Pakistan’s Rising Role in Gulf Defence
How Gulf States Are Turning to Islamabad Amid Eroding Trust in US Security Guarantees
A chill has settled over the Gulf, and it is not merely the familiar unease of a turbulent region. It is sharper, more existential—a recognition that the old certainties of security are fraying. The shock of Israeli strikes reaching Qatari soil in 2025 did more than damage infrastructure; it punctured a deeply held assumption that external guarantees, particularly those anchored in Washington, would hold firm when tested. In that rupture, a new strategic imagination is taking shape—one that now stretches eastward to Islamabad.
Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Pakistan, signed in September 2025, and Qatar’s accelerating negotiations for a similar pact, are not routine defence arrangements. They are signals of a region quietly, yet profoundly, rebalancing. The language is unmistakable: an attack on one is an attack on both, echoing NATO’s Article 5. Yet this is not Europe, and this is not the Cold War. This is a multipolar Middle East, improvising its own architecture under the weight of uncertainty.
Pakistan’s appeal lies not in abstraction but in hard capability. With approximately 560,000 active military personnel, a battle-hardened army, and an arsenal that includes around 170 nuclear warheads, Islamabad offers something few others can: a full-spectrum deterrent. Its forces have been tempered by decades of counterinsurgency and conventional operations, while its air and naval capabilities—bolstered by Chinese platforms—extend its reach across domains. For Gulf states with wealth but limited manpower, this is not just complementary; it is transformative.
Yet the story is not simply about military arithmetic. It is about trust, or rather, the erosion of it. Gulf leaders have watched as missile and drone attacks—whether from Iranian proxies or state actors—have slipped through existing defence umbrellas. They have noted what many describe as “episodic gaps” in U.S. security commitments. This is not abandonment, but it is inconsistency—and in a region where minutes can determine survival, inconsistency is a strategic liability.
Turning to Pakistan is, therefore, an act of hedging. It allows Riyadh and Doha to diversify without severing ties to Washington. This is “effective burden-sharing,” shifting some responsibility for regional stability onto local actors. But it is also a subtle message: reliance will no longer be singular.
For Pakistan, the calculus is equally compelling. The Gulf has long been a financial lifeline, with Saudi support alone exceeding US$6 billion in recent deposits and loans. Formalising defence ties elevates that relationship into something more enduring—embedding Pakistan as a central node in Middle Eastern security. It also offers Islamabad a pathway to reduce its dependence on China, even as Chinese military hardware continues to underpin roughly 80 per cent of its arsenal.
There is, however, an unspoken dimension that lends these agreements their emotional gravity: nuclear ambiguity. While official statements remain cautious, the suggestion—however informal—that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent could extend to Gulf partners introduces a new and unsettling layer to regional dynamics. It places Saudi Arabia and potentially Qatar within what some analysts term a “nuclear gray zone,” echoing extended deterrence models seen in East Asia, yet without the same institutional safeguards.
This ambiguity cuts both ways. It may deter aggression from Iran or even constrain Israel’s strategic calculus, raising the costs of escalation. But it also risks provoking countermeasures. Tehran, already sensitive to encirclement, may interpret this as justification to accelerate its own nuclear ambitions. The delicate equilibrium of deterrence could harden into a more volatile standoff.
What makes Pakistan uniquely suited to this role is not just its military strength, but its diplomatic posture. Unlike many external powers, Islamabad has maintained working relationships across the region’s divides. It has resisted being drawn into sectarian conflicts, notably declining to join the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen in 2015. It engages Tehran even as it deepens ties with Riyadh. This balancing act—often precarious—grants Pakistan a degree of credibility as both protector and interlocutor.
Qatar’s interest underscores this dynamic. A small state with outsized diplomatic ambitions, Doha has long relied on a mix of soft power and strategic partnerships. The trauma of direct attack has recalibrated its risk tolerance. Integrating Pakistan’s operational expertise—through joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and potentially even force deployments—offers a pathway to resilience that purely technological solutions cannot ապահով.
Across the Gulf Cooperation Council, a pattern is emerging. Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE are all reportedly exploring deeper security linkages with Pakistan. This is not the formation of a formal alliance bloc, but rather an intricate web of bilateral ties that collectively reshape the region’s security architecture. The Atlantic Council has described this as the emergence of a “new security order,” one that operates alongside, but not subordinate to, Western frameworks.
For global strategists, the shift unfolding in the Gulf is not a regional curiosity—it is a warning flare in a world quietly shedding its old gravitational centre. The Middle East is not breaking with Washington, but it is no longer willing to orbit a single sun, and that instinct now echoes from Canberra to Brussels, from Delhi to Jakarta.
Middle powers across continents are developing a new survival strategy that includes hedging loyalty, diversifying risk, and weaving together overlapping security webs in an environment where certainty has become a luxury. This is not disintegration; it is adaptability born of discomfort, a communal realisation that the era of singular assurances is over. Instead, a more fluid, more nervous system emerges—one in which influence is bargained rather than inherited, and in which every state, large or little, learns to stand just far enough apart to be secure while remaining near enough to avoid standing alone.
Yet there is a deeper, more human dimension that must not be lost amid strategic calculations. Security pacts, however sophisticated, cannot substitute for political solutions. The risk is that a region already saturated with arms becomes further entangled in a logic of deterrence that leaves little room for de-escalation. civilians—in Gaza, in Yemen, in Iraq—bear the cost when deterrence fails.
Analysts warned that alliances are only as durable as the alignment of interests that sustain them. Today, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan share a convergence of concerns: Iranian influence, Israeli assertiveness, and doubts about external guarantees. Tomorrow, those priorities may shift. History offers sobering lessons—CENTO, SEATO—where formal commitments dissolved under the pressure of diverging interests.
And yet, there is also opportunity. If channelled wisely, this emerging alignment could stabilise rather than destabilise. Pakistan’s involvement may introduce a moderating influence, given its own interest in avoiding regional wars that could spill over into South Asia. It could also create new avenues for dialogue, leveraging Islamabad’s relationships with multiple parties.
The challenge, then, is not to resist this transformation, but to shape it. Transparency, confidence-building measures, and renewed diplomatic engagement are essential. Without them, the Gulf’s search for security may inadvertently deepen the very insecurities it seeks to escape.
A new map of Middle Eastern security is being drawn—not with bold announcements, but with careful, calculated strokes. In Riyadh and Doha, in Islamabad’s corridors of power, decisions are being made that will reverberate far beyond the region. The question is whether this emerging order will harden dividing lines, or whether it can, against the odds, carve out space for a more stable and humane future.
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