strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression, and that aggression against one party would be deemed as aggression against both.

In doing so, Riyadh and Islamabad sent a strategic signal: the traditional security order under the US primacy has frayed and new alignments are emerging in the Gulf–South Asia nexus. The move reflects both a response to the immediate security shocks, most notably the Israeli strike on Qatar, and a broader attempt to recalibrate strategic equations. However, the motivations run deeper!

In a recent op-ed, a former Pakistani senator argued that the pact was conceived “to contain Israeli threat,” responding to a sense that “Greater Israel” designs require a Muslim front and also reflect the waning confidence in American guarantees. The idea of protecting the Muslim world from Israel’s assertiveness, reinforced by the Israeli strike on Qatar, apparently with a tacit US approval, has become central to Saudi-Pakistani messaging, recasting the pact as a statement of ideological solidarity.

Thus, the defence pact is not just incremental. It represents a recalibration of security, deterrence, and strategic credibility in a region of shifting power balance. But whether it stabilises or destabilises the region will depend heavily on how other major powers read and react to it.

Three dynamics stand out in assessing the pact:

First, the SMDA signals Riyadh’s determination to diversify its security partners at a time when trust in the US primacy is fraying.

Second, it gives a new institutional form to the long-standing but hitherto ambiguous Saudi-Pakistani security relationship, a partnership that has often blurred the line between symbolism and substance.

Third, its impact will be defined less by the text itself than by how key regional players like Iran, India, and the United States interpret and respond to it – whether as a stabilising arrangement or  a provocation.

Understanding these dynamics requires looking back at the decades of cooperation that set the stage for this agreement, for the SMDA is at once a continuation of familiar patterns and a departure into a more formalised terrain.

Historical backdrop: Brotherhood, oil, and strategic ties

The Saudi-Pakistan relationship spans over seven decades, rooted in religious, economic, and strategic bonds. Riyadh was among the first to recognise Pakistan after its independence in 1947. Over the years, Pakistan has relied on Saudi oil, remittances, and financial bailouts during its crisis periods.

Crucially, military ties have long underpinned the bilateral political intimacy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pakistan deployed forces to defend Saudi frontiers – following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Saudi Arabia sought Pakistani military support to secure its periphery.

By the 1980s, under the aegis of the 1982 agreement, Pakistani troops were stationed in the Kingdom and Pakistani trainers educated Saudi officers. Analysts point out that over 8,000 to 10,000 Saudi military personnel have been trained by Pakistani forces over the decades.

Beyond training, the economic support for Pakistan from Saudi resources has been substantive. For instance, during periods when Pakistan faced sanctions or Balance of Payments (BOP) crises, Saudi oil credits, deposits, and cash infusions helped sustain Islamabad’s economic and strategic resilience.

Some analysts have even traced the financing of Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions to Saudi petrodollars, though the claim remains contested.

The Saudi-Pak bilateral relationship has also carried its own internal contradictions. Its architecture has historically been defined by ideological affinity on one hand and a clear power asymmetry on the other. Saudi Arabia, as the ‘House of Islam,’ provides religious legitimacy that reinforces Pakistan’s conservative order, while Pakistan has offered military assistance either bilaterally or through institutional frameworks such as the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Historically, Pakistan has served as a mercenary in safeguarding Saudi Arabia's national security. The  1979 Siege of Mecca, the Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Military Alliance in 2015 against terrorism, besides training its stationed army, have all been such notable instances.

At the same time, Pakistan has looked to the Arab world for ideological and religious anchoring, whereas Saudi Arabia has preferred a form of clientelism. The ‘brotherhood’ narrative that Islamabad promotes for domestic legitimacy has been strategically useful for Riyadh, which understands Pakistan’s financial instability and dependency.

This dynamic has long been characterised by a master-client relationship serving mutual, even if asymmetrical, interests.

This pact largely reaffirms and formalises a partnership that has existed informally for generations, as a transactional but continuous strategic partnership. As a report by the Belfer Center cautions, the pact “largely codifies an existing strategic partnership rather than marking a radical new commitment.” Yet its timing and contours mean that it cannot be dismissed as merely symbolic.

What is new?

At its core, the SMDA’s headline clause states that the agreement “aims to develop aspects of defence cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression… any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.” But several features distinguish it from past deals. The scope and language of the agreement are important.

The agreement reportedly “encompasses all military means,” including conventional forces, intelligence sharing, joint planning, and, potentially, nuclear cooperation, though the nuclear question is delicate. In terms of structural depth, analysts suggest the pact aims for long-term defence industry collaboration, co-production, capacity building, training, and technology transfer-not just a stop-gap alliance.

The timing cannot be ignored. The agreement follows Israel’s unprecedented strike on Doha in early September, which jolted the Gulf states into rethinking the reliability of the US as guarantor.

Sidra Shoukat, a researcher with the Islamabad-based Strategic Vision Institute, highlights that Israel’s recent attack on Qatar “shattered a delicate fiction that Gulf monarchies could simultaneously act as neutral mediators and secure allies of Washington... Neutrality in today’s Middle East is no longer safe, perhaps no longer possible.”

