Pakistan-Saudi defence pact unsettles India as Gulf ties broaden

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a strategic mutual defence agreement in Riyadh last week, pledging that an attack on either country would be treated as an attack on both. The pact, described by a senior Saudi official as the institutionalisation of long-standing and deep cooperation, brings Pakistan — the Islamic world's only nuclear-armed state — closer to the Gulf's most influential monarchy. The announcement follows a four-day India-Pakistan confrontation earlier this year and arrives amid heightened regional security sensitivities.

Delhi’s response has been guarded. Indian officials have said they will study the pact’s implications for national security and regional stability, while analysts warn that the clause obligating mutual defense could alter Delhi’s calculations in the region. Brahma Chellaney, a security analyst, said Riyadh would have understood that India would interpret the pact as a direct threat, but the Saudi leadership pressed ahead, framing the move as a reflection of its ambitions rather than Pakistan’s strength. Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary, called the agreement a grave misstep that could have serious national-security implications for India, arguing that an unstable Pakistan as a security partner is a dangerous proposition.

Analysts differ on how immediate the risk is. Michael Kugelman, a foreign-policy analyst, warned against over-reading the agreement, noting that it does not necessarily constrain India, given Riyadh’s broader strategic and economic ties with New Delhi. He told the BBC that Saudi Arabia, while strengthening its ties with Pakistan, is unlikely to use the pact to engage India in hostility. Still, Kugelman acknowledged that embedding Pakistan in the security architecture of the Middle East could be viewed as a strategic shift that affords Islamabad additional room to maneuver, particularly as Pakistan negotiates security and economic challenges.

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador and a senior fellow at Washington-area think tanks, told the BBC that India’s concerns extend beyond any single clause. The pact could reshape regional alignments by giving Saudi Arabia a more active role in backing Pakistan’s military along with its own security calculus toward India. Haqqani cautioned that how the pact defines “aggression” and the criteria for who is an aggressor will matter, and that Riyadh and Islamabad will need to align on those definitions to avoid misinterpretations that could worsen Delhi’s security environment.

Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the agreement appears to signal Saudi Arabia’s intent to diversify its security partnerships without sacrificing its cooperation with the United States. The operational depth of the pact remains unclear, he added, but the move suggests Riyadh considers Pakistan’s nuclear status as a deterrent asset in a tense regional balance, including its rivals Iran and Israel. This framing could encourage a broader Gulf regional stance toward security assurances while maintaining existing US ties.

In Pakistan, the pact is seen as leveraging Saudi financial leverage and political backing to strengthen military capacity, while also expanding Riyadh’s soft power to secure broader political alignment. The two countries have a long-standing defense relationship that dates back to the 1960s, including Pakistani troops and officers contributing to various Saudi security efforts, and a history of Saudi support during times of regional crisis. In 2017, Riyadh tapped a retired Pakistani army chief to lead a Saudi-sponsored anti-ISIS coalition, underscoring the depth of ties that undergird the new agreement. Observers note that Saudi security thinking has increasingly featured a mix of deterrence and diversification, with Pakistan playing a central role alongside other Gulf and regional partners.

For India, the pact may not pose an immediate military threat, but it raises questions about the Gulf’s security architecture and the potential ripple effects on Delhi’s strategic posture. Some see it as a signal that Gulf states are recalibrating their security commitments away from a sole reliance on the United States, seeking more diversified partnerships in a region where traditional security guarantees are increasingly uncertain. Others caution that the development could complicate India’s Look West outreach—its broader effort to deepen trade, investment and strategic ties with Gulf states—by creating a more complex regional security environment in which India is not the sole external power that matters.

Delhi’s approach has been to emphasize continuity in its ties with Saudi Arabia, while pursuing a balanced policy toward Pakistan. The government stated it would consider the pact’s implications for regional stability and national security, aiming to maintain a steady course amid evolving security alignments. As New Delhi weighs its options, analysts say the ultimate impact will hinge on how Saudi Arabia and Pakistan interpret and implement the agreement in practice, and how it interacts with other security assurances in the region, including US and allied partnerships.

The broader question, say experts, is whether the pact signals a meaningful shift in regional balance or simply formalizes a long-standing understanding in the context of broader Gulf security concerns. Either way, it will shape regional diplomacy, economic ties, and defense planning for years to come, as New Delhi, Islamabad and Riyadh navigate a rapidly changing strategic landscape in the Middle East and South Asia.