via MoonofAlabama
Back in 2012 U.S. foreign policy analysts were concerned about a possible nuclear alliance between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Scholars from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the Stimson Center wrote an essay about it:
The Pak-Saudi Nuke, and How to Stop It – The American Interest, March 2012
The opening paragraph:
One morning, perhaps in the not too distant future, the President of the United States may wake up to an announcement that, given new dangers in the Middle East, the Saudi government has requested the stationing of Pakistani troops on Saudi soil. The announcement might go on to explain that these troops will also bring with them the full complement of conventional and strategic weapons necessary to ensure their security and that of Saudi Arabia. Word would quickly follow from Islamabad that Pakistan has accepted a generous aid package and low-priced oil from Saudi Arabia. Both parties would stress that the agreement simply reaffirms their decades-long special relationship.
As Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state one had to assume that any such a pact would supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons. It was something that the U.S. and its sidekick Israel were very concerned about.
It was assumed at that time that the reason for such a move by Saudi Arabia would be its concern over Iran and its nuclear program:
Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia’s threat perception has sharpened as the dangers from Iran have grown along with doubts about the reliability of U.S. protection.
The time to wake up to a new Saudi-Pakistani alliance has finally come today:
Saudi Arabia signs ‘strategic mutual defence’ pact with Pakistan (archived) – Financial Times
But the strategic circumstance under which the alliance happens are very different from those that had been envisioned in 2012 essay:
Saudi Arabia has signed a “strategic mutual defence” pact with Pakistan, signalling to the US and Israel that the kingdom is willing to diversify its security alliances as it looks to bolster its deterrence.
The agreement with the nuclear-armed south Asian state comes a week after Gulf states — traditionally reliant on the US as their security guarantor — were deeply rattled by Israel’s missile strikes targeting Hamas’s political leaders in Qatar.
“We hope it will reinforce our deterrence — aggression against one is aggression against the other,” a senior Saudi official told the Financial Times. “This is a comprehensive defence agreement that will utilise all defensive and military means deemed necessary depending on the specific threat.”
This is a NATO Article 5 like pact. ‘All means deemed necessary’, as empathized, undoubtedly includes Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
The U.S. was, the FT say, not at all involved in it:
Riyadh is believed to have informed Washington about the Pakistan defence agreement after it was signed.
Saudi Arabia already has a strategic missile force which is armed with Chinese DF-21 missiles which have a range of up to 1,700 kilometer. They can hit Tehran, but also Tel Aviv. The missiles are conventionally armed but can be fitted with nuclear warheads.
Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons had largely be financed by Saudi Arabia. The two countries have a long history of military cooperation:
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a defense relationship stretching back decades, in part due to Islamabad’s willingness to defend the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina in the kingdom. Pakistani troops first traveled to Saudi Arabia in the late 1960s over concerns about Egypt’s war in Yemen at the time. Those ties increased after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the kingdom’s fears of a confrontation with Tehran.
Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons program to counter India’s atomic bombs. However, there long have been signals of the kingdom’s interest in the program. Retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Feroz Hassan Khan, in his book on his country’s nuclear weapons program called “Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb,” said Saudi Arabia provided “generous financial support” for its effort.
Today Saudi Arabia no longer fears a confrontation with Iran. In 2023, with the help of Chinese mediation, the two countries did bury their hatchets. The move was an early sign that the U.S. was losing ground in the Middle East.
The reasons why the is being closed these days is obvious:
The agreement was signed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Riyadh. Sharif’s office’s reiterated that the agreement “states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”.
The Israeli attack on Doha, one of the US’s major non-Nato allies, exacerbated Gulf leaders’ long-running concerns about Washington’s unpredictability and its commitment to their defence, as well as fears about Israel acting unrestrainedly with its military across the region.
The Saudis had worked on, and hoped for, a deeper alliance with the U.S. But the genocide in Gaza, and the unlimited U.S. support for it, have made such an alliance impossible:
Riyadh had been hoping to seal a defence pact with the US, as well as co-operation with Washington’s nuclear plans, as part of a grand deal that would have led to it normalising diplomatic relations with Israel.
However, those plans were upended after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, triggering the war in Gaza and conflict across the region.
Riyadh has become increasingly outraged by Israel’s 23-month war in Gaza and the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
Prince Mohammed accuses Israel of committing genocide, and has made it clear that normalisation is off the table unless Netanyahu ends the conflict and moves to establish a Palestinian state.
China, which is allied with Pakistan, will be happy about the deal. So will be Iran. It was likely already informed about it:
Before the defense pact was signed, Iran dispatched Ali Larijani, a senior political figure who now serves as the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, to visit Saudi Arabia. That may have seen the kingdom acknowledge the pact to Tehran, with which it has had a Chinese-mediated détente with Iran since 2023.
India will be concerned about the deal. A lot of the oil it purchases is coming from Saudi Arabia. With a Saudi-Pakistani alliance in place any conflict with Pakistan will likely cause it additional difficulties with the purchase of energy.
The U.S., and Donald Trump, are the big losers in this. The unrestricted support for Israel is coming at an ever increasing price. The Gulf countries are – slowly, slowly – moving away from it.
