Image by Artur Voznenko.
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye on August 7, has quickly invited comparisons with an “Islamic NATO.” Initially, that analogy appeared premature. But subsequent statements by senior Pakistani and Turkish officials have made it harder to dismiss altogether.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has advocated a NATO-like collective-defence arrangement among Muslim countries. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has gone further, describing the Makkah agreement as technically comparable to NATO’s Article 5 and discussing plans for a ministerial mechanism and permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh has been more circumspect, avoiding an official characterisation of the pact as another NATO. This difference matters. While the three governments broadly agree on strengthening collective deterrence, they may not yet attach identical political or institutional meaning to the arrangement.
The NATO analogy is therefore revealing but premature. NATO’s credibility rests not simply on its collective-defence clause but on decades of integrated military planning, command structures, interoperability, intelligence coordination and political consultation. The Makkah pact has yet to demonstrate anything comparable.
Its significance lies elsewhere. The accord begins to connect Gulf and South Asian security within a common framework, as regional powers seek additional mechanisms for managing uncertainty without abandoning established external partnerships.
Saudi Arabia’s Search for Security Insurance
For Saudi Arabia, the accord reflects a reassessment of security in an increasingly volatile region.
Riyadh has traditionally depended heavily on the United States for deterrence and advanced military capabilities. But attacks on Gulf infrastructure, threats to energy routes and successive regional crises have exposed the risks of relying overwhelmingly on one external security provider.
The conclusion is not that Washington has become irrelevant. Saudi Arabia remains deeply connected to the United States through defence, economic and strategic ties. Riyadh instead appears determined to supplement that relationship with additional partnerships.
By bringing Turkiye and Pakistan into a collective-defence framework, Saudi Arabia broadens the range of actors a potential aggressor must consider. The agreement does not publicly specify a predetermined military response, but that uncertainty may itself contribute to deterrence: aggression could generate wider political, logistical or military consequences.
What Turkiye and Pakistan Bring
Türkiye broadens the framework beyond the longstanding Saudi-Pakistani defence relationship.
Ankara combines a large conventional military and NATO experience with a rapidly expanding defence industry. Its capabilities complement Saudi efforts to strengthen domestic defence production and diversify procurement. Joint production, technology partnerships, exercises and greater interoperability could eventually prove more consequential than the pact’s headline collective-defence provision.
For Ankara, the pact also offers greater strategic reach. Turkiye is not replacing NATO with a regional bloc; it is adding another partnership to a foreign policy increasingly characterised by overlapping relationships.
Pakistan brings different assets. Decades of military cooperation with Saudi Arabia, substantial manpower and operational experience make Islamabad a natural security partner. Pakistan’s nuclear status adds to its broader strategic weight, although the agreement provides no basis for assuming that Islamabad has extended a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan’s diplomatic position is equally significant. Islamabad has sought workable relations with competing regional actors and positioned itself as a potential intermediary during periods of tension. Pakistan’s participation therefore complicates attempts to portray the pact as an explicitly anti-Iran coalition. Islamabad shares a border with Iran and has strong strategic incentives to preserve stable relations with Tehran.
The interests of the three members are complementary without being identical. That may prove both the pact’s strength and its principal challenge.
Iran and Ambiguous Deterrence
Iran remains an important strategic variable despite not being named in the agreement. Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, Iran-aligned armed groups, Houthi operations and threats to maritime routes have become important factors in Gulf threat perceptions. For Saudi Arabia, strengthening deterrence amid such risks is understandable.
Yet none of the three signatories has an interest in institutionalising permanent confrontation with Tehran. Turkiye combines strategic competition with economic and diplomatic engagement. Pakistan has strong incentives to maintain stability along its Iranian border. Saudi Arabia also has reasons to prevent regional instability from undermining its economic transformation.
The accord therefore attempts something more subtle than constructing an anti-Iran bloc. It seeks to raise the potential costs of aggression without formally identifying where that aggression might originate.
