Saudi Arabia and Pakistan just formed a defence pact—India must rethink strategy

This Nato-like defence commitment turns their ‘short-of-alliance partnership’ into a ‘formal bilateral alliance.’ For the KSA, Israel’s recent attack on Qatar and concerns for the Gulf region’s overall security is a major driver; whereas, for Pakistan, any development in its alliance network always had an Indian element as a motivating factor.

The maturation of the Saudi-Pakistan strategic partnership into an SMDA has its roots in the historical evolution of the relationship. Links can be traced back to a time that predates the creation of Pakistan.

In 1946, the KSA’s Prince Faisal made a case at the United Nations in favour of the struggle of the All India Muslim League, which sought a separate state. The KSA later became one of the first states to recognize Pakistan as a sovereign state.

In the 1960s, Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia called Pakistan its “number one friend in the world”; “Whenever the Kingdom needs [military] help,” he said, “Pakistan is the first place that we confidently look to.” The context for such a contingency was the threat posed by Israeli forces during the Cold War period.

To this end, Riyadh’s first formal defence agreement with Islamabad was signed in 1967, under which Pakistani military advisors helped expand and modernize the Saudi armed forces.

In return for Pakistan’s assurance of military support, the KSA supported Islamabad in its wars against India. Most importantly, the KSA has long extended support to Pakistan over the issue of Kashmir, a stance which clearly went against India’s core sovereign interests.

During the 1965 war, Saudis provided Pakistan with materiel, diplomatic as well as moral support. Similar support was evident during the 1971 war and the crisis that led to the creation of Bangladesh; back then, the Saudi ambassador at the UN General Assembly had targeted India’s actions, stating that “any outside interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan will surely constitute a violation of [the UN] charter.”

The KSA, even after Bangladesh was formed, refused to recognize its statehood until Pakistan accepted it. The KSA was not pleased with Pakistan’s adventurism in Kargil, but kept its support, pressing New Delhi to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute. Thus, although the Saudi-Pakistan bilateral partnership was formulated on broadly religious grounds, it was sustained by a transactional element.

In recent years, the KSA and India have also been strengthening their relationship, with a significant emphasis on commercial ties. The KSA’s broader partnership with New Delhi was tested in 2019, when Riyadh struck a neutral stance on India’s abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. India’s rising economic power and bilateral trade with the KSA remain key points of leverage.

For Pakistan, the signing of an SMDA with the KSA offers the following opportunities: first, Saudi funding will be vital to its defence and economy amid its ongoing polycrisis; second, it can raise its geopolitical standing in the Muslim world by positioning itself explicitly as the guarantor of a nuclear umbrella against Israel; and third, it could forge a bridge between Pakistan’s ‘all-weather ally’ China and the Gulf Cooperation Council states of the West Asian region via Saudi Arabia.

The SMDA lays out a mechanism for consultation and cooperation between the KSA and Pakistan to ensure “joint deterrence against any aggression.” To strengthen its position, Pakistani officials have left space for ambiguity over the extension of a nuclear shield to the KSA as part of the agreement. The KSA is thought to harbour ambitions of building its own nuclear bomb for dominance over the region and this pact could possibly act as an enabler, a proposition that clearly stands against Iranian and Israeli interests.

Though the SMDA is primarily premised on the KSA’s need to guard its security interests and deter threats in the region, for Pakistan, it is aimed at checking India’s growing power and leverage. The SMDA is likely to involve the KSA and perhaps also other Gulf states more actively in any India-Pakistan crisis that may erupt in the future.

New Delhi has invested significant energy and strategic focus in its relationship with the KSA, including a memorandum of understanding signed in 2014 on bilateral defence cooperation. Despite this increasing closeness, there are some obvious structural constraints to India’s Saudi engagement that emanate from today’s changing geopolitical environment.

Policymakers in New Delhi will have a more difficult task ahead on managing the element of religion in Saudi-Pakistan cooperation, which cannot be overlooked while they push for pragmatic foreign relations to create a geostrategic environment that suits Indian interests. India has succeeded in cultivating strong ties with all of West Asia’s three powers: the Arab states of the Gulf led by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel. These three actors are locked in mutual rivalry to establish their respective versions of dominance in the region.

An SMDA between Riyadh and Islamabad has highlighted how South and West Asia remain intertwined in their strategic wiring. To formulate its own course of action, New Delhi must look beyond their signals of mutual solidarity and closely study both the limits and the extent of cooperation envisaged under the KSA-Pakistan partnership.

The larger task for New Delhi would be to reconcile its interests with diverging viewpoints of the KSA and other partners in West Asia and seek alignment to the extent possible. Trade-offs will plausibly arise in what will be a big foreign as well as security policy challenge for India.

The authors are, respectively, vice president for studies and research associate at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.