Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye sign joint defense pact: Washington silent, is US strategy shifting?

The administration of US President Donald Trump had not yet given an official response hours after Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed a landmark joint defense treaty in Mecca. According to analysts, this silence may reflect the multi-layered and still-unfolding implications of the new agreement for US strategy.

Many view the treaty as laying the groundwork for one of the most significant shifts in power in the region in decades. The agreement was signed amid the US-Israel war with Iran and increasingly aggressive Israeli military actions in the region.

A provision in the treaty reportedly requires signatories to treat an attack on one as an attack on all, similar to Article 5 of the NATO charter.

Some analysts argue the agreement reflects growing distrust of an unpredictable US government and could herald a broader security restructuring, potentially reshaping the Middle East. Others contend that while US actions indeed facilitated the deal, the treaty aligns with Washington's strategic goal of greater burden-sharing among allies.

In the short term, many experts agree the treaty will likely have its largest impact diplomatically, posing a manageable challenge to Arab-Israel normalization under the Abraham Accords.

Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, called the joint defense pact a potential setback. "Ironically, the US and Israel entered the war [with Iran] hoping to reshape the regional balance of power in Israel's favor and promote regional integration through initiatives like the Abraham Accords. Instead, one of the first major post-war developments is the emergence of a defense initiative among three major Islamic powers seeking greater strategic autonomy," Toosi told Al Jazeera.

US response and messages

Full details of the agreement have not been released. Only a joint statement on Friday referred to the terms of the treaty. The statement outlined the central commitment "providing that any armed attack against any one of the three countries will be considered an attack against all." However, this principle has yet to be tested.

The treaty builds on an earlier joint defense agreement with similar provisions, signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in September 2025. That agreement came just days after Israel conducted an airstrike on Qatar's capital, Doha, raising concerns about the safety of one of Washington's closest allies.

Officials in Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad have stressed that Friday's agreement is meant to complement, not replace, any other alliances. Experts also caution that deepening defense ties among the three countries does not mask their distinct and sometimes divergent interests.

For example, Saudi Arabia said the agreement "does not reflect any inclination to build a military axis or a sectarian/religious bloc." It also affirmed the deal does not come at the expense of the Kingdom's strong strategic relations at the Gulf, Arab, and international levels. Saudi Arabia has faced a significant number of retaliatory attacks by Iran since the US-Israel war began, and has recently seen increased attacks from the Houthi group in Yemen and Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Türkiye's presidential communications directorate said the enhanced partnership "is not an alternative" to its NATO membership. Türkiye has the second-largest standing army in NATO and access to advanced military technology. Saudi Arabia is believed to bring substantial financial resources to the deal. Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed state among the three.

Losing allies?

Despite assurances that the treaty is not a regional realignment, some observers have linked the new alliance to the Trump administration's sometimes abrasive approach to NATO and a turn away from multilateralism. They argue it signals a clear, albeit nascent, weakening of Washington's strategic influence.

"The foundation of our alliances in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and certainly with NATO and allies in Asia has been shaken," Harlan Ullman, chairman of consulting firm Killowen Group and a former US naval officer, told Al Jazeera. "How badly remains to be seen. It might just be a disruption rather than a breakup. But it's something to worry about."

The US approach to the Gulf has largely relied on building military, economic, and diplomatic ties in the region. In return, Gulf states have expected de facto security guarantees. That strategy was reinforced in the early 1980s with the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The US currently has about 50,000 troops stationed at 19 locations across the Middle East, with US-controlled bases in Türkiye, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE, and a presence at bases in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel.

Nawaf Obaid, a senior fellow at King's College London's Department of War Studies, described the Pakistan-Saudi-Türkiye agreement as the clearest sign of a departure from the "US-designed regional security order." He argued the US-Iran war accelerated an already ongoing transition, noting that hosting US bases has made many Gulf states targets in the war with Iran. "Iran's retaliatory attacks exposed the fragility of the US base structure in the Gulf and forced the redeployment of significant combat forces," Obaid said.

Signs of looseness in ties can also be seen from the US side. Successive administrations, including those of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have sought to pivot away from the Middle East to focus on China and the Asia-Pacific. The Trump administration's 2025 National Security Strategy also only briefly mentions the region. Obaid predicts a US drawdown and the eventual closure of some US bases that no longer hold strategic value.

Aligned with US goals?

Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, also pointed to the Trump administration's desire to step back from the Middle East, particularly from "democracy-building." However, she noted that desire seldom extends to withdrawing troops from the Gulf. With efforts to end the five-month war in Iran repeatedly stalling, a short-term change in US military posture is unlikely.

Aydintasbas is among the experts who believe Washington may view the new security agreement as consistent with its calls for greater burden-sharing among allies. The Trump administration has faced reports of ammunition shortages in the war with Iran and has urged allies, especially within NATO, to raise military spending.

"I don't think the US minds an agreement among three close US allies to defend themselves. It fits with the Trump administration's view of burden-sharing and regional solutions," she said. However, Aydintasbas also questioned whether Türkiye or Pakistan would actually retaliate against the Houthis or Iran if Saudi Arabia were attacked under the treaty's terms. "This is really an agreement with its own limits, and US officials know that very well," she added.

Burcu Ozcelik, a senior fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said she would "like to avoid reading this as evidence of a post-American Middle East." According to Ozcelik, the agreement aligns with the broader US preference for greater regional burden-sharing, as regional powers take on more responsibility for deterrence and security while remaining, to varying degrees, within the US-led security architecture.

A signal on the Abraham Accords

Although the joint defense treaty may not change US military strategy in the near term, the agreement appears to send a strong message about regional normalization with Israel under the Abraham Accords. That effort is central to the Trump administration's diplomatic approach to the Middle East. Trump oversaw the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco signing the accords during his first term.

Israel's genocidal war in Gaza, however, has derailed any recent progress on that front, which has been criticized for setting aside the issue of peace and Palestinian statehood. Saudi-Israel normalization has long been a coveted but elusive goal of the Trump administration. Experts say the Pakistan-Türkiye-Saudi Arabia deal pushes the expansion of the Abraham Accords out of reach, possibly dealing it a fatal blow.

According to defense analyst Alex Alfirraz Scheers, this is especially true after Trump attached conditions to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords in exchange for the sale of nuclear reactors to the kingdom. "I think the US president basically saying that a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia is contingent on Saudi joining the Abraham Accords certainly rang alarm bells across the Gulf. The Abraham Accords are now being used for coercive purposes."

Aydintasbas argued the treaty removes any ambiguity about Riyadh's stance. "This shows clearly that Saudi will not join the Abraham Accords as long as the Palestinian issue remains unresolved," she said.