From Israel to India: How Saudi-Pakistan defense pact is redrawing power lines

While Riyadh eyes nuclear and conventional military backing after the Qatar strike, Islamabad seeks Saudi investment and support in its standoff with India

By Rayhan Uddin

Published date: 20 September 2025 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-saudi-pakistan-defence-pact-redrawing-power-lines

Such was the magnitude of the security pact signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan this week that there was even a song released alongside it. 

“Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, brothers in faith,” the lyrics sang in Arabic. “An alliance of hearts and a single sword in the field.”

Just days after nearly 60 officials from Muslim-majority states met in Doha to jointly respond to Israel’s attack on the Qatari capital, a pact was agreed between these two “brothers in faith”. 

A Saudi official insisted that talks had been ongoing for years and the deal was not in response to specific countries or events. 

But the timing, days after Israel’s unprecedented strike on a Gulf country, is noteworthy. 

“The timing sends a message to everyone that what happened needs to be addressed,” Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and fellow at Chatham House, told Middle East Eye. 

“There was always that notion that [Riyadh] can count on the Pakistanis if need be,” he said. “The interesting part here was to formalise it.”

The agreement signed between the two nations affirms that any aggression against either country will be considered an aggression against both. 

While the full text of the pact is not public, Riyadh stated that it was “a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means”.

Notably, Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons. 

Pakistan’s defence minister confirmed on Friday that his country’s nuclear programme would be “made available” to Riyadh as part of the agreement.  

Nuclear guarantor for Saudi Arabia

Pakistan officially became a nuclear-armed state in May 1998, shortly after carrying out its first nuclear weapons test in the Balochistan region. 

It followed years of, ultimately failed, attempts by Israel to disrupt the programme.

Throughout those years of secretive nuclear enrichment by Islamabad, Saudi Arabia remained a close ally.  

“When Pakistan broke in 1998, it was an open secret - though no one could verify or vet it - that the Saudis were in it,” said Saif. 

“There were even rumours that they funded some of those nuclear programme elements back in the 90s as [Pakistan] were building up.” 

While it does not publicly discuss the size of its arsenal, Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads. 

It says the arsenal is for defensive purposes, but it does not have a “no first use” policy, so it could, in theory, be used to pre-emptively attack foes with nuclear weapons.

The extent to which Saudi Arabia will benefit from this programme is unclear. 

“The agreement doesn’t make Saudi Arabia a nuclear power any more than the existence of Nato makes Germany a nuclear power,” Christopher Clary, an associate professor at the University of Albany and expert on South Asia, told MEE. 

“It does mean any state considering military aggression against Saudi Arabia must contend with the possibility of Pakistani nuclear weapons, even if their use would not be certain - and perhaps not even very probable - in any single contingency.” 

The likelihood of Pakistani nuclear missiles being placed on Saudi territory at the current moment is low; however, Clary added, that could change if the security environment worsens.

Riyadh, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, would have to consider the impact of such a move on its international obligations. 

Israel has its own secretive nuclear weapons programme, which it neither confirms nor denies the existence of.

It has a policy of “not being the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East”, which it has used to justify multiple violent crackdowns on perceived nuclear enrichment in the region. 

How it will react to Saudi Arabia entering into a pact which nominally gives it access to a nuclear arsenal remains to be seen. 

Iran, Riyadh’s decades-long regional foe, has stepped up its nuclear energy programme in recent years - a fact which has alarmed Saudi Arabia. 

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, said in 2018 that if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, “we would follow suit”. 

In his book War, author and journalist Bob Woodward stated that during a meeting with US Senator Lindsey Graham, the Saudi crown prince made clear that he would count on Islamabad to go nuclear. 

“I don’t need uranium to make a bomb… I’ll just buy one from Pakistan,” Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told Graham. 

Conventional weapons 

Analysts note that for Saudi Arabia, the importance of this pact goes beyond solely nuclear weapons.

“Nuclear assets are an element of this path. I don't know if they're the most important element necessarily,” Ahsan Butt, an associate professor at George Mason University and analyst on Pakistani politics, told MEE. 

“Pakistan’s Air Force attracted quite a bit of positive attention in its short conflict with India," he added, referring to the hostilities between the neighbouring countries in May. 

Butt noted that the US and Middle Eastern powers would have taken notice of the effectiveness of Pakistani hardware in that four-day conflict. 

Saif said: “People come back to us in the Gulf, they tell us you guys are untested, you haven't been to wars as frequently. Pakistan has a richer CV in that regard.”

He added that beyond the nuclear file, Pakistan has a lot to offer Saudi Arabia with its conventional weaponry. 

Islamabad is widely considered to be a top 10 military power in terms of both size and capability. 

According to Sipri, 81 percent of Pakistan’s hardware is supplied by China. 

For Gulf countries, the strike on Qatar has sped up an ongoing process of security diversification beyond reliance on the United States. China could be key to that.

“With this deal… Saudi Arabia has opened up further paths, direct and indirect, to that military industrial complex in China,” said Saif. 

The marriage of Chinese assets with Pakistani personnel, Butt added, is an important factor in Saudi Arabia’s consideration. 

Islamabad has had a military presence in the kingdom for several decades, and was part of the Saudi coalition which fought against Iraq during the first Gulf war in the early 1990s. 

At Riyadh’s request, Pakistan deployed around 11,000 troops to Saudi Arabia to defend its borders and holy sites. 

There are currently between 1,500 and 2,000 Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia providing technical and operational support. 

Finances and India factor 

As for Pakistan, there is an important financial element to the agreement.  

“Pakistan is almost always on the verge of either bankruptcy or requiring bailouts from external actors,” said Butt. “So first and foremost is direct injection of capital.”

He added that Saudi investment could be sought in areas such as transport, aviation and telecommunications. 

Saif said that there would be an energy aspect to the deal, too, given that Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude oil exporter. 

“The Pakistanis will have the glory of being a guarantor for the energy line that comes through them - making sure the finances come steaming through,” he said. 

As well as financial, there are security considerations for Pakistan. 

Skirmishes between Pakistan and arch-rival India have taken place a number of times in the past decade, with a ratcheting up of rhetoric from both sides. 

Now that an attack on Pakistan would be seen as an attack on Saudi Arabia, as per the pact, it could have implications for India. 

“There have been much warmer ties between India and the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, over the last few years,” said Butt, adding that Pakistan would be keen to loosen such ties.

He said that in military crises between Pakistan and India over the past decade, the threshold of kinetic action between the two has been raised by both sides.  

“This pact would complicate that trajectory,” he said. 

“The next time a crisis happens, India cannot treat this as a one against one bilateral issue. It now has to consider that Saudi Arabia is, at least nominally, on Pakistan’s side.”

Following the signing of the deal, a Saudi official told Reuters that the kingdom’s relations with India were “more robust than it has ever been” and would continue to grow. 

As well as the Indian response, Pakistan will have to keep a close eye on how Israel reacts.

Butt stated that Pakistan had done well at staying out of conflicts that do not directly impact it, citing its neutrality in the Syrian civil war as an example. 

That has now changed with this pact, and Butt noted that Pakistan's place on Israel’s priority list will go up. 

“If they were a top 10 issue, they’re now a top five issue. If they’re a top five issue, they’re now a top three issue,” Butt said. 

The future response could be direct, ranging from targeting individuals like nuclear scientists, as Israel has done in the past, to air strikes. 

“Pakistan is now a player in the Middle Eastern conflict, whether it wants to be or not.”