Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a “strategic mutual defence” pact on 17 September 2025, that—crucially—contains an Article-5-style line: an attack on one will be treated as an attack on both. This comes on the heels of Israel’s strike in Doha against Hamas officials, a move that rattled Gulf capitals and sharpened hedging behaviour across the region. The pact formalises a relationship that has long had a security core—Pakistani trainers, deployments inside the Kingdom, and financial ballast flowing the other way. AP News+1
Not a NATO for the Middle East
The phrasing is NATO-like, but the politics are unmistakably Middle Eastern. Even when treaties cite collective defence, leaders reserve broad discretion over how—and whether—to act. For Riyadh, the message is deterrence and coalition-building; for Islamabad, it is prestige, reassurance, and the hope of shoring up support at home. Taken together, it signals to multiple audiences—Tehran, Jerusalem, and Washington—that Saudi Arabia is diversifying its security partnerships and will not depend on a single external guarantor. For Islamabad, it is also a chance to boast of a diplomatic coup that, in its own telling, has left New Delhi unsettled, if not bewildered. Financial Times
The Israel Variable
The Doha strike was a watershed because it pierced the informal taboo on kinetic operations in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) capitals that host critical U.S. infrastructure and financial flows. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in particular, will be wary of any dynamic that normalises such actions in their neighbourhood. The new pact adds political weight to deterrence in the Gulf, complicating any future over-the-horizon operations by Israel on GCC soil and hardening air-defence and de-confliction demands from Arab partners. AP News
Washington’s Dilemma
The United States has hosted the Pakistan Army Chief twice at the White House in recent months, alongside talks on an oil, minerals and trade framework. For Washington, this represents hedging, not hostility—but hedging steadily erodes primacy. The Kingdom’s move highlights enduring doubts about America’s staying power and its ability—or willingness—to restrain regional partners when Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) equities are at stake. The result will be a stronger Arab tilt toward multi-vector security: American hardware and basing will remain central, but operational habits with Pakistan will deepen, China will continue to play the discreet diplomatic broker, and Gulf capitals will demand a louder voice over what happens in their airspace.
The Iran and China Backdrop
Tehran will read the pact as additional insulation for Riyadh if the regional war widens, even as the 2023 Iran–Saudi détente remains a brake on escalation. Beijing, having midwifed that détente and invested in both Pakistan’s CPEC and Saudi energy/industry, will see in this pact a mesh of its economic and diplomatic influence. In other words, it is one more stitch in a fabric where China is increasingly a convener, even if not a security guarantor. (These are trends evident since the 2023 rapprochement.)
Do Pakistani Troops Guard the Saudi Royals?
Short answer: No—the Royal Guard is Saudi. The Saudi Royal Guard Command is a distinct Saudi force charged with protecting the King, Crown Prince and the royal family at all times, at home and abroad. That is not outsourced. What is true is that Pakistan has long stationed troops in the Kingdom on training and advisory missions, and that security cooperation extends to internal-security capacity. In 2018, Islamabad publicly confirmed the deployment of a new contingent—framed explicitly as inside the Kingdom and not for expeditionary tasks. Analysts have occasionally argued that Riyadh values Pakistani units because they are perceived as reliable and politically “disinterested” in Saudi domestic affairs. None of that replaces the Royal Guard’s mandate; it does, however, strengthen the regime-security ecosystem—and helps explain why a formal mutual-defence instrument now made sense to both sides.
Afghanistan–Pakistan Friction: Will Riyadh Weigh In?
Skirmishes on the Durand Line are chronic and messy counter-insurgency problems, not interstate invasion scenarios. It is unlikely that a NATO-style clause will drag Saudi forces into Pakistan’s border fights with TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) militants under the shadow of the Taliban regime in Kabul. Instead, expect Riyadh to do what it traditionally does best in such cases: provide financial support, training, discreet intelligence liaison, and religious-diplomatic suasion with Kabul—all without crossing the threshold into combat. The clause raises the political cost of striking Pakistan proper; it does not transform Riyadh into a counter-insurgency belligerent.
What If India Executes a Surgical Counter-Terror Strike?
