On October 21, the defence ministers of Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Indonesia signed the Badr Memorandum of Understanding, a project to jointly develop defence equipment. It caps a year of several geopolitically important moments for Islamabad. Recall that in August this year, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which treats an armed attack on one as an attack on all three, even if, so far, only on paper. And last week, the Maldivian President spent three days in Islamabad, the first visit to Pakistan by a head of State of the island-nation in 11 years. Further, Pakistan and its army chief, Asim Munir, continue to be US President Donald Trump’s favourites.

It would seem, then, Pakistan is doing extremely well geopolitically, and India is on the back foot. But that may be a short-sighted take.

To be fair, let me acknowledge the obvious first. These agreements do carry some geopolitical weight. The Mecca pact has already moved beyond the signing ceremony: The three countries have agreed to activate deterrence measures and deploy forces to Saudi Arabia against the Houthi attacks, and Turkey has sent the pact to its Parliament for ratification. The symbolism of the pact, too, has its uses — for signalling relevance, drawing in money, and, surely, complicating India’s planning and preparedness. The next time there is a crisis on the Line of Control, New Delhi will have to account for the Saudi treaty commitment to Pakistan that did not........

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