Pakistani diplomacy’s moment in the sun?

Maleeha Lodhi
Former ambassador of Pakistan to the US, UK and the UN

The Pakistan-Saudi Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) is emblematic of changing geostrategic dynamics and shifting alignments that are reshaping the regional landscape, and can contribute to the emergence of a new security architecture in the Middle East.

It has been forged in the backdrop of unprecedented volatility and violence in the region, with Israel’s two-year genocidal war having claimed over 65,000 Palestinian lives and wrought massive devastation and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s attack on Qatar [on September 9] shook the entire region. It was the sixth country to face Israeli military aggression but the first Gulf state, and also a non-Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) ally of the US. This intensified growing doubts about the value and reliability of the American defence umbrella with the US unable or unwilling to restrain an unbound Israel.

The SMDA is a consequence of the eroding trust of regional states in an unpredictable US, whose blind support for Israel has heightened the security threat they face. Negotiations for the security agreement took place months before the strike on Qatar.

But the timing of its signing suggests the attack on Qatar and Israel’s unchecked aggression hastened its finalisation, with Riyadh seeking to diversify its security partnerships and Pakistan expanding its options. Under the deal, both countries would consider an attack on one as “an aggression against both.”

Details of the pact are not yet public, but it could shift the regional balance of power. It reflects a hedging strategy by Riyadh in turning to Pakistan for “joint deterrence against any aggression.” There has been much discussion about whether this has a nuclear dimension and involves extended deterrence. Pakistan has preferred to maintain strategic ambiguity, to give itself flexibility. Saudi officials, however, are cited as saying, “This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.”

While the deal may bring Pakistan much-needed financial assistance to help its fragile economy, there are also real risks for Islamabad. The pact injects Pakistan into a volatile region and may involve commitments that may be difficult to fulfil if it is expected to become a net security provider to the region. These risks have to be mitigated if Pakistan is to avoid overextending itself, given its own internal and external security challenges.

Other risks and challenges may also emerge if Pakistan is asked by Washington to be part of a mostly Muslim multinational security force envisaged for Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s ‘peace plan.’ Trump shared his Gaza proposals with Pakistan and seven other Muslim countries in a meeting in New York, but what was announced was different from what was agreed between them. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had intervened to change many elements of the plan.

The announced plan is vague and has no timeline on withdrawal. It has no guarantee of a complete Israel pullout from Gaza. It also doesn’t guarantee a permanent ceasefire. It says nothing about a Palestinian state or two-state solution and only talks vaguely about a pathway to statehood after the Palestinian Authority has carried out major reforms. It seeks to install a transitional authority headed by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This has already provoked controversy and been likened to Iraqi-style direct occupation.

Without a deal between Israel and Hamas, the plan can’t take off. The plan has also been framed without consulting the Palestinians. It advantages Israel, which is why many Palestinians see it as a document of surrender. And it is why Netanyahu said at the joint press conference that Israel’s war aims are achieved by the plan: for Hamas to be disarmed, Gaza demilitarised and no future Palestinian state to be established.

Despite the cautious welcome the plan has received from across the world, doubts are intensifying whether it will lead to an agreement, be implementable and usher in lasting peace. In view of these uncertainties and the plan’s fundamental flaws, Pakistan must exercise caution and not rush in to offer troops for the stabilisation force without being sure it doesn’t get dragged into Middle East turmoil, or become an unwitting accessory to Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Mushahid Hussain Sayed
Chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute and the Pakistan-Africa Institute for Development and Research (PAIDAR)

The timing of the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) is important, as it was signed in the context of escalating Israeli aggression, with the most recent attack on Qatar, the sixth Muslim-majority nation to fall victim to Israel’s targeted strikes. The US has failed to protect its Muslim allies in the Gulf, although it has military bases in the area — as also evidenced by the 2019 Saudi oil facility attack.

Pakistan’s ability to successfully defend itself and defeat Indian aggression in May 2025 has enhanced its regional image and military credibility. The agreement is a continuation of Pakistan’s history of providing security assistance, including the combat missions of Pakistan Air Force in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the security services provided during the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar.

The SMDA is of much significance as it is the first defence pact between two brotherly Muslim countries. Therefore, it is a “plus” for Pakistan’s key role in Middle East security. It sees Pakistan return to the Middle East as a net security provider after almost five decades. The formalisation of the SMDA can be attributed to primarily two decision-makers: Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This historic defence agreement recalls the close camaraderie between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia since the Lahore Islamic Summit of 1974, which Saudi Arabia and Pakistan jointly hosted.

