Opinion | An ‘Islamic NATO’: How Geoeconomics Is Replacing Geopolitics

To emphasise its position as a ‘normal’ country, terror-manufacturer Pakistan is trying to become a defence trading partner too

Why couldn’t Turkiye, the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), become a member of the “Islamic NATO"?

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Likewise, Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a ‘modern’ man living off the past. A century after the Ottoman Empire died in 1922, he is attempting to resurrect it, and restore its influence through “Neo-Ottomanism." He combined assertive, expansionist regional policies, focusing on Islamic identity and Ottoman heritage to re-establish Turkish dominance across former imperial territories in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and, maybe, Europe. To reassert this policy, he restored his country’s medieval name, Turkiye, in 2022.

The Arabs, however, do not want to be yoked to the Turks, again.

Turkiye’s active military and political presence in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus were in line with his policy. Erdogan’s frequent rhetoric highlighted the Turkish past; he even praised supporters as “grandchildren of Ottomans." He promoted symbolic acts, and redesignated ancient Christian heritage site Hagia Sophia in Istanbul as a mosque in 2020 to appeal to a nationalist-religious base. He believes Turkiye’s existing borders are too constrained and should reflect its historical reach. After the 2016 coup attempt, he has been acting as a ‘new Sultan,’ if not the Caliph, to pursue these goals.

Sensing that the Arabs, despite their shared Sunni faith, would not rejoin his project, Erdogan tried to cobble together a ‘non-Arab’ axis with Pakistan and Malaysia in 2020; ironically, South Asia and Southeast Asia were never part of the Ottoman Empire! With this proposed axis, he sought to challenge Saudi Arabia’s leadership in the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Outraged, the Saudis forced Pakistan and Malaysia to reject Turkiye’s overtures.With President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the US revisited its Middle East policies and ejected Russia and China which had made inroads in the volatile region during the Joe Biden era. Trump tried to thrust peace, worked out a 20-point programme, however flawed, and even pushed over 60 countries to join his “Board of Peace" in January 2026.

Amid this churning, and threats from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed in September 2025 a bilateral Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), formalising their long-standing military ties into a binding pact. It includes intelligence-sharing, joint military mechanisms, defence procurement, and a collective defence clause where aggression against one is treated as an act against both.

Ironically, the Saudis felt more threatened by Iran than by Israel. In effect, therefore, Riyadh bound Islamabad to help militarily in case Tehran attacked it! Or, use the Pakistani soldiers in Yemen.

Why did Riyadh sign the bilateral defence pact with Islamabad whose then Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, reportedly exposed in April 2023 his troops’ combat unreadiness? Isn’t Baluchistan an example of this? Why did Pakistan lose so miserably in the Operation Sindoor?

Saudi Arabia may have a reason: it knows a bankrupt Pakistan cannot repay its debt; so why not use its troops as sacrificial lambs!

Despite its $80 billion defence budget, Saudi Arabia’s 400,000-strong army has little battlefield experience. Riyadh possesses a formidable arsenal on paper, making it the dominant power in the Gulf region, but its effectiveness is limited by training, logistical, and command shortcomings.

Therefore, Riyadh has essentially hired the Pakistan Army as an insurance; “Field Marshal" Syed Asim Munir’s soldiers, ‘battle-hardened’ in Operation Sindoor, will act as mercenaries/sacrificial lambs to protect Saudi Arabia against Iran, or Yemen. Primarily, the Saudis have pitted Pakistan against Iran! No wonder many Pakistanis are worried about its potential fallout from Iran.

Islamic-unity enthusiasts believed if Turkiye also joined the bilateral SMDA, they could assemble a formidable “Islamic NATO," combining Saudi funds, Pakistan’s manpower, and Turkiye’s technology in the military alliance.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar suggested that if more Muslim countries joined such arrangements, “it will effectively become a new NATO."

Despite the hype, however, Saudi Arabia has not forgotten what Turkiye did to usurp Islamic leadership in 2020. Riyadh virtually rejected this fancied move. Moreover, the Saudis did not want to disturb relations with India. Riyadh views New Delhi as a long-term economic partner, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants strong partnerships with major economies as he attempts to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil dependence.

The Saudis prioritised strategic, economic relationship with India and preferred not to be entangled in a trilateral bloc that includes Turkey, which supports Pakistan on the Kashmir issue; it even sent drones, munitions, and experts to Islamabad during the Operation Sindoor.

Additionally, the Saudis do not want to make any disruptive military alignment against the US-Israel strategic axis, considering that Turkiye has severely strained relations with Israel.

Peeved, Turkiye said the ongoing talks with the Saudis and Pakistan are limited strictly to strategic and bilateral cooperation; Ankara is neither part of nor considering any defence pact with them.

According to media reports, a senior Turkish defence official even revealed that “Pakistan’s security forces are already under extreme pressure," which limits its ability to shoulder responsibilities under any mutual defence agreement.

