On August 7, 2026, Turkey joined the Saudi-Pakistan bilateral defense pact to form the Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement. Aiming to synergize Turkey’s technological edge in drones, naval platforms, and jets with Pakistan’s military capacity and Saudi Arabia’s financial prowess, the trilateral pact invokes collective defense.
Pakistan has nurtured defense ties with the Persian Gulf for decades. It was a member of the 1955 Baghdad Pact, helped Jordan crush the 1970 Black September uprising, and reportedly participated in the 1979 assault to free Mecca’s Grand Mosque from the radicals who seized it. More recently, it appointed former army chief General Rahil Sharif to be chief of the Riyadh-based Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition.
Pakistan’s professional armed forces and arsenal of 170 nuclear warheads, though primarily built to target rival India, enhance its strategic value.
Current unrest in the region, beginning with the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, augmented Pakistan’s strategic leap in the region. Pakistan’s professional armed forces and arsenal of 170 nuclear warheads, though primarily built to target rival India, enhance its strategic value. Islamabad signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Saudi Arabia on September 17, 2025, transforming informal defense cooperation into collective defense.
Egypt also may soon join the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan agreement. Though there is not yet a formal mutual defense treaty between Egypt and Pakistan, the two countries conducted Thunder II joint special forces exercises in April 2026, and Egypt previously joined Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in a four-country consultative mechanism, convened to deliberate upon de-escalating the Iran war.
Following the Saudis, in July 2026, Kuwait widened the scope of its 2023 defense cooperation pact by ratifying the broad five-year defense cooperation agreement with Pakistan. Likewise, Bahrain and Jordan have shown interest in a strategic defense arrangement with Islamabad. Following the broader trend of Middle Eastern powers hedging their bets by diversifying their defense guarantees beyond traditional Western frameworks, Qatar may also join the trilateral framework, in addition to joining a mutual defense agreement with Islamabad.
Differing interests and threat perceptions may still prevent the Mecca pact from becoming an “Islamic NATO,” but India should be concerned. Pakistan has shown a willingness to proliferate its nuclear technology through the late nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, whom Pakistani officialdom treated as a national hero, rather than a traitor. With both Saudi Arabia and Turkey flirting with nuclear acquisition, the threat of a repeat of Pakistani seeding of nuclear weaponry remains real.
Emboldened by its robust ties with the United States, China and Russia, and growing Middle East partnerships, Pakistan can pressure New Delhi, diplomatically and militarily, in the event of a future confrontation. Faced with an ethnic Baloch insurgency, the Pakistani Taliban’s terrorist threat, unrest in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and the ire of Afghanistan’s Taliban’s regime, Islamabad might escalate tension with New Delhi to deflect from its own internal failings. The costs of asymmetric warfare decline if Pakistan believes the Mecca pact immunizes it from the threat of retaliation.
Pakistan’s army will export its jihadism and Israel-hatred to the Arab governments and militaries, undermining Arab-Israel normalization.
The pact might also exacerbate India’s vulnerability on its North-Eastern borders, due to growing Chinese, Turkish, and Pakistani inroads in Bangladesh amid intensifying Islamic radicalization and anti-India sentiment there. Further, Islamabad can leverage these Gulf Arab partnerships to sabotage India’s crucial oil supplies from the Middle East and maritime trade and connectivity during wartime. These Gulf Arab partnerships will empower Pakistan in the multilateral forums and anti-India propaganda war, which has always been India’s Achilles’ heel.
Finally, the emergence of an Islamic “NATO-like” structure under Pakistan’s stewardship will embolden Muslims in the Indian hinterland, already undergoing a sweeping radicalization, to mobilize on jihadist lines and create internal disruption during war with Pakistan.
The threat goes deeper. Pakistan’s army will export its jihadism and Israel-hatred to the Arab governments and militaries, undermining Arab-Israel normalization. In addition, the Pakistan Army has decades of experience in nurturing proxy jihadi terrorist groups and transnational groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Even Hamas now gets traction in Pakistan, with its leaders appearing on public forums and meeting with prominent political, religious, and social leaders, hinting towards strong covert links with Pakistan’s army and intelligence.
With Pakistan’s increasing role in the Middle East, it will enable an array of terror outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the Islamic State- Khorasan Province, to strengthen their foothold in the region.
