Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed a joint defence agreement of great significance to India last week (August 7).
While the fine print has not been revealed, the central principle in the pact, that an attack on any of the signatories would be regarded as an attack on all of them, makes it directly relevant to India. Although New Delhi has not reacted to the development, it is obvious the BJP-led Union government’s policy of not hesitating to cross borders in pursuit of Pakistan-sponsored terror actors will now have to be recalibrated if not reconsidered. It may well remain an option but will have to be exercised with much greater forethought.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is being called the ‘Islamic NATO’ because of the symbolism surrounding it and the ‘one for all and all for one’ inspiration it draws from Article 5 of NATO. The pact was signed in the holiest city of the Muslim world, bringing together three Sunni Islamic countries with complementary capabilities. Turkey is a member of NATO, has the second-largest military within that Western alliance and significant defence production capacities. Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's holiest sites and is the world's top oil exporter. Pakistan is the only Islamic country with nuclear weapons, a large standing army and a competent air force.
This looks impressive on paper, but the real import of the pact can only be assessed when it is tested in a live situation. The communiques issued from the three capitals did not indicate what specific commitments each country will make towards the proposed system of common deterrence. Pakistan has an existing defence agreement with Saudi Arabia under which it stations 8,000 troops, fighter jets and air-defence systems in the kingdom but has not so far invoked them against the Houthis in Yemen or when Iran bombed Saudi oil facilities. In fact, it has been the main mediator for a ceasefire deal between Iran and the US.
Regardless of how exactly this pact will work out, the concern for New Delhi is that it further strengthens Pakistan’s strategic role in a fast-changing world order. Islamabad has used its geographic proximity to West Asia and the opportunity provided by the US-Israel war on Iran to inject itself into the emerging geopolitical calculus while the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy remains adrift at the same time.
This is a sea change from the situation before Operation Sindoor last year when Pakistan was an isolated entity, and India was crowing about hosting the G-20 summit.
In contrast, the Mecca pact has come about just when India’s own best-laid geostrategic plans have come to nought. New Delhi’s love for Donald Trump remains unrequited, with Washington seemingly no longer interested in the Quad or an Indo-Pacific security alliance with India as a major partner.
While we might seek sour-grapes comfort in the fact that America is a waning superpower, we still have to contend with the fact that we are wriggling in Donald Trump's pincer of tariffs and one-sided trade terms on the one hand and diktats to our energy policy on the other. In our one-sided bargain with an untrustworthy American President, India has had to mute its voice on the BRICS platform and abandon its erstwhile independent foreign policy. Instead, we now revel in the friendship of a friendless nation that is guilty of genocide. Who's isolated now ?