Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye Build a New Defence Bloc as Regional Powers Question the Old U.S.-Led Security Order
By Shahnoor Saqib | SCN NEWS
ISLAMABAD, Three weeks after Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed a collective-defence agreement in Mecca, the pact is beginning to look less like another bilateral-style security arrangement and more like a test of whether three regional powers can construct meaningful deterrence outside the traditional U.S.-centred Middle Eastern security architecture. Signed on Aug. 7 by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement commits the three countries to regard an armed attack against one as an attack against all, bringing together a nuclear-armed South Asian state, the Gulf's largest economy and NATO's second-largest military. Pakistan insists the arrangement is defensive and not directed against another country, but its significance lies precisely in the question its formation raises: if Washington's partners increasingly build security guarantees among themselves, how much of the region's future security order will still be designed in Washington?
The agreement did not emerge from nowhere. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had already formalized a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement in September 2025, while Pakistan, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia have spent years developing military and defence-industrial relationships. What changed is the regional environment surrounding those relationships. The conflicts involving Israel and Iran, attacks across Gulf and Red Sea routes and uncertainty over the limits of U.S. security guarantees have encouraged governments to diversify rather than abandon their established partnerships. IISS analysts Hasan Alhasan and Asna Wajid argue that the Mecca agreement reflects precisely that shift, while cautioning that the three governments do not necessarily share identical threat perceptions and may disagree sharply over which regional actors present the greatest danger.
That distinction prevents the pact from being accurately described simply as an “Islamic NATO.” NATO's collective-defence system rests on decades of integrated military planning, command structures, interoperability, exercises and political institutions, while the Mecca agreement is still at the beginning of institution-building. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has described its collective-defence commitment as technically similar to NATO's Article 5 while indicating that members would consult on the degree and form of assistance, according to IISS. Plans for a ministerial committee and secretariat have been discussed, but the extent of joint command arrangements, operational planning and military interoperability remains unclear. A treaty clause can establish political intent; credible deterrence requires potential adversaries to believe that governments possess both the capability and willingness to act on it.
Pakistan is arguably the most strategically unusual member of the trio. Saudi Arabia contributes financial and energy weight, Türkiye combines a large conventional military with an expanding defence-industrial base, while Pakistan brings extensive military experience and nuclear weapons into a security arrangement extending geographically from South Asia into the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean strategic environment. That combination immediately raises questions over whether Pakistan's nuclear deterrent has any relevance to the pact, but the answer remains deliberately unclear. Pakistani officials sent mixed signals after the earlier Saudi-Pakistan defence agreement over whether nuclear capabilities were covered, and the three governments have not publicly established that the Mecca pact provides Saudi Arabia or Türkiye with a Pakistani nuclear umbrella.
That ambiguity may itself have strategic value without amounting to a formal nuclear guarantee. Deterrence often depends partly on uncertainty about how an adversary will respond, but ambiguity also creates risk if different parties interpret obligations differently during a crisis. The practical credibility of the pact will therefore be determined less by speculation over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal than by observable steps: joint exercises, intelligence sharing, air and missile defence cooperation, defence production, military deployments and mechanisms allowing the three governments to coordinate rapidly when one faces a threat. Until those structures develop, the agreement should be understood as a potentially consequential security framework rather than a fully operational military alliance.
Defence industry may offer the most immediate path from symbolism to substance. Türkiye has developed a rapidly expanding indigenous defence sector, Pakistan possesses established aerospace, missile and conventional-weapons capabilities, and Saudi Arabia is attempting to localize a greater share of defence production under its economic diversification strategy. IISS notes that trilateral discussions on defence-industrial cooperation date back to 2023 and argues that Saudi capital could complement Turkish and Pakistani technological and production capabilities. If joint projects emerge, the pact could gradually reduce dependence on external suppliers even without creating a NATO-style integrated command.
The strategic implications extend beyond military hardware. For decades, Gulf security has relied heavily on the United States through bases, weapons sales, naval presence and bilateral guarantees, while Türkiye itself remains a NATO member and Pakistan has maintained a complicated but enduring security relationship with Washington. The Mecca agreement does not require any of the three to abandon those ties. Instead, it represents diversification: governments that previously depended more heavily on external powers are attempting to create additional options among themselves. The Council on Foreign Relations has interpreted the pact as evidence of a weakening U.S.-led regional order, although how far that process goes will depend on whether the agreement develops operational substance rather than remaining principally political signalling.