The agreement has been welcomed all over the Muslim world, Egypt and Iran included, as a demonstration of Islamic solidarity, with the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian crediting it as a “step towards a comprehensive regional security system with the cooperation of Muslim states.” The SMDA enhances inter-Muslim military collaboration and weakens the Indo-Israeli military axis. It demolishes the Biden-Modi strategy of the India-Israel-Middle East Corridor (IMEC), which Biden and Modi announced during the G20 summit in Delhi in September 2023, thus burying the IMEC under the debris of the Gaza genocide and, now, the sands of Arabia.

This agreement creates a new template of regional security, which combines the military power of Pakistan and the economic power of Saudi Arabia. It makes Pakistan a major Muslim middle power and its military capabilities and influence in diplomacy are now evident in the world’s most strategic region.

This agreement is a recognition of the respect and credibility of the Pakistan military’s professionalism and prowess, and capability to deliver, both for the homeland, as well as regional friends. It shows that, in the changing geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, with declining Western credibility in the aftermath of Israel’s Gaza genocide, regional countries are now looking at new strategic security options within the Muslim world.

Pakistan is also a frontline candidate for any serious initiative for sending peacekeeping forces into Gaza, after a potential ceasefire, as a major Muslim country that is also a member of the UN Security Council and a key, longstanding contributor to UN peacekeeping missions through the past several decades.

But any country seeking a peacekeeping role in Gaza must meet the following criteria: 1) It should preferably be a non-Arab Muslim country; 2) It must enjoy credibility among Palestinians; and 3) It should have the confidence of the international community.

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry
Former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan, and current chairman of the Sanober Institute, Islamabad

The signing of the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) on September 17, 2025 is an unprecedented upgrade in bilateral relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The two countries have always maintained cordial relations, including substantial defence and security cooperation dating back to the 1970s. Pursuant to a 1982 protocol, Pakistan’s forces have also engaged with the Saudis in training and advisory roles.

What distinguishes the SMDA from all previous cooperative endeavours is the provision that foreign aggression against one will be treated as aggression against both. This provides formidable strategic depth to Pakistan against possible aggression from India, and to Saudi Arabia against potential aggression from Israel. The agreement, thus, is a win-win for both countries and for the region.

Much of the details of the agreement are yet to be worked out. However, it appears that the agreement would be mainly operationalised in peace-time through sharing of intelligence and information, trainings and joint exercises, the exchange of expertise, boosting each other’s conventional defence capabilities, access to each other’s technological base, and possible cooperation in defence procurements and manufacturing. This multifaceted engagement would enhance the deterrence regime of both countries. Seen in this context, the SMDA can provide the much-needed stabilising effect for a region that has lately witnessed incessant violence and wars.

The concern that the agreement might pitch Pakistan against Israel and Saudi Arabia against India is not valid, as the agreement is essentially defensive in nature. Likewise, any apprehensions about Pakistani nuclear weapons being transferred to Saudi Arabia are totally misplaced, as the primary motive for Pakistan’s nuclear capability is to deter India’s aggressive designs against Pakistan.

The chatter of this agreement becoming a forebearer of a Muslim military bloc is also not realistic, given the diversity of the Muslim world. It is noteworthy that neither the US nor China have expressed any reservations on this agreement thus far. Iran has also welcomed the development, as it is likely to help bring in peace and stability to the region.

On September 29, 2025, President Donald Trump announced his 20-point plan to secure an end to the war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in the past two years. The leadership of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the UAE, as well as Israel and the Palestinian Authority, have welcomed the plan as it would help end the war in Gaza.

If a ceasefire comes into force, doors will open for unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid to flow in and the reconstruction of Gaza. Israel has also committed to a phased withdrawal from Gaza. The plan does not envisage any role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza, which will be the responsibility of a technocratic, apolitical committee made up of Palestinians and international experts to be overseen by a ‘Board of Peace’ led by Trump himself.

It appears that, under the circumstances, the Trump peace plan is the best available option to prevent further bloodshed in Gaza. It meets a key demand of the Arab countries that the Palestinians would not be displaced from their lands and the West Bank would not be annexed. Israel would also have to give up its controversial intent to create a ‘Greater Israel’, at least for now.

However, it is not yet clear whether the US and Israel would recognise the state of Palestine. Unless that happens, there might not be any forward movement towards expanding the Abraham Accords, a stated goal of the Trump administration. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has rightly remarked on X that the implementation of the two-state solution is “essential” to ensure lasting peace in the region.

Nasim Zehra
Author and journalist

Historically, Islamabad’s major partnerships, with the US, China and Saudi Arabia, began with security ties before economic or diplomatic links followed. That history came full circle when Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA). For Pakistan, this is a strategic leap. It reclaims the country’s earlier high-profile role in Middle Eastern security.

