Could the Pakistani-Saudi Defense Pact Be the First Step Toward a NATO-Style Alliance?

Diya Ashtakala, Doreen Horschig, and Bailey Schiff

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On September 17, 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA), a defense pact that considers “any aggression against either country” as “an aggression against both,” echoing NATO’s Article 5 language and signaling their intent to strengthen deterrence amid rising tensions in the Middle East. For Saudi Arabia, the agreement provides a formalized security partnership that reassures domestic and regional audiences of its ability to deter aggression, particularly in a volatile Gulf environment. For Pakistan, the pact offers strategic, political, and economic benefits, including a stronger footprint in the Middle East.

The pact suggests that Riyadh is diversifying its security partnerships beyond its reliance on Washington, with the recent Israeli strikes in Doha providing the final political cover needed to execute the shift. U.S.-Saudi defense ties are anchored in a decades-long security partnership in which the United States provides advanced weapons systems, training, and security guarantees, illustrated by major arms sales including F-15 fighter jets and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles, U.S. military training programs for Saudi officers, and U.S. deployments to protect Gulf oil infrastructure. The SMDA reconfigures regional power dynamics by deepening the Pakistani-Saudi relationship, intensifying India’s security balancing act, and raising questions about Israel’s regional access to air corridors.

While the pact’s NATO-like language signals an intent to strengthen collective deterrence, the SMDA currently lacks the necessary provisions for nuclear deterrence and regional political consensus to evolve into a joint defense framework. Instead, one of the pact’s main implications is a heightened U.S. and international focus on the credibility of Riyadh’s nuclear nonproliferation commitments, as the security partnership reinforces existing concerns over Riyadh’s potential shortcut to a nuclear weapon via Islamabad.

Q1: What current developments or triggers caused Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to formalize a mutual defense pact?

A1: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia reportedly discussed the pact for over a year, influenced by Riyadh’s longstanding concerns over Tehran’s and Washington’s reliability, but it appears to have gained momentum due to renewed fears of regional spillovers following Israeli strikes in Doha.