Will Pakistan-Saudi-Turkiye defence pact change US strategy?
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x whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info A US soldier walks through Kuwait in 2011 [Lucas Jackson/Reuters] By Joseph Stepansky Published On 8 Aug 2026 8 Aug 2026 Washington, DC – The administration of United States President Donald Trump has offered no official response in the hours since Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed a landmark mutual defence agreement in Mecca.
The muted reaction, which persisted into Saturday, likely underscores the multilayered — and still emerging — implications of the new deal for US strategy, according to analysts.
Considered by many to lay the groundwork for what could be one of the most significant power shifts in the region in decades, the deal comes within the context of the US-Israeli war against Iran and Israel’s increasingly aggressive military actions in the region.
One provision is said to call on signatories to treat an attack on one as an attack on all, reminiscent of NATO’s Article 5.
Some analysts see the agreement as a reflection of growing wariness towards an unpredictable US government, potentially presaging a wider security realignment that could transform the Middle East.
Others have argued that, while US actions have indeed fostered the conditions that accelerated the deal, the pact fits neatly within US strategic aims of greater burden-sharing among allies.
In the near term, many experts agree the pact will likely have the greatest impact in the diplomatic sphere, posing a potentially insurmountable challenge to Arab-Israeli normalisation under the Abraham Accords.
The push for greater regional cooperation with Israel has been the linchpin of the Trump administration’s designs for the Middle East, dating back to his first term. But Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy, explained that the mutual defence pact is likely a setback.
“Ironically, the US and Israel entered the war [with Iran] hoping to reshape the regional balance of power in Israel’s favour and accelerate regional integration through initiatives like the Abraham Accords,” Toosi told Al Jazeera.
“Instead, one of the first major post-war developments is the emergence of a defence initiative among three major Muslim powers seeking greater strategic autonomy.”
The full details of the agreement have not yet been released. Only a joint statement on Friday has addressed the pact’s terms.
The central pledge of the agreement “stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all”, according to the statement. But that premise remains so far untested.
The pact builds on a previous mutual defence agreement with a similar provision, reached between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in September 2025. It came just days after Israel launched an air strike on the Qatari capital Doha, exacerbating concerns about Washington’s ability to control one of its closest allies.
In the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel has led multiple war efforts, including against Iran, Lebanon and a genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Officials in Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad have taken pains to stress that Friday’s agreement is meant to supplement, not supplant, any other alliances. Experts have further cautioned that the strengthening of defence ties between the trio does paper over their individual, and at times diverging, interests.
Saudi Arabia, for instance, said the deal “does not represent any orientation toward building a military axis or sectarian/religious bloc”.
“The agreement does not come at the expense of the Kingdom’s strategic and strong relations at the Gulf, Arab, and international levels,” it said.
The country has been the target of a large number of Iran’s retaliatory attacks since the US-Israeli war began on February 28, and more recently, it has seen increased strikes from the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Turkiye’s presidential communication directorate said the strengthened partnership “is not an alternative” to the country’s membership in the 32-country NATO bloc.
Indeed, experts have said the agreement does not appear to have any bearing on any NATO commitments, although it could eventually lead to a diversion of resources in the event of multiple escalations.
Turkiye has the second-largest standing army in NATO, as well as access to advanced military technology. Saudi Arabia is understood as bringing its vast power of the purse to the agreement. Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed power of the three.
Despite assurances that the pact is not a regional re-orientation, some observers have connected the new alliance to the Trump administration’s at-times caustic approach towards NATO and its wider pivot away from multilateralism.
They argue it represents a clear, if nascent, weakening of Washington’s strategic sway.
“The basis for our alliance in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, and certainly with NATO and with our allies in Asia, have been shaken,” Harlan Ullman, the chairman of the Killowen Group advisory firm and a former naval officer, told Al Jazeera in a television interview.
“How badly remains to be seen. It may only be stirred, not shaken. But it’s something that we need to worry about.”
The US approach to the Gulf has largely been based on forging military, economic and diplomatic ties in the region. In turn, Gulf…
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