On August 28, 2026, India’s Joint Defense Committee met with a five-member Kuwaiti delegation visiting India to strengthen bilateral defense ties. Many Indian commentators suggested the move marked the start of India’s broader effort to counterbalance the Mecca Agreement, an attempt by Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to create a North Atlantic Treaty Organization-style collective defense provision.
India’s security and foreign policy apparatus is concerned about the emerging Sunni Axis, as it has broad ramifications for South Asia.
Such claims exaggerate the logic of India’s policy. The Joint Defense Committee’s maiden meeting aimed to implement the Memorandum of Understanding that India and Kuwait signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s December 2024 visit to Kuwait. The Mecca Agreement did not force India’s Kuwait move, since it predated it. Still, India’s security and foreign policy apparatus is concerned about the emerging Sunni Axis, as it has broad ramifications for South Asia, and Indian bureaucrats might have expedited the Kuwait meetings.
The scope of the Mecca Agreement is much broader and more ambitious in its objective of shifting the Middle East’s security architecture. By contrast, the Indo-Kuwaiti defense partnership, though spanning a broad spectrum that includes military exercises, training, medicine, defense industry partnerships, and maritime security, is limited in its heft and trajectory. Nor does India’s Kuwait move include a concrete roadmap for future expansion. That Kuwait only sent a one-star general to meet with a subordinate secretary in the Defense Ministry reflects the limited nature of the agreement to both countries.
Indeed, Kuwait’s defense ties with Turkey and Pakistan, India’s enemies, make a long-term Kuwaiti strategic partnership with India challenging. In August 2026, Kuwait signed a defense protocol with Pakistan. Kuwait’s agreement with Islamabad will bring Pakistan’s drone technology, military personnel, and Air Defense systems to Kuwaiti borders. Further, in 2020, Kuwait procured riot control vehicles and combat drones from Turkish defense firms.
As of now, Kuwait’s bilateral defense ties with the Mecca Agreement countries lack a collective defense clause; however, its security vulnerabilities, geopolitical alignments, and military purchases suggest it will join the Mecca Agreement in the near future, limiting its potential future relations with India, given that the Mecca Agreement countries are as antagonistic to India as they are to Israel.
Although Kuwait has tanks, warships, and jet fighters, its standing army of 17,500 soldiers is no match for Iran’s armed forces, which exceed one million men.
Kuwait has historically maintained a neutral position in regional disputes and has even mediated because of its cordial ties with mutual adversaries. In 2017, it mediated during the crisis between Qatar and the Arab Quartet. With 7 percent of the world’s oil reserves and one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, its financial heft gives it power. However, its geographical proximity to Iran has made it vulnerable to Iranian attacks. It lies across the Persian Gulf, less than 90 miles from Iranian territory. Its air defenses have about 60 to 90 seconds to react to Iranian ballistic missile attacks. Although Kuwait has tanks, warships, and jet fighters, its standing army of 17,500 soldiers is no match for Iran’s armed forces, which exceed one million men. By July 2026, Kuwait had weathered 1,318 attacks from Iran, the highest number in the region. Iranian missiles and drones hit civilian infrastructure, including airports, desalination plants, and power grids. Such vulnerability drives Kuwait further into the embrace of the Mecca Agreement countries.
Finally, Kuwait’s position on the Abraham Accords resonates with Riyadh. Neither supports normalizing ties with Israel, and so Kuwait likely will not choose India, with its proximity to Israel, over Pakistan and Turkey. Indeed, New Delhi must be careful given Kuwait’s close ties with its enemies—all the more so if Kuwait violates end-user agreements and allows critical defense technology to leak to India’s adversaries.
