Beyond a ‘Muslim NATO’: Pakistan and the Middle East’s Emerging Security Order

For decades, I watched Pakistan’s military relationship with the Middle East unfold largely away from the headlines. Pakistani officers trained Gulf forces, pilots joined joint exercises, advisers worked alongside Arab governments, and troops were periodically stationed in Saudi Arabia. Islamabad was an important security partner—but rarely the centrepiece of the region’s defence architecture. That may now be changing. The Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement signed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on September 17, 2025, marked a real departure from that older, informal cooperation. It established that aggression against either country would be treated as aggression against both—bringing the language of collective defence into Pakistan’s relationship with the Arab world for the first time. Since then, I’ve noticed interest in Pakistan as […]