Turkey-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Joint Defense Pact and Its Historical Precedents
Sarah Shamim
Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have signed a joint defense treaty stipulating that an armed attack on any of the three countries will be considered an attack on all. The agreement comes amid rising military tensions in the Middle East and evokes several similar treaties in history.
A week after Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed a joint defense agreement, Turkey's Defense Ministry on August 13 released further details about the alliance, including plans for joint military exercises and enhanced cooperation in the defense industry. The agreement was signed amid escalating military tensions and conflicts in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia repeatedly attacked by Iran during the U.S.-Israel war against Tehran.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry stated that the agreement specifies that an armed attack on any of the three countries will be regarded as an attack on all, similar to NATO's Article 5 on collective defense. Turkey's Defense Ministry emphasized that the treaty's fundamental objective is to put defense and military relations among the three countries on a more "institutionalized and sustainable" footing. Strategic political and military mechanisms are expected to be established involving the defense ministers, foreign ministers, and chiefs of general staff/armed forces of the three nations.
The agreement follows a visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah in Mecca, and a trip by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Turkey, which has the second-largest military in NATO, indicated that the pact with Pakistan (nuclear-armed) and Saudi Arabia (a major oil exporter) could expand, with Egypt seen as a potential candidate, and is not intended to replace any existing alliances.
Historically, many similar defense treaties have been signed but with mixed practical effectiveness. Analysts suggest that such alliances have the potential to deter large-scale wars between nations, but their effectiveness diminishes when conflicts shift to "gray zone" tactics such as military occupation, internal repression, or proxy violence. Many experts assess that they often serve more as signals of political alliance strengthening rather than as genuine collective defense mechanisms.
NATO, founded in 1949 amid Cold War concerns, has Article 5 stipulating that an attack on one member is an attack on all, but it has been activated only once, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Arab League's Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Treaty of 1950 also declared that an attack on one nation is an attack on all, but it remained largely on paper. The 1947 Rio Treaty in the Americas was invoked during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and after 9/11. The 1951 ANZUS Treaty between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand was partially suspended with New Zealand in 1986 due to its anti-nuclear policy.
The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1951 and the U.S.-South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty of 1953 have never been activated, but they allow the U.S. to maintain tens of thousands of troops in both countries. The Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) Peninsula Shield Force, established in 1984, comprises about 40,000 troops, and the GCC once pledged to "activate the joint defense mechanism" after Israel attacked Hamas in Qatar in 2025. The European Union incorporated a mutual defense obligation into law in 2009 via Article 42(7), which France invoked after the Paris attacks in 2015. The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), founded in 2002, has a similar Article 4 and deployed forces once in Kazakhstan in 2022.
