THE convergence of strategic thinking among the leaders of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye led to a landmark security agreement capable of transforming the contemporary Middle Eastern security architecture. Therefore, the agreement has unleashed a debate between the security alliance optimists and pessimists. Indeed, an objective analysis requires a close examination of the agreement to understand its determinants, purpose, intent of implementation, and the capacity of the member states.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to establish a trilateral security framework at the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defense held on August 7, 2026. They signed the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement (MJDA) aimed at strengthening “collective deterrence against any act of aggression.” The MJDA facilitates the expansion of military cooperation among the three States “to further strengthen their collective security and to promote peace, security, and stability in the region and beyond, in pursuit of a secure and prosperous future.” It laid the foundation of a first Pan-Islamic military institutional initiative among three key Muslim States, independent of the West, stretching from South Asia through the Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean. What are the determinants of this minilateral security group?

Three Muslim Middle Powers located in three regions—South Asia, the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and the Eastern Mediterranean—are facing three identical security challenges. The jeopardizing spillover effects of the prolonged civil wars in their neighboring countries, secondly, vulnerability of their sea trade due to non-state actors, and thirdly, the transnational terrorist syndicates’ threat to their internal security. Hence, the trilateral MJDA seems more substantive than symbolic.

The civil war in Yemen has been haunting Saudi Arabia’s national security. During........

© Pakistan Observer