The Makkah Joint Defence Pact among Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan should be understood as potentially more consequential than another military alliance in an already heavily militarised region. By bringing together Saudi Arabia’s economic and political weight, Türkiye’s formidable conventional military capability and Pakistan’s strategic and nuclear credentials, it reflects the determination of important Muslim middle powers to assume greater responsibility for their own security at a time when confidence in traditional external guarantees is being reassessed. Yet its historical significance will ultimately be determined not by the military power concentrated within it, but by the political purpose to which that power is put and the regional order it helps to construct.

The immediate purpose of a joint defence agreement is necessarily deterrence: to reassure its members, discourage aggression and establish that threats to one engage the security interests of the others. But Makkah’s strategic possibilities should extend considerably further. If........

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