Article: Economics times
Turkey is in advanced talks to join a NATO-style collective defence pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, under which an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. The Pakistan–Saudi agreement, signed in September 2025, already includes this clause. Turkey’s potential entry signals deeper strategic alignment across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In the arrangement, Saudi Arabia would provide financing, Pakistan’s manpower and nuclear deterrence, and Turkey’s military capabilities and defence industry—partly to bolster Ankara’s deterrence amid doubts about the United States reliability.
Pakistan benefits the most in an “Islamic Nato” defence pact as it neighbors two tense neighbors, India and Afghanistan. Therefore, why would Turkey join the defence pact? For Saudi Arabia. Turkey’s economy is experiencing significant currency volatility due to inflation. Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a wealthy nation due to its oil reserves and offers large-scale infrastructure and defense financing to Turkey. Additionally, Turkey and Pakistan have maintained close defence cooperation before this agreement.
Saudi Arabia agreed to a defence pact with Pakistan because it is a serious military power with a large, professional military and decades of combat experience. While Saudi Arabia can buy weapons, it cannot purchase military competence fast. Saudi Arabia needs military competence to protect itself from Iran, as its Western ally, the U.S, responded to previous Iranian drone attacks in Saudi Arabia with a minimal response.
The defence pact increases Pakistan’s deterrence against India as India risks a broader diplomatic fallout. Pakistan’s confidence improves as a result and is less likely to overreact. On the other hand, neighboring Afghanistan is in an asymmetric power gap in a time of frequent terror attacks. With greater funding and diplomatic pressure on Kabul ineffective, there is a moderate chance of escalating tensions in the region and strikes to prevent further cross-border attacks.
Saudi Arabia has historically used the strategy of containment by funding proxy competition. The same approach will be further implemented to limit Tehran’s influence.
Turkey, like Saudi Arabia, is seeking greater defence autonomy from the West. It seeks Saudi funding and will likely receive enough to alleviate some of its currencies’ devaluation.
In class, we learned about geographic levels and how scope can escalate. Alliances and defence pacts in particular justify large-scale conflict beyond local and regional levels into a global conflict. If a war or conflict were to break out with one of the powers in this Islamic defence pact, there would be at least a regional conflict, as all in the pact are obligated to get involved. Then comes what we learned next: the scale of war. A meager raid wouldn’t evoke a large-scale conflict requiring pact assistance, as these are low-intensity conflicts. Total war, on the other hand, is the extreme. A state wins by reaching the capital and forcing the occupied government to surrender. The most likely scenario is limited war, which is military action carried out to achieve a specific objective short of total war.