A realistic scenario is a precision Indian operation against a high-value terrorist node in Pakistan or PoK after a mass-casualty attack on Indian citizens in Pahalgam, J&K. Could Islamabad wave the pact and demand Saudi cover? Yes—politically. Would Riyadh field forces against India? Highly improbable. Saudi Arabia’s strategic, economic and defence ties with India are deepening—from energy and investment corridors to naval exercises and defence-industrial dialogue. Riyadh will almost certainly choose crisis management, shuttle diplomacy and discreet assistance to Pakistan that stops well short of anything kinetic vis-à-vis India. In short: India retains space for proportionate, precise counter-terror action without triggering Saudi intervention. Financial Times
Implications for Energy and Markets
Any Gulf-centric crisis tends to spike oil prices. The pact, by bolstering Arab deterrence, can be read as an effort to lower the probability of strikes in GCC capitals. Yet if Israel–Iran dynamics spill further into the Gulf, the risk premium will return. India should therefore assume periodic volatility and prepare accordingly—through diversified liftings from the UAE, Iraq, the United States, and Russia, notwithstanding Washington’s vehement objections. Flexible procurement windows and opportunistic top-ups of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be essential to cushion supply shocks and protect the economy from sudden turbulence in global energy markets. AP News
India’s Posture: Calm, Hard-Headed, Proactive
New Delhi’s first response was rightly guarded: study implications, protect national interests, keep the temperature low. That should remain the public line. Privately, India ought to install guardrails with Riyadh—clear understandings that any Indian counter-terror precision action following an attack on Indians is not grounds to invoke mutual-defence language. We should also keep expanding the practical sinews of cooperation: maritime domain awareness, white-shipping agreements, counter-UAS and missile-defence dialogue, and regularised naval drills. This is not mere optics; it is how you make it Saudi Arabia’s interest to avoid any interpretation of the pact that harms India. Financial Times
The U.S. and Israel Channels
With Washington, the message is simple: strikes on GCC soil—by anyone—imperil India’s energy security and the safety of nine-million-plus Indians in the Gulf. The U.S. must tighten de-confliction with Israel and shore up host-nation confidence after Doha. With Israel, the ask is restraint on GCC soil and meticulous care to avoid collateral consequences for Indian lives and commerce. That is compatible with our growing strategic partnership with Israel and our deepening ties with the Arab world. AP News
The China and Nepal Footnotes
China’s shadow is lengthening—from brokering the Iran–Saudi thaw to anchoring CPEC in Pakistan. The new pact won’t derail Beijing’s calculus; if anything, it threads Pakistani relevance more tightly into Gulf security conversations. For India, that is a reminder to keep our continental guard up even as we play a stronger maritime game in the western Indian Ocean. As for Nepal’s current political churn, it is tangential here; the real through-line is the stability of the Himalayan frontier and oxygen for Indian diplomacy in South Asia, both of which benefit when we project steadiness and confidence, not alarm.
India’s Solid Anchor
This pact is a political-deterrent instrument, not a war-mobilisation trigger. It consolidates a relationship that has long had an internal-security dimension, but it does not transform Saudi Arabia into a party to India–Pakistan crises. A confident India should:
Keep public messaging cool and professional.
Privately lock in Riyadh guardrails around counter-terror contingencies.
Harden energy and maritime resilience for episodic Gulf shocks.
Maintain open lines with Washington and Jerusalem for predictable crisis behaviour in GCC space.
Sustain and deepen India–Saudi cooperation, so the Kingdom’s own interests argue for restraint when it matters most.
Opposition Alarmism vs. South Block’s Steady Hand
Given the courageous and decisive leadership of Prime Minister Modi, and with trade talks with the United States back on track—not to mention President Trump’s warm birthday greetings on his 75th—this pact amounts to little more than a blip on India’s radar. What must not be overlooked, however, is the responsibility of our diplomatic corps to feed accurate and timely inputs into the domestic discourse. Left unchecked, irresponsible opposition leaders will attempt their familiar dual strategy: to manufacture alarm at home, spook citizens with baseless claims of leadership failure, and exaggerate external risks under Modi’s watch.
The truth is that India under PM Modi has navigated far greater storms, and it is precisely this steady leadership that unnerves his detractors. Opposition rhetoric thrives on projecting weakness abroad to score points at home; yet India’s foreign policy is increasingly marked by confidence, leverage, and strong partnerships across the world.
A mature power does not get unsettled by treaties signed elsewhere. It shapes the environment so that those treaties never become a problem. India today has both the will and the weight to do exactly that—and no amount of political grandstanding can change this reality.