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The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is a new trilateral mutual-defense pact signed on August 7, 2026 (24 Safar 1448H) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

There is something important about the fact that this agreement was signed in Makkah and I do not mean that simply in the vocabulary of Islamic solidarity. The symbolism is subtler than that.

Makkah gives the agreement political geography beyond the three capitals signing it. It places the compact in a space that belongs, symbolically, to a much wider community. That matters particularly because the agreement has simultaneously been described as defensive, not directed against any particular state, and open to other brotherly countries seeking regional peace, prosperity and stability. Türkiye has also stressed that the pact does not displace the signatories’ existing bilateral or multilateral commitments.

That last part may eventually prove more consequential than the much-discussed “attack on one is an attack on all” clause. Because what Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye may be building is not another NATO. They may be experimenting with something much more suited to the emerging international order: an expandable middle-power security compact. That distinction matters.

NATO emerged from a bipolar world. Its logic was relatively clear: defined adversary, defined geography, integrated command structures, alliance discipline and an external superpower underwriting the system.

The emerging world is different. Middle powers increasingly want security relationships without surrendering strategic autonomy. They want partners without patrons, interoperability without complete alignment, and additional security options without having to abandon existing ones.

Viewed from that perspective, the Makkah Agreement........

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