Early signs are promising — Qatar, Egypt and Turkey are already exploring similar agreements with Islamabad. For Saudi Arabia, the benefits are equally clear. It diversifies security partnerships, no longer relying solely on the US. This time, Riyadh’s partner is a nuclear-armed Pakistan with proven strategic capabilities.

Pakistan‘s comprehensive re-entry into the Middle East security zone is significant within the context of the changing global and regional environment — especially in the aftermath of the Middle East ‘peace plan’ proposed by US President Donald Trump. While there are questions about Pakistan contributing its forces to the international peacekeeping force given in the plan for Gaza, Pakistan is now finding a highchair for itself within the diplomatic realm at many important regional and international forums.

While what policy Pakistan finally formulates on what is an already controversial ‘peace plan’ will be important for its credibility within the Muslim world, Pakistan has a place amongst the states engaged with Trump on the proposed plan. Hard power is central to global politics, and Pakistan has emerged as both militarily formidable and diplomatically credible.

But the SMDA also raises pressing questions. One: will Pakistan provide Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella? Given Islamabad’s doctrine of ‘offensive defence’ and Israel’s repeated aggression, the answer is a likely yes. But for now, given strategic sensitivities, it is one that won’t get a clear answer from either party. Two: does this replace US-Saudi defence ties? No. It supplements them, giving Riyadh more options while retaining American backing. Three: could this be the seed of a regional military alliance with Pakistan at the core? Quite possibly. The region’s threat environment makes it more than likely.

Four: did Washington approve? Both Riyadh and Islamabad seem to have kept Washington, Tehran and Beijing informed. Five: What will be China’s role? While not yet formalised, it will be hard to ignore. With deep ties to both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and China’s cutting-edge defence technology, Beijing is well-positioned to become a partner in this evolving security arrangement.

As for the Gaza plan on the other hand, Palestinians, ceaselessly guillotined by Israel, are promised humanitarian aid and a battered semblance of statehood under the Trump plan. Crucially, this ‘state’ would not emerge under binding UN resolutions but only as Trump and Netanyahu dictate. The plan hands Israel veto power over every future step toward Palestinian statehood — rewarding Netanyahu while absolving him of responsibility for genocide and starvation.

Despite Palestinian courage and self-belief, the absence of strong allies — hesitant Arab states, distant Muslim friends and China’s calculated reticence — enabled this outcome. Fear and pragmatism on one side, and Israel’s bullying on the other, underwritten by Washington, ensured that no alternative plan survived. All other ceasefire efforts were bullied out of the fray.

Trump now brands his proposal an “eternal peace plan”, though, in reality, it reads as an eternal victory plan for Israel: entrenching Zionist ambitions, rejecting UN resolutions, disarming Hamas, legitimising indefinite Israel Defence Force (IDF) presence and staying silent on illegal settlements. It borders on a surrender document. Gaza itself is to be placed in the hands of Trump and former UK PM Tony Blair — the Iraq war criminal. Significantly, during the meeting with Trump in New York, Arab-Muslim leaders, though critical, could offer no alternative to Blair.

The tragic truth is that the Trump plan reflects raw US power calculus. It seeks to bury the Palestinians’ rightful struggle for their stolen homeland. Yet, the Palestinians’ heroic resistance in the face of the genocidal onslaught in Gaza proves that the Palestinian spirit will endure — long after the games of statist politics fade and long after their enemies imagine they have silenced it.

Zahid Hussain
Author and journalist

The latest 20-point Gaza plan is nothing more than a document of surrender for the Palestinian resistance against a brutal occupation. The Israeli genocidal war in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and has devastated the entire enclave. Given Israel’s bellicosity, the prospect of any ceasefire deal remains remote. The Israeli prime minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly session shows no flexibility in Tel Aviv’s hard-line position.

Although Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, appears highly optimistic of a ceasefire deal, there is still no convergence of views over the long-term solution to the crisis that threatens the entire region. America’s plan for Palestine, which is said to be broadly supported by regional leaders, is similar to that of the plan for a Palestine state set out in the New York declaration endorsed by the UN general assembly a week earlier. It calls for an immediate ceasefire by Israeli forces, release of all Israeli hostages by Hamas and withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territory. It has also presented a plan for a future administration in Gaza, minus Hamas.

The US plan was apparently presented during the meeting between President Trump and leaders of eight Muslim and Arab countries on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s 80th session, which envisages a two-state solution of the Palestinian crisis. The US plan was tacitly approved by the Muslim leaders, but it seems highly improbable that it will be implemented, as Israel has rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state and leaving its control over Gaza.

