Ever since its announcement in September, the substance, timing, and regional security repercussions of the Saudi Arabia-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA) have generated much scholarly debate. Much of the analysis from Pakistani commentators seeks to undermine the agreement as nothing but “paper promises,” a “political signal of solidarity and strategic cooperation,” and as a continuation of Pakistan’s previous military engagement with Saudi Arabia, as well as signifying a growing trendline of minilateralism in international politics.
However, this analysis raises several key questions. If the agreement represents merely declaratory intent and is strategically hollow, why did Pakistan and Saudi Arabia commit to a language of collective security whereby “an aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both?” Who are the aggressors, real and imagined, to which Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are responding? More importantly, do these external threats invite a strategic recalibration allowing for Pakistani military ingress into the Middle East in support of Saudi Arabia and for the latter’s military ingress into South Asia in support of Pakistan? While the motivations guiding Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are still elusive, disentangling them is necessary to begin answering these questions. This article argues that Pakistani and Saudi actions are actually rooted in a quest for status acquisition and material needs, not so much in the strategic collective security provisions of such an agreement.
Assessing the Drivers for Pakistan
Given its domestic economic troubles, the surest motivation for Pakistan was arguably to leverage its military capabilities in exchange for tangible economic benefits and investments from Saudi Arabia. Islamabad has long relied on Riyadh for favorable oil credit rollovers as it contends with a brittle economy indebted to external creditors. This motivation was borne out by the fact that a week after the agreement was signed, Pakistan’s Special Investment Facilitation Council instructed ministries to draw up proposals on expected Saudi investments in oil, gas, and minerals. However, given the insurgencies in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, not to mention the recent protests in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Pakistan’s investment expectations from Saudi Arabia are unlikely to be realized in conditions of diminished domestic political and security stability.
“Pakistani and Saudi actions are actually rooted in a quest for status acquisition and material needs, not so much in the strategic collective security provisions of such an agreement.”
With regard to the military benefits of such a pact being a factor, Pakistan’s demonstrated military capabilities and preparedness as seen in the May crisis with India obviate the need for a Saudi military intervention or the activation of the collective security provision in a future kinetic crisis in South Asia. More than Saudi Arabia’s collective security guarantee, it is Pakistan’s operational dependence on Chinese defense technology, including sophisticated aircraft, missiles and space surveillance, which will be pivotal in determining the trajectory of crisis in South Asia.
Thus, the more plausible motivation for Pakistan signing the military agreement with Saudi Arabia seems to be to solidify its renewed elevated status in regional and international politics, especially post Pahalgam. After suffering a negative impact on its reputation for years due to its 2018 Financial Action Task Force grey-listing on the charge of the state harboring terrorist sanctuaries and engaging in terror-financing as well as its failing economy, its success in the crisis with India in May this year had the effect of alleviating Pakistan’s status anxiety. The crisis contributed to strategic confidence as well as a radical transformative uptick leading to a new warmth in Pakistan’s ties with the United States. After defending itself against a much larger and powerful adversary and the recalibration of its relationship with the United States, Pakistan likely sought to utilize the agreement with Saudi Arabia to solidify its status as a regional military player. With Iran also expressing interest in a similar collective security arrangement, Pakistan seems to have succeeded in enhancing its regional and international reputation and credibility.
Finally, the costs that Pakistan might incur by passing on nuclear technology or extending its nuclear umbrella might be too prohibitive. Normatively, it may risk sanctions and negative publicity within the international community, and strategically, doing so will expand Pakistan’s strategic theater to include the Middle East and hence likely compromise its ability to tackle immediate threats on its eastern and western borders. For all these reasons, the most compelling explanation for the agreement seems to be its largely symbolic status value as opposed to its real-time, substantive weight.
Saudi Arabia’s Motivations
Saudi Arabia’s motivations for pursuing the pact are arguably most strongly anchored in its quest for middle power status, which has both material and reputational connotations, rather than in seeking a strategic shift towards a more militaristic posture towards its strategic rivals via the collective security provision of the agreement.
