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Pakistan’s Role Is Already Expanding Beyond the Makkah Triangle
The Makkah agreement is not occurring in isolation.
Pakistan and Kuwait signed the Protocol Agreement-2026 on August 27, strengthening the Defence Cooperation Agreement-2023 and expanding Pakistani assistance into training, capacity building, border management and other mutually agreed defence fields. Pakistan’s own Press Information Department described the agreement as reflecting shared strategic interests, while reporting from ThePrint notes that the arrangement creates greater operational coordination without itself constituting the same automatic mutual-defence commitment found in the Makkah pact.
This matters because a pattern is forming.
Pakistan is increasingly being treated not merely as a South Asian military actor but as a security provider, trainer, defence-industrial partner and strategic counterweight across the Gulf.
That position has enormous upside, but Islamabad should not waste it by becoming cheap outsourced security.
Security guarantees are valuable assets. Training capacity is valuable. Air-defence expertise is valuable. Pakistani personnel are valuable. Nuclear deterrence is priceless.
Pakistan should therefore expect reciprocal value in energy security, investment, technology, market access, industrial localisation and diplomatic support.
Brotherhood is meaningful. Statecraft still requires invoices.
That argument follows directly from my earlier analysis of the emerging Pakistan–Kuwait defence relationship, where the central issue was never whether Pakistan should cooperate with Gulf countries; it was whether Islamabad finally understands the market value of what those states are requesting.
Then There Is Israel — The Question Nobody Can Permanently Evade
Officially, the Makkah pact targets no particular country. That wording is sensible. Serious defence agreements are stronger when they define obligations rather than advertise enemies.
But agreements do not exist outside geography.
Türkiye’s increasingly tense strategic interaction with Israel over Syria creates exactly the kind of ambiguity that could one day test the pact. My earlier analysis of the Israeli strike on Abu al-Duhur argued that Syria is becoming a dangerous contact zone between Turkish interests and Israeli freedom-of-action assumptions. That problem has not disappeared simply because diplomats prefer general language. The Abu al-Duhur confrontation remains one of the clearest hypothetical tests of what the Makkah agreement could eventually mean.
This is where the internet’s triumphalism needs discipline.
The agreement does not mean that every Israeli strike anywhere near Turkish interests automatically launches Pakistani aircraft or Saudi missiles. Nor does the public record prove that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent has been formally extended to Türkiye or Saudi Arabia.
But the reverse propaganda claim—that the pact therefore means nothing—is equally unserious.
Deterrence works partly through uncertainty. An adversary that previously calculated only Ankara’s response must now consider Riyadh’s political position and Islamabad’s options as well. Even where military activation is not automatic, the diplomatic, intelligence, logistics, industrial and escalation consequences may be larger.
That is already strategically meaningful.
Readers wanting the legal layer should revisit my earlier breakdown of what the Makkah Defence Pact actually promises and what Article 51 does not automatically authorise.
What About Iran?
Iran is the hardest question because Pakistan cannot afford simplistic camps.
Pakistan shares a long border with Iran. It has legitimate commercial interests in expanded bilateral trade. It also has deep strategic relationships with Saudi Arabia and increasingly formal defence cooperation across the Gulf.
That requires balance driven by Pakistani interests, not sectarian slogans imported from somebody else’s confrontation.
The social-media fantasy of simply adding Iran to the Makkah alliance tomorrow ignores profound Saudi-Iranian security distrust, competing regional networks and the continuing consequences of years of proxy warfare. Conversely, treating Iran permanently as an enemy would be strategically foolish for Pakistan, which needs border stability, trade and freedom from another hostile frontier.
Pakistan’s policy should therefore remain Pakistan-first: no foreign bloc should purchase Islamabad’s hostility toward a neighbour, and no neighbour should expect Pakistan to compromise its Gulf security relationships.
The strategic advantage of Pakistan is precisely that it can speak to Riyadh, Ankara, Tehran, Beijing, Washington and increasingly other Gulf capitals without surrendering every relationship to another.
That autonomy must be protected.