Washington's reaction also complicates claims that the pact represents an anti-American bloc. President Donald Trump has publicly welcomed allies assuming more responsibility for their own defence, and all three signatories retain important relationships with the United States. Saudi Arabia remains deeply connected to U.S. military systems, Türkiye remains inside NATO and Pakistan continues security and diplomatic engagement with Washington. The more consequential interpretation is therefore not that the three countries have chosen between the United States and a new alliance, but that they increasingly want enough strategic autonomy to avoid having to make that choice.
The pact also contains an internal contradiction that could become more important during an actual crisis. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan do not view every regional conflict through the same lens. Ankara's calculations involving Israel, Syria and the eastern Mediterranean differ from Riyadh's concerns in the Gulf and Yemen, while Pakistan must simultaneously manage India, Afghanistan and a long border with Iran. IISS notes that Saudi and Turkish perceptions of Iran and Israel are not identical, a divergence that could test collective defence if one member becomes involved in a confrontation the others do not consider central to their own security.
Pakistan's relationship with Iran makes that problem particularly sensitive. Islamabad has an interest in preventing instability along its western border and has attempted to preserve channels with Tehran even as it deepens defence relations with Saudi Arabia. A pact perceived in Iran as an anti-Iranian military axis could therefore create a security problem for Pakistan rather than solve one. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar's insistence that the agreement is “purely defensive” and not aimed at any country should be read against that strategic constraint: Pakistan wants the benefits of deeper Gulf security cooperation without automatically inheriting every rivalry of its partners.
The same calculation applies to Türkiye. Ankara's NATO membership gives it security commitments extending into Europe and the North Atlantic, while the Mecca pact creates a separate commitment involving partners outside NATO. The two frameworks are not necessarily contradictory, but a serious conflict could eventually force questions over priority, consultation and interoperability. Türkiye's participation is consequently important not because it has left the Western alliance system — it has not — but because a NATO member is simultaneously investing in an additional regional collective-security arrangement.
The possibility of expansion makes those questions more urgent. Reuters reported this week that Bangladesh is considering joining the Mecca pact, with a senior Bangladeshi official saying Dhaka views the proposal positively. Membership would extend the arrangement farther into South Asia and transform what began as a Pakistan-Saudi-Türkiye agreement into a potentially broader coalition, but it would also increase political complexity. Bangladesh maintains important relationships with India, China, the United States and other powers and has traditionally sought room for manoeuvre rather than rigid bloc alignment, meaning any decision to join would test whether the pact can expand without forcing members into geopolitical choices they would prefer to avoid.
For Pakistan, expansion could increase diplomatic influence while simultaneously increasing responsibility. Islamabad would become one of the founding states of a security architecture connecting the Gulf with South Asia and potentially additional Muslim-majority states. That would strengthen Pakistan's claim to relevance beyond its immediate rivalry with India, but every additional member would introduce another set of threat perceptions and foreign relationships that the alliance would need to reconcile. Large alliances gain weight through numbers; they also become harder to keep strategically coherent.
History offers reasons for caution. The Middle East has seen previous collective-defence frameworks that never developed the institutional integration or political unity required to become decisive security systems. IISS points to the limited record of earlier Arab and Gulf collective-defence arrangements as a warning against assuming treaty language automatically produces military effectiveness. The Mecca pact will face the same basic test: whether its members are prepared to incur costs for one another when the threat is real rather than hypothetical.
That is also why the agreement's first genuine crisis will matter more than its signing ceremony. If one member faces a serious attack, the response will reveal what “an attack against one is an attack against all” means operationally — military deployment, intelligence assistance, air defence, weapons supplies, diplomatic support or some combination determined through consultation. A flexible clause can prevent governments from becoming trapped in automatic escalation, but too much flexibility can weaken deterrence if adversaries conclude that collective defence is optional.
For Islamabad, the agreement therefore creates both an opportunity and a strategic burden. Pakistan gains deeper institutional ties with two influential regional powers, possible defence-industrial investment and a larger role in an emerging security conversation extending well beyond South Asia. At the same time, it must preserve relations with Iran, avoid unnecessary confrontation with other powers and determine how much military risk it is actually willing to accept on behalf of partners whose threat perceptions are not identical to its own.
The Mecca pact's significance will ultimately depend on whether it becomes an institution rather than an announcement. If Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye develop joint planning, defence production, interoperability and credible crisis mechanisms, Aug. 7 may eventually be remembered as the point at which three regional powers began building a security framework with greater independence from the traditional U.S.-centred order. If those mechanisms fail to emerge, the agreement may instead join a long history of ambitious regional defence commitments whose political symbolism exceeded their military substance. For Pakistan, the real test is no longer whether it can enter a powerful alliance — it is whether it can help make that alliance credible without surrendering the strategic flexibility that made joining it attractive in the first place.