This preserves diplomatic space while allowing the agreement to address a broader range of threats. But strategic ambiguity works only if potential adversaries believe the collective-defence commitment carries consequences.
The Non-State Actor Problem
That becomes more complicated when aggression does not come directly from another state.
The Middle East’s security environment is shaped by drones, missiles, militias and proxy networks as much as conventional warfare. Would a major Houthi missile or drone attack on Saudi territory activate the agreement? Would Turkiye and Pakistan respond militarily, provide intelligence or air-defence assistance, or offer diplomatic support?
Similar questions arise beyond the Gulf. If another India-Pakistan confrontation escalated, how would Riyadh and Ankara interpret the scope of their commitments to Islamabad? Turkiye’s NATO membership adds another layer of complexity.
These questions go directly to deterrence. Collective defence becomes credible when adversaries believe an attack will impose costs, but members also need sufficient flexibility to prevent a local confrontation from producing uncontrolled escalation.
The pact’s credibility will therefore depend on institution-building. A permanent secretariat and ministerial mechanism could provide political coordination, but military credibility would require intelligence sharing, joint exercises, contingency planning, logistical arrangements and agreed consultation procedures.
Without such mechanisms, the pact will remain primarily a political signal. With them, it could evolve into a meaningful security institution without becoming a NATO-style alliance.
Bridging the Gulf and South Asia
Perhaps the pact’s most consequential feature is that it begins to institutionalise a strategic bridge between two security theatres traditionally treated as distinct.
Pakistan’s participation means a collective-defence framework centred partly on Gulf security now reaches into an environment shaped by India-Pakistan rivalry, China’s regional role and nuclear deterrence.
The connection works in the opposite direction. Gulf instability has direct implications for Pakistan through energy security, investment, military cooperation and relations with Iran.
This does not mean Saudi Arabia or Türkiye will automatically become parties to South Asian conflicts, or that Pakistan will participate in every Gulf confrontation. The absence of such automaticity may be precisely what allows the arrangement to function.
The pact’s significance is therefore not simply that Pakistan has joined another defence arrangement. It potentially changes the geography through which regional security is understood, bringing Gulf deterrence and South Asian strategic competition into closer interaction.
Beyond Reliance on Washington
For decades, much of the Middle East’s security architecture revolved around external guarantees, particularly those provided by the United States. The Makkah pact suggests that regional states increasingly want arrangements they can shape themselves alongside established partnerships.
This is neither necessarily an American retreat nor a rejection of Washington. The United States retains military capabilities, intelligence networks and logistical reach that Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan cannot collectively reproduce.
What is changing is exclusivity. Saudi Arabia can retain its American security relationship while deepening defence cooperation with Türkiye and Pakistan. Türkiye can remain in NATO while developing additional regional frameworks. Pakistan can sustain its strategic partnership with China while maintaining relationships with Washington, Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran.
For Washington, greater regional capacity could support burden-sharing. But greater responsibility will also bring greater autonomy, including initiatives the United States does not exclusively design or control.
The Real Test of Makkah
The central question is whether Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan can turn a political commitment to collective defence into credible security cooperation.
The three bring distinct assets: Saudi economic and political weight, Turkish military and defence-industrial capabilities, and Pakistani military experience and diplomatic reach. But collective defence is easier to declare than to implement.
The pact must establish how members consult during crises, distinguish state aggression from attacks by non-state actors, and determine what assistance each is prepared to provide. Its durability will also depend on whether the governments can manage relationships outside the pact, particularly with Iran.
If effective consultation, military coordination and crisis-management mechanisms develop, Makkah could become an early institutional expression of a more diversified regional security order. The growing use of NATO terminology by Pakistani and Turkish officials signals political ambition; whether that rhetoric acquires operational meaning will depend on the institutions built around it.
The pact’s larger significance lies in bringing Gulf and South Asian security into closer interaction while reflecting a wider shift towards regional agency and overlapping partnerships.
Its ultimate test will not be whether its leaders compare it with NATO, but whether it can make aggression more costly without making escalation more likely.
