Beginning with Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’, the U.S. began limiting its engagement in the Middle East, ostensibly to focus on the mounting Chinese threat in Asia, but in fact highlighting its slow decline and inability to honour all commitments with all allies. Thus, when the Arab Spring roared across the Middle East in 2011, engulfing dictatorial regimes in multiple countries, Saudi Arabia – a familiar monarchy – watched anxiously as the U.S. offered no support to leaders who were considered faithful U.S. allies. Then, Obama signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia’s regional foe, Iran, in 2015, threatening Saudi security. Although this was overturned by Trump in 2018, it did not help ease Saudi anxieties. If anything, this meant that an increasingly unreliable America could not only fail to follow through but could also renege on its commitments. What was happening to others happened to Saudi Arabia in 2019 when the attack on the two most significant Saudi oil facilities of Abqaiq and Khurais by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen produced only a muted response from Washington.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 under the Trump Administration, bolstered Israel’s position in the region, normalising ties with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, and signalling that Israel could integrate into the region, without having to give up any land. By ignoring the Palestinians, the move risked making the region more volatile, but beyond this, other regional states appeared to warm up to Israel in exchange for concessions by the United States. Sudan, for example, was removed from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, not because it met a specific standard, but only as a quid pro quo. This itself was a signal of the weakening U.S. power, its disregard for the so-called rules-based order it once sought to establish so firmly. However, Saudi Arabia, which had developed covert ties with Israel in their mutual antagonism toward Iran, was conspicuously absent.  

In politics, the weakening of a great power always creates a vacuum that is quickly filled. Beijing began engaging Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states as early as 2017 in economic deals under the Belt and Road Initiative. China remains Saudi Arabia’s largest importer and exporter of goods. In 2023, it brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties between the two adversaries and rekindle a 2001 security cooperation agreement. It was a significant diplomatic milestone that put China as a serious great power contender to the U.S. in the Middle East. The Saudi Arabia welcomed Chinese efforts and hailed them as its trade partner, but it knew that the Chinese non-interventionist policy could not guarantee the kind of security guarantees it required. Therefore, Saudi Arabia continued to assert for a reliable security treaty with the U.S. — one not threatened by a change in U.S. administrations. Naturally, as a weaker power caught between the power competition of two great powers, Saudi Arabia tried to hedge between both to extract military and economic benefits, without having to choose one. This was not welcomed by the U.S., which stalled the prospect of a security treaty, even though the U.S. were inclined to include Saudi Arabia in the Abraham Accords.

The opportunity arose – in favour of Saudi Arabia – in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the U.S. tried to reset ties with the world’s greatest oil exporter. It was then, under the Biden Administration, that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia appeared to be at the cusp of a concrete security agreement, where Saudi Arabia would recognise Israel, as an extension of the Abraham Accords, in exchange for a security treaty and an agreement on a civil nuclear programme. Not only did this deal collapse after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, but the limitations of the U.S. “diplomatic triumph” with the Abraham Accords became apparent as well. The resulting war in Gaza and the uncontrolled Israeli appetite for aggression as it bombards countries across the region, including Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and even Qatar, has left Saudi Arabia in a precarious security dilemma. With diminished hope of a security guarantee from the U.S., Saudi Arabia turned to another nuclear ally: Pakistan.

Pakistan: The Only Muslim Nuclear Power – And Determined to Remain So

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have shared historical ties based on mutual benefits. Saudi Arabia provides financial support and oil to the economically vulnerable South Asian country. Pakistan – despite its economic weakness, punches above its weight in military might – provides military assistance to Saudi Arabia. Since 1967, Pakistan has trained over 8,000 Saudi armed forces personnel, conducted joint military exercises, and sent troops to Saudi Arabia at the request of the Saudi King when militants seized the Grand Mosque in 1979. The most crucial moment came in 1998, when Pakistan was met with sanctions and diplomatic isolation over its nuclear programme, Saudi Arabia kept the Pakistani economy afloat with $3.4 billion in financial support.

Given this relationship, a strategic mutual defence agreement appears to be a plausible next step in the relationship between the two allies. But this conclusion ignores the fact that Pakistan shares a border and somewhat amicable ties with Iran – Saudi Arabia’s main regional adversary – and has historically refrained from openly siding with Saudi Arabia against Iran, at the risk of jeopardising its relationship with its neighbour. In 2015, when Saudi Arabia militarily intervened in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthis rebels, Pakistan refused to offer support. Then why did Pakistan suddenly sign a defence pact with Saudi Arabia?

In the absence of a greater power willing to fill in the security vacuum, Pakistan stepped in, bolstering its geopolitical significance and relevance, much like France offering to extend its nuclear umbrella to Europe amidst uncertainty regarding U.S. intentions to honour its security commitments to NATO and European allies. However, similar to France’s commitment, this agreement is also shrouded in complexities. 

For one, the agreement does not explicitly make clear whether Saudi Arabia is now under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella, and statements made in the aftermath by both Saudi and Pakistani spokesmen have deliberately maintained this ambiguity. But there has been strong insistence by Pakistan that the treaty should be considered for what it is, a defence pact, which is not intended for any aggression against any other state. In other words, neither Pakistan wants to change its foreign policy towards Iran and Israel overnight and pull itself into a Middle Eastern conflict, nor Saudi Arabia wants to jeopardise ties with its second-largest trade partner: India (in FY 2023-24, exports to India were $31.42 billion, and import was US $11.56 billion). 

Pakistan has also. reiterated that its nuclear programme was developed solely to deter India and is not directed at any other country, it has on occasions hinted at playing the role of a nuclear protector. This is not because of any aggressive design, but simply to maintain a monopoly as the sole Muslim nuclear power state. Again, a parallel can be drawn with how France would not want other states (more specifically, Germany) to develop their nuclear capabilities and would instead prefer to extend an ambiguous nuclear support. But like Germany making strides to develop its defences in the absence of U.S. guarantees and in the face of regional threats, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have both hinted at the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. Although not immediately happening, in such circumstances, these defence pacts may be Pakistan’s way of curbing the nuclear desire of regional allies and maintaining geostrategic leverage.

No doubt the agreement has propelled Pakistan as a crucial geopolitical actor in the region, benefiting from the receding U.S. role. The agreement will certainly be watched closely by India, Israel, Iran, and other Middle Eastern states, and also by China, a traditional ally of Pakistan. However, this does not automatically mean leadership, dominance in events and regional politics, but rather depicts a very natural phenomenon: when a great power declines, the political vacuum is immediately filled by other states, often exacerbating instability.