Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA), which, according to a joint statement, “aims to develop aspects of defense cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression.”
The agreement goes on to state that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.” It doesn’t specify any duty to employ military force in their support, however, thus making it similar to NATO’s Article 5 in terms of strategic ambiguity.
Many observers believe that US ally Saudi Arabia was shaken by America’s inability or refusal to stop Israel’s bombing of Hamas targets in Qatar, despite hosting a major US airbase there.
Saudi Arabia is thus supposedly trying to deter Israel via closer ties with nuclear-armed Pakistan, a longtime military partner it has financially bailed out several times in the past.
The apparent quid pro quo is that Saudi Arabia would support Pakistan in any future clash with India, potentially by cutting off oil shipments until hostilities cease.
That’s a compelling explanation of their interests in the SMDA, but equally compelling is the argument that it’s mostly symbolic for soft power’s sake and thus not the game-changer many believe it could be.
For starters, aside from occasional fiery rhetoric, Pakistan has never credibly threatened Israel. It hasn’t used nuclear weapons even in conflicts with its nuclear-armed rival India — which it views as an existential threat — so it’s unlikely to do so against nuclear-armed Israel, even in a scenario where Israel bombs Saudi Arabia.
On that point, Israel and Saudi Arabia are actually quite close, despite their disagreements over Palestine. Unlike Qatar, Saudi Arabia doesn’t host any Israeli-designated terrorist groups.
Likewise, Saudi Arabia and India are even closer, with India among the largest importers of Saudi oil. Both countries, along with Israel, are part of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, but suspended until the end of the Gaza war.
Just as Pakistan has never credibly threatened Israel despite its fiery rhetoric, Saudi Arabia has likewise never posed a credible threat to India, even while supporting Pakistan on Kashmir. It is therefore not expected to back its ally with military force or impose an oil embargo on India if they clash again.
The real purpose of their SMDA thus appears to be largely symbolic – a way to save face after Israel’s attack on Qatar and remind fellow Muslims about the importance of more military and technical cooperation in the Muslim world.
The most realistic scenario for one to support the other militarily would be if the Houthis resume significant military operations against Saudi Arabia – something likely only if the Saudis resume their bombing operations and then request Pakistani assistance.
Pakistan rebuffed Saudi Arabia’s 2015 request for ships, aircraft and troops at the beginning of hostilities, so precedent suggests it would do the same if asked again unless the US pulls intervenes.
While it’s hypothetically possible that Pakistan intends to wage war on Israel in support of Saudi Arabia – including threatening nuclear use if Israel bombs Saudi Arabia – and that Saudi Arabia might impose an oil embargo on India if it clashes again with Pakistan, both scenarios are unlikely.
Many pundits have political or even ideological reasons to hype the agreement, so it’s understandable why some might see the SMDA as a big deal – even if it arguably isn’t.
This article was first published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriber here.
To the zion @zi supporters including writers here at Asia Times, who are whitewashing & normalising the Gaza genocide, who are trying to project israel both as a victim & as an invulnerable military power as it suits the narrative, are fooling only themselves and failing it miserably.
Again, the noose is tightening and this defence pact is a step in that direction.
I think that the Saudis believing that allying with a nuclear state, Pakistan, will somehow immunize them from a potential Israeli attack is a fever dream, a laughable hallucination. It shows desperation and fear, and how vulnerable Saudi Arabia believes itself to be.
The immediate reason for Saudi’s signing the long-discussed deal with Pakistan is that when Israel bombed Qatar, Saudi’s US-made Patriot systems were disabled so Saudis did not know that US-made Israeli planes crossed Saudi air space. The fact that Saudi believed in the so-called IMEC (even the name is colonial, Middle East is a European view, we call it West Asia) plan is even strange. Arabs are extremely intelligent and calculating. They should have known that Israel was formed to “guard” oil in the gulf countries. But if they woke up to where they really stand in the great game, it is better late than never.
Arabs might be calculating, but their governments folly lies in the cowardice on display that enables the dark Zionist moral abyss. Not only that, the strict adherence to European colonialist Sykes-Picot borders in th region, which are fake. Bashar Asad, Muammar Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein all had one thing in common – they overthew the yoke of British monarchic puppets. The Judeo-Christians are a nasty bunch – they follow a “god” which is vicious, wrathful, envious and insecure. They were furious when Arabs took their destiny in their own hands. Nothing will change until British-American monarchic puppets are replaced with real Arab nationalism. They want to keep the region in chaos so the little rabid Israeli dog can keep urinating on their futures forever.
Its incredible how authors around here tip toe around the Apartheid state and its ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Israelis in the 2020s are the Germans of the 1930s “I was just following orders”. Israelis have morphed into their former Nazi oppressors, using a mix of anti semantics, journalist murder (hundreds killed so far covering the genocide), bribes, nuclear blackmail, media infiltration and Epstein honeypot operations, to stifle any criticism of its genocidal sociopathy masquerading as normal. If this isn’t worth covering, you are part of the problem.
Saudi is now a nuclear state. Recently Asim Munir gave a speech in Florida threatening to wipe out half the world with Pakistan’s nukes, and the Indian commentariat went in a tizzy, angrily questioning if the “half” includes the western half (with US in it) or the eastern half (with China in it). That comment was not aimed at India, but against Israel. Israel wanted to snuff out Pakistan’s nuclear program in the late 1970s by using Indian soil as a launch pad. Obviously, this was with the sponsorship of the US. If India allowed this to happen, the next step would have been to use Pakistan’s soil to destroy India’s nuclear program. Wisely the Indian leadership at the time nixed the plan. Israel always tried to be the regional monopoly on nukes. Well, now the Saudis have it, with the stroke of a pen, and soon the other gulf states would join them too. Iran likely also has the bomb, but would not disclose for strategic reasons. India does not care if Pakistan has the bomb. Pakistanis and Indians all eat chapati/sabji and we speak the same Hindi/Urdu language. Despite protestations by Asim Munir, our aspirations are the same. West Punjab and East Bengal have been an integral part of India for thousands of years.