After Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Pact, India is Left Confronting the Costs of Strategic Ambiguity

The Saudi Arabia-Pakistan “Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA)” signed in Riyadh recently has set the proverbial cat among the pigeons in India. By itself, it is part of the larger geopolitical churn occasioned by the shifts in the United States and its client state Israel, but whether or not we in India should be concerned about it is a matter of debate.

There are some like former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal who term it a “grave misstep”, claiming that the Saudis must have known “this will be construed in India as a threat to India’s security.” But there are others like Sashi Tharoor who say that this is a formalisation of a long standing arrangement and that “we should not overreact right now.” Harsh Pant and Rahul Rawat of the ORF argue for a pragmatic course where New Delhi reconciles its interests “with diverging viewpoints of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other partners in West Asia and seek alignment to the extent possible.”

The government of India for its part has chosen the latter course and the external affairs ministry spokesperson has said the government will “study its (the SMDA’s) implications for national security and regional and global stability.” He also expressed the hope that the strategic partnership between India and Saudi Arabia would “keep in mind mutual interests and sensitivities.”

India and Saudi Arabia have a steadily growing relationship marked by the creation of a Strategic Partnership Council in 2019 with focus on political, security, economic and defence cooperation. The Saudis have pledged to invest $100 billion in India in areas like energy, infrastructure and technology. There is a large Indian community of over 2.6 million Indians in the country who send back substantial remittances. India also hopes to partner the Saudis in the currently stalled US-led India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). For all these reasons, New Delhi needs to carefully balance its ties with Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have had a long-standing security relationship. For decades, Pakistan has provided troops, training and weapons to Saudi Arabia in exchange for grants, aid and loans. But on September 17, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the SMDA. This is a significant upgrade of the security relationship between the two whose key clause is that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” similar to NATO’s Article 5.

Saudi Arabia has been immediately motivated to push for this because of the recent Israeli bombing of Qatar as well as the Israel-Iran war. But it has had longer term concerns, primarily from Israel and Iran’s clandestine nuclear programmes.

As for Pakistan, this is an opportunity provided, principally by its entente with the US, to break out of its diplomatic isolation and reach out to a region that is invaluable for the financial help and political legitimacy it provides. That it could dent India’s growing ties with the Middle East would be a subsidiary gain.

The new pact creates a potential for extending Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence to Saudi Arabia, a situation that is generating considerable international concern and speculation. Pakistani defence minister Khwaja Asif was quite explicit when he declared in a TV programme that “Pakistan’s nuclear capability… was established long ago when we conducted tests,” he went on to add that “What we have, and the capabilities we possess, will be made available… according to this agreement.” He later sought to play down these remarks suggesting that nuclear weapons were not included in the pact.

But a senior Saudi official reportedly described the agreement as “a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means,” leaving room for speculation.

The agreement has come after an Israeli airstrike on Qatar, which created concern in the Gulf about the reliability of the United States’ security commitments. Yet, many analysts insisted that the focus of the agreement was Iran, whose nuclear set up has reportedly been “obliterated” by the US through air strikes.

Whether or not it gives Saudi Arabia a nuclear umbrella, the agreement offers Pakistan a relationship which can provide a much-needed financial life-line. Besides, establishing itself as the protector of the Two Holy Mosques of Islam, boosts its prestige in the Islamic World.

The Saudi-Pakistan nuclear relationship has always been the subject of great speculation. Feroz Hassan Khan has written that the Saudis provided “generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue, especially when the country was under sanctions.” But others have suggested that Pakistan has made nuclear weapons for Saudi Arabia and these can be supplied to the latter on demand.

Also read: Why the Saudi-Pakistan Pact May Be a Boon Not a Bane

In a 2003 article, Arnaud de Borchgrave suggested that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had concluded a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation that would give the Saudis nuclear weapons technology in exchange for cheap oil and grants by the Saudis.

Actually suspicions over the Saudi nuclear intentions came to the fore in 1988 when it was revealed that the Saudis had purchased 36 CSS-2 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles from China during the Iran-Iraq war. Considering that these are not particularly accurate missiles, the speculation was that they were intended to be mated with nuclear warheads.

Recently, in May 2025, maverick US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the counterterrorism and intelligence subcommittee of the US House Homeland Security Committee, declared that “Saudi Arabia has nuclear weapons” without providing any further details.

Some analysts believe that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may intentionally maintain ambiguity regarding the nuclear dimension of the pact. This could function as a form of deterrence against adversaries like Israel and Iran without a formal, and highly controversial, nuclear-sharing arrangement.

The alliance is also the outcome of Islamabad returning into favour in Washington DC. The pact is unlikely to have been signed if the US still felt the way it did in Trump’s first term when he called Pakistan the epicentre of terrorism. Now, after multiple visits by Pakistani leaders to the US, including the Munir lunch at the White House, Pakistan has probably convinced itself that it can play a role in the Middle-East to make up for the gap being felt with the US withdrawal from the region.

Riyadh most certainly does not see the pact as aimed at replacing the United States, but as part of a strategy of diversifying its security providers and guarantees. In this case, the US’s unwavering support for Israel may have engendered some unease in Saudi Arabia and so it decided on this step. Actually Washington may tacitly approve of the pact as a way to reassure Riyadh and prevent it from pursuing its own nuclear weapons, so long as it does not destabilise Israel. However, the prospect of a nuclear-capable Pakistan expanding its influence into the Middle East creates complex diplomatic challenges for the US.

Also read: Full Text | What Does the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Defence Agreement Mean for India? Is It Bad News?

The bottom line is that agreements like these are just words on a piece of paper – unless there is a direct convergence of interests at the time they are needed. We are witnessing right now a situation where many NATO countries are wondering just how seriously Trump’s America looks at Article 5.

In the 1960s, Pakistani troops were deployed in Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen to prevent the spillover of unrest in the country. Yet when the Saudis organised a coalition to fight in Yemen in 2015, the Pakistanis demurred.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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