Turkiye is acutely aware of the Pakistani army’s weaknesses; it is facing near–civil war-like situations within, and challenges on three fronts—India, Afghanistan, and Iran. Ankara also pointed to Pakistan’s limited military resources, and asserted that a strong economy is the foundation of a powerful military while Pakistan is nearly bankrupt—despite its claims of “nuclear bombs."

Besides, both Turkiye and Pakistan lack the financial heft to invest in defence modernisation at the level of Saudi Arabia, making a trilateral defence alliance impractical. The Saudis are unlikely to carry the baggage of two poor Islamic ‘brothers.’ The speculations of an Islamic NATO are, therefore, largely symbolic rather than substantive due to deep internal rivalries between Muslim nations and other geopolitical equations.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan ‘clarified’ that Ankara is not interested in creating a new geopolitical camp, but in building a trust-based regional solidarity platform rooted in collective responsibility.

“Don’t outsource your security," Fidan said, arguing that the core problem in the region is not merely external interference but the deep lack of trust between nation states. Unless regional actors take ownership of their own problems, stability will remain elusive.

In this era of money making the mare go, the Saudi-India relations helped New Delhi advance a long awaited free trade agreement with the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); the bilateral trade between India and the GCC was nearly $179 billion in 2024-25, driven by exports from India. The two sides signed the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the proposed trade pact on February 5.

The Arab bloc, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, represents an important part of India’s trade and investment engagement in the region. The trade pact with the GCC has been under discussion for nearly two decades.

Clearly, geoeconomics is now the driving force of geopolitics. Within the OIC, while the Arabs, and Southeast Asian nations, have largely moved on, only Turkiye, Pakistan, and Iran are still carrying the jinxed baggage of their ‘ideological’ past.

Instead of their Islamic unity baggage, the Saudis are also discussing defence business with Turkiye, but not defence deals. This includes their talks on buying the Turkish KAAN fighter jets, developed, at least in part, as a response to NATO member Turkiye’s exclusion from America’s F-35 program, effectively serving as an indigenous alternative to the US fighter jet.

America has a long-standing agreement with Israel, which stipulates that US weapons supplied to Israel will be “superior in capability" compared to those sold to others in the MENA region. Israel has opposed the sale of F-35 to both Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Defence experts feared that the US could sell a downgraded variant of the F-35 to Saudi Arabia to address Israel’s concerns and strengthen ties with Riyadh at the same time. The Saudi F-35s could be made technologically inferior to Israeli jets based on the software package commissioned for the jet, according to media reports. That prompted the Saudis to explore Turkiye’s KAAN alternative.

Pakistan: Terror-plus-trade

To emphasise its position as a ‘normal’ country, terror-manufacturer Pakistan is trying to become a defence trading partner too. For example, it reportedly signed a $4 billion defence deal with Libyan military commander Khalif Haftar recently, including 16 JF-17 fighters and 12 Super Mushak trainer aircraft. Besides, Islamabad may also sign a $1.5 billion package to supply the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with 10 Karakoram-8 light attack aircraft, more than 200 drones and air defence systems to bolster its capabilities in the ongoing war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

In January 2026, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif claimed his country might not need further IMF financial assistance within six months, citing a surge in defence exports (specifically JF-17). This when Pakistan secured a $7 billion IMF program in late 2024, with significant debt servicing obligations continuing to heavily strain the economy.

The JF-17 Thunder, a multirole combat aircraft, has been jointly developed and produced by China and Pakistan. While designed by China’s AVIC Chengdu, its production is split, with Pakistan producing approximately 58% of the airframe, including final assembly at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), and China providing 42% of components and avionics.

And Pakistan believes it is the sole owner and manufacturer of JF-17, much the same way it treats the Chinese, Saudi, and UAE debt-dollars as its own!

While it faces civil war-like situation and bankruptcy at home, can it be a trusted defence partner to even Saudi Arabia, especially when it is would fight against Hamas in Gaza, and indirectly support Israel, in the Middle East?

Its economy cannot support its geopolitics. Islamabad lacks the economic weight to anchor these relationships at scale.

Nearly broke, Pakistan remains a net beggar of capital — relying on the Gulf’s “rollover" loans and central bank deposits to stabilise its junk economy — whereas India has transitioned into a strategic investor in Gulf infrastructure, energy, and technology.

This imbalance matters because the Middle East increasingly treats defence cooperation as only one strand within a much bigger partnership portfolio — energy, trade, investment, technology, and supply chains. India and the UAE, for example, recently discussed deeper defence cooperation through a letter of intent to establish a strategic defence partnership, alongside a $3 billion LNG supply deal and ambitious trade targets.

But Turkiye and Pakistan share something: revanchism and irredentism. Trapped in their past, they cannot go far.

The author is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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