The post-American Middle East is beginning to take shape
The pact between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye is yet another step towards a new regional security architecture. For years, Saudi Arabia’s strategic patience was
The pact between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye is yet another step towards a new regional security architecture. For years, Saudi Arabia’s strategic patience was mistaken for strategic dependence. Riyadh absorbed provocations, avoided unnecessary wars, preserved its relationship with the United States, and concentrated on internal transformation and development. That restraint was never an acceptance that an American-designed regional security order would endure indefinitely. The mutual defence agreement signed in Mecca yesterday between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye shows that it will not. It brings together the three most powerful and influential countries of the Sunni Muslim world. An armed attack against one will now be regarded as an attack against all three. This is the institutional beginning of a new regional security architecture. The US-Iran war accelerated a transformation already under way. Iranian retaliatory strikes exposed the vulnerability of the US basing structure in the Gulf and forced the repositioning of substantial combat forces. Several American bases will eventually close, as they have lost strategic utility. Washington will increasingly struggle to justify the resources required to sustain the overstretched posture of an earlier era. America is not disappearing from the Middle East. Its intelligence relationships, military power, technology and economic influence will remain formidable. But the war exposed the limits of American dominance. Regional states are now bound to organise their own security. The military logic of the new pact is compelling. Pakistan possesses the Muslim world’s most powerful army and its only nuclear arsenal. Turkiye possesses its second-most powerful army, NATO experience, substantial naval power and a sophisticated defence industry. Both maintain large air forces, although significant portions of their combat-air inventories are ageing. Saudi Arabia provides the complementary capability. The Royal Saudi Air Force has become the Muslim world’s most powerful air force, centred on one of the world’s largest concentrations of advanced 4.5-generation combat aircraft and sophisticated intelligence, command-and-control, air-defence and precision-strike capabilities.
Pakistan’s involvement in providing regional security is already tangible. Pakistani forces are deployed alongside Saudi forces and have participated in the kingdom’s defence. Pakistani capabilities are integrated into Saudi-led structures, while Islamabad has warned Tehran against coordinated attacks on Saudi Arabia’s principal strategic infrastructure. Turkiye is joining an established Saudi-Pakistani strategic relationship. The next logical step is the rest of the Gulf. Nabeel Alhamar, media adviser to Bahrain’s monarch, has advocated moving beyond the Gulf Cooperation Council towards a Gulf Union in which Bahrain’s future defence becomes increasingly integrated with Saudi Arabia’s. Similar arguments for stronger collective security have emerged in Kuwait and Qatar. The rest of the Gulf states should also join to maintain their security. Without the American military umbrella of the previous regional order, none can individually generate the military mass required to secure themselves against a major regional power. The logical response is deeper Gulf integration around Saudi Arabia. No state should be compelled to join. But those remaining outside should not have any illusions about their relative military weight. Remaining outside the principal regional defence architecture risks strategic isolation. A wider Arab and Muslim circle can develop by choice. Major states such as Egypt, Algeria, Malaysia and Indonesia could participate where their interests converge without assuming identical defence obligations. The maritime component demonstrates how this architecture can function. The Saudi-led maritime coalition already includes Pakistan and Turkiye, alongside 11 other states. It will safeguard the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, Arabian Sea and the Gulf coast to protect the commercial and energy routes passing through them. Saudi geography makes Riyadh its natural anchor. The kingdom is the only major regional state whose vital interests directly encompass both the Strait of Hormuz system and Bab al-Mandeb. It connects the Gulf and Red Sea security theatres physically, economically and militarily.
The BriefWire