Why Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Pact is disturbing India

When Shehbaz Sharif, the Pakistani Prime Minister, joined the Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Riyadh last week, symbolism was undoubtedly.

The embrace followed the signing of a “strategic mutual defense agreement”, bringing together the only nuclear state in the Islamic world of the most ambitious monarchy in the Gulf.

A senior Saudi official told Reuters that the pact was only “institutionalization of long -standing and deep cooperation”. But many in India see it differently.

Despite Delhi’s cultivated heat with Riyadh, the pact lands in the midst of increased hostility with Pakistan, including a four -day conflict earlier this year. Nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan fought several wars and clashes on cashmere, taking a step in motion to relieve the Pakistani army a direct concern.

What disturbs the most Indian analysts is the commitment of the pact that “any aggression against one or the other country will be considered an assault against the two”.

“Riyadh knew that India would interpret the Saudi-Pakistani pact as a direct threat to his security, but she went forward,” posted Brahma Chellaney, an Indian strategist, published on X.

“This decision does not reflect the strength of Pakistan – it remains on the verge of bankruptcy – but the ambitions of Saudi Arabia,” he said. Liaison of a “chronic dependent” partner, he maintains, gives Riyadh the workforce and nuclear insurance, while demonstrating to India, Washington and others that she will draw her own path.

Former Indian Foreign Affairs Secretary Kanwal Sibal described the “serious misconduct” pact by Saudi Arabia, warning that this could have serious implications for India national security.

“A politically unstable and economically broken Pakistan as a security provider is a dangerous proposal. Saudi Arabia knows that this will be interpreted in India as a threat to the security of India,” said Sibal on X. “Given the tensions between Pakistan and India, this Saudi stage is strategically adventurous.”

The government of Narendra Modi of India has been more circumspect, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noting that the government “will study its implications (the Pacts) for national security and regional and global stability”. India also hoped that the strategic partnership between India and Saudi Arabia “would keep in mind mutual interests and sensitivities”.

Not all analysts are alarmed, saying that Delhi could overestimate risks since Riyad is worth balanced links – India is his second commercial partner and a major Saudi oil buyer.

Michael Kugelman, analyst of foreign policy, warns against reading the agreement. This “does not hinder India in a direct way,” he told the BBC. Saudi Arabia, with its own links with India, is “not about to engage in hostile reprisals against India,” he said.

However, by integrating Pakistan into the safety architecture of the Middle East, the “Check Pamata India” agreement and leaves its neighbor anchored to three customers – China, Turkey and now Saudi Arabia, said Kugelman. China and Turkey have provided weapons to Pakistan in its recent conflict with India.

Others argue that the real meaning of the pact lies less in any immediate threat to India and more on how it reshapes regional alignments.

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador who is currently a researcher at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC and at the Anwar Gargash diplomatic academy in Abu Dhabi, BBC told India’s concerns extend to “multiple fronts”.

He warned that the pact could make Saudi Arabia what the United States was in Pakistan during the Cold War – “a country with the economic muscle to help Pakistan build its soldiers to compete with India”.

Much depends, notes Mr. Haqqani, on how the pact defines “the aggression” and “the aggressor” and if Riyadh and Islamabad see an eye for the eye. He also warned that this could submit hard and diplomatic ties of India hard -won with Riyadh.

But not everyone considers the pact as a change of game.

“This pact is simply the formalization of a long-standing Saudi-Pakistani understanding that dates back to the 1960s,” said Mddassir Quamar of the Center for West Asian Studies at Jawaharlal University in Delhi Nehru.

Indeed, the two countries share a resilient relationship rooted in defense ties – deployments of Pakistani troops in the 1960s to commandos helping to stifle the siege of the Mosque of Mecca in 1979.

Riyadh has since bought Pakistani weapons, relied on his officers to build the Saudi Air Force and cultivated Pakistan as an ideological ally and a security partner. In 2017, Riyadh had also operated a retired Pakistani army leader to direct his Saudi anti-Isis coalition.

Mr. Haqqani notes that Saudi political, economic and military support has supported this dependence for decades.

“Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia has constantly supported Islamabad, which returned to it during the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, extending economic aid in times of crisis, allowing delayed oil payments and maintaining a narrow military partnership,” he said.

Beyond the long -standing alliance, experts highlight a more important trigger: a faith in decline in the American security umbrella and an increasing doubt that it can – or will defend the Gulf in a crisis.

The recent attack on Israel, which rocked Qatar and other Gulf States, has strengthened the doubts of Riyadh – aggravated by its long -term rivalry with Iran – about relying only on Washington.

The agreement concerns less the commitments of the battlefield than the intention to report, explains Ahmed Aboudouh, associate researcher at Chatham House and principal researcher at the Emirate Policy Center.

“It is designed to transmit a message that Saudi Arabia diversifies its security partnership without compromising its defense cooperation with the United States,” Aboudouh told the BBC.

“Although the operational depth of the agreement is not clear, it indicates a change in the perception of the threat of Saudi Arabia, considering Iran and Israel as a threat, and benefiting from Pakistan’s nuclear status to improve deterrence.”

For India, the pact can transport wider geopolitical echoes. As Mr. Aboudouh notes, India does not need to worry about the defense point of view.

The real risk, he told the BBC, is elsewhere: an enlarged alliance could harden in an “Islamic NATO”, complicating Delhi’s strategy through trade, investment and strategic corridors in the Gulf.

For Pakistan, the Pact uses Saudi financial influence to stimulate its military capacities and the Riyadic soft power to obtain wider political support, leaving India to face Pakistan not only but a wider coalition of Muslim states, according to Aboudouh.

Mr. Kugelman says that the Pact inclines regional balance in favor of Pakistan. India, which avoids formal alliances and has seen links with Pakistan – a key American partner – again on nose, will have to recalibrate.

“Admittedly, this can count on close links with Russia, Israel, the Gulf States and the main Western partners such as France,” he adds. “But the problem concerns less the greatest Indian vulnerabilities than the growing forces of Pakistan.”

Even if the pact does not represent any threat of immediate security for India, experts say that this has not been a good perspective for Delhi diplomatically. It remains to be seen that it takes place, and Delhi will watch closely.

Follow BBC News India on Instagram,, YouTube, X And Facebook.