Pakistan–KSA Defense Deal and Its Implications for the Middle East Peace Process
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56976/rjsi.v7i1.354Keywords:
Pakistan, Climate Sustainably, ChallengesAbstract
In September 2025 Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), marking a significant deepening of security ties between a nuclear-armed South Asian state and the Gulf’s most powerful kingdom. The pact whose public language commits the parties to collective defence and closer military cooperation arrives amid renewed instability in the Middle East, active diplomatic efforts around Gaza, and shifting great-power postures. This paper examines the SMDA’s strategic logic, traces how it may affect security calculations across the region (including Israel, Iran, the Gulf states, and Pakistan’s neighbours), and assesses its implications for the Middle East peace process. Using qualitative policy analysis of official statements, contemporaneous media reporting, think-tank commentary, and secondary academic literature, the paper argues that the pact strengthens Saudi deterrence and Riyadh’s bargaining power but also raises risk of strategic escalation, complicates mediation dynamics on Israel–Palestine, and intensifies external actor competition (notably U.S., Iran, and India). The SMDA therefore has mixed implications for the peace process: it can create space for coercive diplomacy backed by deterrence, yet it also risks polarizing actors and raising the threshold for compromise unless accompanied by parallel diplomatic confidence-building measures. Policy recommendations emphasise transparent signalling, confidence-building with regional and global stakeholders, and integration of security guarantees with diplomatic Tracks for Palestine/Israel peace initiatives.
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