One of the most sensitive parts of this pact is the question of whether Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities will be, or are implicitly, extended to Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif stated the pact “formalises” previously informal alignments but refused to confirm whether it included nuclear weapons, saying such pacts are “not normally discussed publicly.”

Yet, in the weeks following, more assertive statements emerged: Islamabad publicly stated it “will make available” its nuclear programme to Riyadh if needed. Reuters flagged that although Pakistani doctrine limits nuclear weapons to Indian deterrence, analysts interpret the defence pact as extending Pakistan’s deterrent posture into the Gulf.

However, the actual nuclear sharing seems improbable (for technical, command and control, non-proliferation, and credibility reasons). Pakistani researcher Rabia Akhtar has underlined that “signalling solidarity is not the same as issuing a blank check of military intervention.”

Thus, the pact does not necessarily create a nuclear umbrella. Still, the very ambiguity is a strategic tool. It deters adversaries like Israel without locking Pakistan into a binding nuclear guarantee.

Riyadh’s security calculus and near-term deterrence requirement are focused on countering missiles, drones, and proxy attacks capable of disrupting critical infrastructure and regional shipping. The 2019 strikes on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities, widely attributed to Iranian-linked Houthi rebels, exposed the vulnerabilities of Saudi defences.

More recently, Israel’s unilateral escalation, including the Doha strike, has intensified Riyadh’s anxieties about both (state and non-state) actors operating with little restraint.

For Saudi Arabia, the pact also represents a calibrated hedging strategy: by involving Pakistan, Riyadh seeks to diversify its security partnerships beyond Washington without overtly confronting American interests. The SMDA, thus, fits in with Riyadh’s geo-political insurance strategy as it strengthens deterrence signalling and operational resilience without creating a formal nuclear umbrella.

For Pakistan, participation offers an opportunity to reduce its overreliance on China and the United States while positioning itself as a consequential player in Gulf security at a time of shifting power dynamics. The post-Qatar attack environment has opened space for Pakistan to insert itself more visibly into the Arab regional security calculus.

In short, the SMDA blends the familiar with the bold. It formalises decades of cooperation but pushes toward deeper structural alignment, especially as Saudi Arabia seeks to hedge its strategic bets. The question then becomes moot: how much of the deterrence is real, and how much of it is signalling?

Risks and constraints

This pact is bold, but it is not bulletproof. A structural mismatch persists: Saudi and Pakistani armed forces operate with different doctrines, procurement systems, logistics chains, and command languages. Even with decades of training exchanges and advisory missions, achieving genuine interoperability will take years, if not decades.

The absence of a publicly released text compounds this problem.

While flexibility allows leaders to downplay sensitive provisions, ambiguity also heightens the risk of misinterpretation, overreach, or inadvertent escalation. Ultimately, the pact’s durability will depend on whether Riyadh and Islamabad can move from ceremonial symbolism to practical implementation.

As pointed out by Washington-based Pakistani scholar Uzair Yunus, “a Pakistani strategy that chases cheap loans, deferred oil payments or one-off discounts…in lieu of SMDA would be futile…”

Given Pakistan’s fragile economic situation and Army Chief Asim Munir’s working equation with Washington, and especially with Trump, it is unlikely that Islamabad possesses the strategic weight or autonomy to take concrete actions without US approval. It cannot afford to act against the interests of the United States, or by extension Israel, without risking punitive costs.

In this sense, the SMDA risks becoming more rhetorical than operational: a stage-managed spectacle for domestic audiences rather than a genuine shift in the balance of power. The need for political theatre is acute. For the Pakistani military establishment, whose authority is repeatedly being questioned, bold announcements of international stature provide a way to reassert legitimacy at home.

The SMDA is not a treaty and carries no binding legal obligations. This absence of legal accountability is a fundamental flaw: in a crisis, neither side is obliged to act. The arrangement is thus more commercial and transactional than strategic, with optics outweighing material commitments.

The historical precedent underscores these limits. The Iran-Saudi standoff over the Houthis in the last Yemen war did not cause Pakistan to choose a side despite its former Army Chief Rahal Sharif being the head of the so-called Islamic Military Alliance, a precursor of ‘Islamic Nato.’ Such hesitation reveals the structural gap between political rhetoric and operational follow-through.

Yet, it is evident that the external environment will not remain static. The United States, Israel, and India all possess levers to respond via arms sales, counter-alignments, or diplomatic pressure, which could blunt or even reverse the pact’s intended effect.

The irony is that a pact meant to signal independence may, in effect, underscore Pakistan’s enduring subordination to what George Orwell once called Big Brother: the watchful hegemon whose approval or disapproval still defines the limits of action. Until Islamabad can break free of that shadow, the SMDA will remain less a pillar of security than a precarious experiment in strategic signalling.

