In a year marked by seismic shifts across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has taken center stage in a rapidly evolving security landscape. The kingdom’s recent moves—signing a historic mutual defense pact with Pakistan in September 2025 and entering discussions with the United States for a similar agreement—have sent ripples through regional and global capitals. These developments, widely seen as a response to Israel’s dramatic airstrike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, are reshaping alliances and recalibrating the delicate balance of power in the Gulf.
The Saudi-Pakistan pact, signed just weeks after the Israeli attack in Doha, formalizes what had long been an informal security relationship between the two countries. According to Asianet News, the agreement commits both nations to collective defense: any external aggression against either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan will be treated as an attack on both, triggering mutual consultation and a coordinated military response. The pact also promises joint efforts in intelligence sharing, weapons procurement, military technology transfer, defense-industrial collaboration, co-production of advanced systems, capacity-building, and training.
Yet, perhaps the most controversial aspect of the deal is its ambiguity regarding nuclear deterrence. While Pakistani officials have publicly suggested that “all military means” are included—raising speculation about a possible Pakistani nuclear umbrella for Saudi Arabia—they have since walked back from explicit confirmation. Still, as Asianet News notes, outside analysts believe the agreement at least implies the possibility of extended deterrence, even if the details remain shrouded in secrecy.
This is not the first time Saudi Arabia has sought to build coalitions among Muslim-majority nations. The Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), established in Riyadh in 2015 and now comprising 41 member states, was created to coordinate joint efforts against terrorism. However, IMCTC has been limited in its operational scope, conducting few large-scale military actions. The broader dream of Islamic unity, as Asianet News points out, has repeatedly foundered on the rocks of political, sectarian, and dynastic rivalries. From the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the repeated failures of Arab armies to present a unified front against Israel, history has shown that the rhetoric of unity often outpaces practical collective action.
Nonetheless, the Saudi-Pakistan pact stands apart for its binding, bilateral nature and the timing of its announcement. According to an Atlantic Council report cited by Asianet News, the agreement is widely interpreted as a signal to Israel, the United States, and other regional actors that Riyadh is prepared to seek alternative security partnerships and is no longer content to rely solely on Washington’s protection. The pact’s scope, its veiled references to nuclear deterrence, and its timing—so soon after the Israeli airstrike on a US-allied Gulf state—have left little doubt about its intended audience.
But Saudi Arabia is not putting all its eggs in the Pakistani basket. As reported by Reuters and the Financial Times on October 17, 2025, the kingdom is now in advanced talks with the United States to secure a defense agreement modeled on the recent US-Qatar pact. That deal, struck after the Israeli strike on Doha, commits Washington to treat any armed attack on Qatar as a threat to the United States. Saudi officials hope to finalize a similar arrangement when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits the White House in November 2025.
“There are discussions about signing something when the crown prince comes, but the details are in flux,” a senior former Trump administration official told the Financial Times. The US State Department, while declining to comment on the specifics, emphasized that defense cooperation with Saudi Arabia remains “a strong bedrock of our regional strategy.”
For Riyadh, securing such a pact with Washington would represent a long-sought goal. Saudi Arabia has for years pressed for US security guarantees as part of broader efforts to normalize relations with Israel. The timing of these negotiations—coming on the heels of both the Israeli airstrike in Qatar and the Saudi-Pakistan pact—underscores the kingdom’s determination to hedge its bets and diversify its security partnerships.
The ripple effects of these moves are being felt far beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Nowhere is this more apparent than in India, which has watched the Saudi-Pakistan agreement with a mixture of concern and skepticism. India and Saudi Arabia share robust diplomatic and economic ties, with bilateral trade reaching USD 41.88 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to Asianet News. In contrast, Pakistan’s trade with Saudi Arabia stands at just USD 5.2 billion.
Saudi Arabia has also pledged potential investments of up to USD 100 billion in India, fostering deep cooperation in energy security, infrastructure, defense, IT, and health. Despite the new pact with Pakistan, most analysts—and even some officials—consider it highly unlikely that Saudi Arabia would intervene militarily on Pakistan’s behalf in the event of renewed India-Pakistan hostilities. “It will not make any economic sense, let alone military sense,” Asianet News observes, noting that Saudi Arabia’s national interests are closely tied to its flourishing relationship with India.
Moreover, the chequered history of Islamic military alliances provides little reassurance that the Saudi-Pakistan pact will prove more durable or effective than its predecessors. As Asianet News recounts, efforts at Muslim unity have repeatedly collapsed under the weight of sectarian division and competing national agendas. Even the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the IMCTC have struggled to overcome internal rivalries and present a united front on major security issues.
The current flurry of alliance-building in Riyadh is, in many ways, a response to shifting geopolitical winds. The Israeli strike in Qatar has rattled nerves across the Gulf, prompting Saudi Arabia to seek new security guarantees from both traditional and emerging partners. The kingdom’s efforts to secure a US defense pact, in particular, are closely linked to Washington’s broader push to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations and to reassure Gulf allies wary of both Iranian and Israeli threats.
Yet, as history has shown, the success of such alliances often depends less on formal agreements than on the underlying political will and shared interests of their members. The Saudi-Pakistan pact, with its ambiguous nuclear provisions and its echoes of past, largely symbolic coalitions, may ultimately prove more a message than a mechanism. Whether the kingdom’s parallel courtship of Washington yields a more concrete security guarantee remains to be seen.
For now, one thing is clear: Saudi Arabia’s bold moves in 2025 have redrawn the contours of Gulf security, forcing allies and adversaries alike to rethink their strategies. As the region stands on the cusp of a new era, the real test will be whether these pacts can deliver more than just headlines—and whether old divisions can be bridged in the face of new threats.