The development of an International Stabilisation Force (for maintaining law and order, and for providing support to newly formed Palestinian police forces in Gaza) to be deployed in Gaza would comprise troops from various Muslim countries. According to some reports, the main bulk of the troops would come from Indonesia and Pakistan, the two largest Muslim-majority nations. It may be the reason for Trump’s adulation of Pakistan’s prime minister and army chief. It is evident that Pakistan was taken into confidence on the plan by Trump.

Soon after Trump’s statement that he would not allow Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank, an Israeli ultra-right cabinet minister declared that the process of annexation will not be stopped. Israel’s military actions against other Arab countries have made peace extremely difficult.

Meanwhile, the mutual defence treaty signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last month reflects the changing security dynamics in the Middle East, caused by Israel’s military escalation that threatens regional security. Not only has the Zionist state continued its genocidal war in Gaza, but it has also launched military strikes in half-a-dozen Arab countries. The most recent air strike was in Qatar, which houses the largest US military base in the regional countries.

Most Gulf and Arab countries have been depending on US security guarantees — America has 19 military bases in the region — but the unqualified support for Israeli aggression by the Trump administration has compelled these countries to think about an alternative defence arrangement. America’s refusal to condemn Israel for its unprovoked attack on one of the strongest US allies in the region has reinforced the sense of insecurity among these countries.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have a long history of defence cooperation that goes back to the 1960s. Pakistan has some 20,000 troops already based in the Kingdom, for internal and external security. Pakistan has also been providing training to Saudi military officers. The latest pact has formalised the security cooperation. The details of the agreement are not available, but the most significant clause is that an attack on any of the two countries would be considered aggression against both. The pact has cemented the existing defence cooperation between the two countries. However, it’s too early to say that other Gulf countries will join this treaty.

Ejaz Haider
Author and journalist

The Pak-Saudi Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) has no text that can be flyspecked and analysed. Most commentary has flowed from the joint statement, focusing on the qualifier “strategic” and the unambiguous declaration that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both [emphasis added].”

The commentary has elicited two types of responses: hyperbole and scepticism. Hyperbole about how significant it is and how it changes the rules of the game in the region and beyond (a Bloomberg analysis called it “the first concrete indication of what a post-American world might look like”) and scepticism over what it means and how much it encompasses.

I believe that the text might not be available anytime soon or, if and when it is made available, would contain only some general clauses. This is because the two sides could either want to keep certain specific provisions under wraps (I’ll just come to that) or use this more for the purpose of signalling and manipulating perceptions than identifying specific areas of cooperation.

Some comments have likened it to Article 5 of the Nato charter. This is convenient but lazy. Article 5 is not wedded to automaticity. Also, the line about mutual defence is cloaked in greater certitude than Nato’s collective defence clause. Once again, we don’t have the fine print, but it would be safe to say that there’s more assuredness here in words than there’s likely to be in action.

The term “strategic” combined with “joint deterrence” in the statement has brought into the picture “extended deterrence”, which is a technical term for a nuclear umbrella. This flies in the face of Pakistan’s traditional nuclear policy and needs to be clarified.

The timing is important, coming as it did eight days after the illegal Zionist strike at a house in Doha and two days after the extraordinary joint session between the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The strike showed the hollowness of United States security guarantees to its Gulf partners, at least if such a strike were conducted by the Zionist entity, and the lacklustre response by the extraordinary session to the idea of a multilateral security arrangement. Saudi analysts say that Riyadh decided to expedite the formalisation of the agreement for these two reasons.

While Riyadh has long sought external security guarantees, including from the US, the region has become more volatile and, at the very least, it would want to hedge its bets. From the US perspective, if such an agreement leads to burden-sharing and is not inimical to US interests, it might even be welcome.

This brings us to another development, which increasingly seems to have some connection to the SMDA: US President Donald Trump’s so-called Gaza Plan. Among other provisions of the plan, which is largely unworkable, is a peacekeeping force drawn from Arab/Muslim countries. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stated on X that it is in line with Pakistan’s official policy. He is wrong. My suspicion is that meetings at the White House were about Pakistan’s acceptance of this plan, which again seeks to prescind the Palestinians. Interestingly, in 2020, Sharif had tweeted to say that Palestinians were right to tear up the then Trump plan.

Pakistan’s endorsement of a plan rejected by Gazans lands us in a treacherous terrain that hasn’t been mapped out. One can go line by line to identify the perfidy built into the plan, but that is outside the scope of this brief. Corollary: the government must begin a debate in parliament on both the SMDA and the Trump plan, to rid the policy of its opacity and avoid leading the country into a morass. Or worse, by doing so, make Pakistan complicit in the US-Zionist genocide.