The Iran factor and Abraham Accords

How Tehran interprets the Saudi–Pakistan pact is a crucial factor for its stabilizing or destabilizing effect. Iran’s official posture has been mild. A top military adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Major Gen Yahya Rahim Safavi, has welcomed the pact as a move toward “comprehensive regional security.”

Outwardly measured, this response masks a more complex calculation.

Tehran does not regard the pact as an outright threat; it sees both risks and opportunities. By hinting at possible participation, Iran is signalling a preference for engagement over isolation, seeking to shape the emerging security architecture from within rather than confront it from the outside.

The pact also validates Iran’s long-standing critique of US security guarantees in West Asia. For decades, Tehran has argued that dependence on Washington leaves regional states vulnerable to abandonment. The Saudi-Pakistan agreement, forged amid doubts about American reliability, is read in Tehran as confirmation of that hypothesis.

Rather than undermining its narrative, the pact strengthens Iran’s case that the region must cultivate autonomous, regionally-led security frameworks instead of relying on external patrons.

But vindication does not translate into complacency. Iranian strategists interpret the pact as a signal to accelerate hedging strategies. Tehran is likely to deepen its ‘eastward orientation,’ reinforcing ties with China and Russia as alternative guarantors of security and as counterweights to the US and Israeli influence.

Militarily, this will mean an enhanced deterrent posture: investment in missile modernisation, expanded naval deployments across Gulf chokepoints, and the calibrated use of proxies and strategic assets, from Yemen to Lebanon. Tehran’s caution also reflects a clear-eyed recognition that similar agreements have in the past failed to produce operational alignment, as seen in Pakistan’s non-committal stance during the Yemen conflict.

A layered response from Iran, hence, could be expected: cautious engagement at the diplomatic level, validation at the ideological level, and intensification at the military level. The pact, therefore, deepens Tehran’s conviction that survival and influence depend on building parallel structures of power, inside and outside the Gulf.

Whether this produces a more inclusive regional security framework or a fragmented, competitive landscape will hinge on whether Riyadh and Islamabad treat the agreement as a platform for dialogue or as the nucleus of an exclusive bloc.

This broader strategic recalibration cannot be understood in isolation from the shifting geometry of Arab-Israeli relations. In particular, the fate of the Abraham Accords has become a critical backdrop against which Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, are recalculating their deterrence and diplomatic options.

The Accords have not disappeared, but their momentum has stalled. Saudi Arabia was never a formal signatory, and its normalisation track with Israel slowed sharply after the 2023 Gaza war. The Doha strike is likely to push this further into pause mode. However, this is less a rupture than a recalibration.

Riyadh has left the door open for future normalisation, but conditioned on tangible steps toward Palestinian statehood and a credible US security framework; conditions that remain unmet today.

Rather than pivoting to an anti-Israel axis with Iran as a tacit partner, Gulf capitals are pursuing issue-based multi-alignment. They are simultaneously hardening defences against Iran’s missile and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (USA), testing inclusive security arrangements to lower escalation risks with Tehran, and maintaining conditional channels with both Israel and Washington. There is no zero-sum game here.  

Implications for India

The Saudi-Pakistan pact does not just rewire Gulf dynamics but also sends ripples into South Asia’s security architecture. India now must factor in a Saudi partner with a defence guarantee backing Pakistan. New Delhi has already expressed caution.

As a future course of action, India must explore options for diplomatic engagement with Riyadh to preserve strategic autonomy and minimise adversarial spillovers. Strengthening its own Arabian Gulf partnerships (with UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and so on) and alignment with the energy and infrastructure ambitions of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) states is important.

Furthermore, Delhi must also participate proactively in multilateral mechanisms (like the GCC + India fora) to build confidence. In the short run, Delhi needs to quietly monitor the joint Saudi-Pakistani military advances (training, basing, equipment alignment) that could tilt the deterrent balance near Pakistan’s western flank.

Strategic rebalancing for a region in tumult

If managed with prudence, the pact could stabilise Saudi deterrence, offer Pakistan financial and strategic payoffs, and reshape regional security structures.

Yet, at a broader level, the SMDA signals something about the post-US order: regional powers no longer simply accept external guarantees. Saudi Arabia’s move to diversify its security architecture reflects a new multi-aligned posture, complementing rather than substituting US ties.

If others follow, implying more Gulf states signing mutual defence pacts with Asian powers, then the normative architecture of regional security may shift from being US-led to patchwork blocs, with nuclear-armed peripheries.

Eventually, the Saudi-Pakistan Agreement should be seen as more than a ceremony. It is a gambit at the intersection of shifting power, strategic uncertainty, and ideological signalling. It formalises decades of cooperation even as it ventures into new deterrent terrain.

At its best, the SMDA might re-anchor Saudi deterrence without triggering a spiral. At its worst, it could exacerbate the region’s nuclear and security dilemmas. Its ambiguity is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel: a tool of deterrence that may either stabilise the Gulf’s evolving order or expose the fault lines within it.

The deciding variable will be how Iran, Israel, and the global powers choose to respond in these early days and how Islamabad and Riyadh manage the balance between bold signalling and careful calibration.

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