This is so for a few reasons. First, with the news of the agreement unfolding in the wake of Israel’s military attack on Qatar, some analysts argued that Riyadh sought Islamabad’s extended security as a guarantee against a similar Israeli military attack targeting Saudi Arabia. However, for this line of analysis to hold water, one would have to make the case for a Saudi Arabia-Israel rivalry in the first place. While Saudi Arabia has made its diplomatic engagement with Israel conditional on the creation of a Palestinian state, Israeli and Saudi strategic interests converge in Yemen. Israel has consistently attacked Houthi rebels, an actor that Saudi Arabia opposes. In this sense, Israel and Saudi Arabia share opposition to Iran’s influence in Yemen combined with Israeli attacks serving as an indirect security benefit to the Kingdom and its political and military objectives in Yemen.
Further, if one were to argue that the agreement is meant to address the strategic threat for Saudi Arabia emanating from Iran, two key developments are important to consider: first, Iran’s militarized conflict with Israel and the United States’ calibrated strikes on the former’s nuclear capability has had the effect of neutralizing the Iranian threat for the Saudis. The prospect of a militarily weakened Iran suits Saudi interests, as both Israel and the United States take care of its main strategic rival. The second is the need to temper the zero-sum framing of the Saudi-Iran conflict by acknowledging the path of cautious re-engagement that the two sides entered into in 2023, with Chinese facilitation.
Hence, the Saudi payoff from the pact with Pakistan seems less rooted in preparing for a militarized confrontation with its strategic rivals and is more indicative of its push towards military modernization with Islamabad’s help as it seeks middle power status. Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s proactive policies aimed at restructuring Saudi Arabia’s political economy under the ambitious Saudi Vision 2030 plan and aimed at diversifying the economy beyond its traditional reliance on oil exports suggest a desire to adjust its regional and international perceptions. This was also evident in the G-20 Summit in September 2023 when Saudi Arabia along with India, UAE and Israel announced the establishment of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), a supply chain traversing South Asia, the Middle East, and onwards to the European Union and the United States.
The geoeconomic impulse now driving Saudi overtures is indicative of the Kingdom’s push for greater visibility in regional and international politics. In this sense, the defense agreement with Pakistan has a multiplier effect, in that it sets Saudi Arabia firmly on the path of middle power status-seeking. As geoeconomic ventures with like-minded regional and international partners take shape, the defense agreement allows the Kingdom to formalize the prospects for enhanced capacity-building of the Saudi land forces via training, defense production, and strategic cooperation on counterterrorism, as well as message them as such regionally. The alliance mechanism of the agreement formalizes the existing strategic partnership with Pakistan and provides Riyadh legitimacy in the security realm.
“The leverage for both states then resides in expectations of material gains, both military and economic, through the shoring up of their self-status and reputation in regional and international politics.”
Bottomline
The drivers of Saudi and Pakistani motivations are rooted more in the quest for psychological security, i.e. status acquisition, rather than strictly collective security provisions. The language of collective security embedded in the agreement can be best understood through such a logic, as opposed to a security dilemma explanation directed against external aggressors.
Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are unlikely to commit to each other’s defense needs in case of external aggression given Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of a recalibrated diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, domestic economic restructuring, and diversifying regional and international partners for economic gains, such as India. For Pakistan, its own military preparedness dispels the need for Saudi support in this realm. Instead, the purpose of the agreement is to formalize, advance, and strengthen a military and strategic partnership that has been years in the making – a retired Pakistani Army Chief heads the 43-nation Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) envisaged by Saudi Arabia in 2015. The leverage for both states then resides in expectations of material gains, both military and economic, through the shoring up of their self-status and reputation in regional and international politics.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center, or our supporters.
Also Read: Signed but Undefined: Contextualizing the Pak-Saudi Mutual Defense Agreement
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Image 1: Shehbaz Sharif on X
Image 2: Shehbaz Sharif on X
