The Saudi-Pakistan Defence Pact Explained(360P)

Mona Lisa

Transcript

00:00On Wednesday evening, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia announced that the two countries had signed a

00:04new mutual defence pact. The full text isn't publicly available, but officials said it included

00:09a NATO-like mutual defence clause, and on Friday, Pakistan's defence minister confirmed it would

00:15also require Pakistan, one of just nine nuclear-armed states in the world, to provide a

00:20nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia. This is pretty astonishing. Not only is it the first time

00:25Pakistan has extended its nuclear umbrella, but it's also hard not to see this as a reaction to

00:31Israel's strikes in Qatar, which happened only a few days earlier. So, in this video, we're going

00:37to take a look at the Saudi-Pakistan relationship, and what this new pact might mean for the region.

00:55If you're interested in the political alliances and groupings which shape our world, then you might

01:00enjoy our poster, Every Alliance Explained. It shows, in slightly confusing detail, all of the world's

01:07major alliances and how different countries link together. Check out the poster by clicking the link

01:12in the description.

01:13So, let's start with a bit of context. Broadly speaking, Saudi-Pakistan relations can be split

01:19into three chapters. The first runs from 1947, when Pakistan became an independent state, all the way

01:25through to the late 2000s. During this time, Saudi-Pakistan relations basically went from

01:30strength to strength. As two Muslim-majority, US-aligned countries, there was a natural affinity,

01:36but the relationship was also helped by complementary economic and security interests. Economically,

01:42Pakistan, which relies heavily on imports and has a long history of economic instability, was

01:47always in need of oil imports and hard currency loans, which the Saudis could provide.

01:53Conversely, the Saudis, who had more petrodollars than their economy could naturally absorb,

01:58were often in need of cheap labour, which Pakistan could provide. On security matters,

02:03Saudi Arabia has always faced various regional threats, but it doesn't have a great domestic

02:09military, whereas Pakistan punches well above its weight in military matters. Saudi-Pakistan defence

02:15cooperation really kicked off after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and later that year, the two sides

02:21concluded a security pact that led to thousands of Pakistani troops being deployed inside Saudi

02:27Arabia, some of whom would go on to fight in the 1969 Saudi-Yemen War. Saudi Arabia provided

02:33financial support to Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, and Pakistan threw its weight

02:39behind the Saudis and other Arab countries in the 1973 war, with Pakistani pilots even secretly

02:46flying planes for the Egyptian and Syrian air forces. The two countries became even closer in the 80s,

02:52united in their opposition to both the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

02:57But perhaps more importantly, Saudi Arabia had its own internal crisis in 1979, when Islamist militants

03:04took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, calling for an uprising against the Saudi royal family and accusing

03:10them of betraying Islam. Pakistan sent advisers to help Saudi forces take back the mosque,

03:16and deployed tens of thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia throughout the 80s to help secure the kingdom.

03:22Pakistan's steadfast support for the kingdom paid off in 1998, when Saudi Arabia was one of just a

03:28couple of countries to stand by Pakistan after its nuclear weapons test, providing both economic support

03:34and free oil. However, and this is what we're calling the second chapter in this relationship,

03:39things went downhill in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Tensions first arose in 2008,

03:46with the election of the relatively populist Pakistan People's Party, or PPP,

03:51who weren't as committed to the long-standing relationship. The Pakistani Muslim League regained

03:56power in 2013, but the PML were still constrained by parliament, which voted against providing military

04:03support to Saudi Arabia during the Saudi intervention in Yemen in 2015. And a few years later,

04:09Pakistan refused to join in with the Saudi-led economic and diplomatic blockade of Qatar,

04:14in large part because Qatar had become one of Pakistan's big natural gas suppliers.

04:19Imran Khan's election in 2018 opened up the possibility of a reset. After all, Khan was originally very

04:25close to the Pakistani military establishment, who were generally pretty pro-Saudi. Originally,

04:30this looked like it might happen. In late 2018, Saudi Arabia once again bailed out Pakistan with a $6

04:37billion loan, which Khan acknowledged by presenting Saudi Arabia's de facto leader,

04:42Mohammed bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, with a gold-plated Kalashnikov. However,

04:47relations once again soured in late 2019, after India revoked the special status of its administered

04:53part of Kashmir. This caused outrage in Pakistan, but the Saudi reaction was somewhat muted, in part

05:00because Saudi Arabia had developed a pretty good relationship with India throughout the 2000s and

05:052010s. At the same time, Khan had taken steps to normalise relations with Iran, which irked the

05:11Saudis. Khan reacted to this perceived slight by buddying up to Turkey and moved to create a Pakistan-led

05:18alternative to the Saudi-led Organisation of Islamic Countries. Saudi Arabia reacted by essentially

05:23threatening to withdraw its loan, forcing Pakistan to abruptly cancel a summit. Relations remain

05:29tense but stable for the next couple of years, with Pakistan's obvious economic dependence on Saudi

05:35Arabia enough to deter Khan from rocking the boat any further. However, in the past year or so, and this

05:41is what we're calling the third chapter, relations have once again blossomed, culminating in the defence

05:47pact we saw earlier this week. This is largely because the basic logic of the Saudi-Pakistan relationship,

05:53Saudi Arabia provides economic support, Pakistan provides security assistance, has reasserted itself.

05:59Pakistan has been mired in a long-running economic crisis since the pandemic, and thus needs any economic

06:05support it can get, while Saudi Arabia clearly needs new security guarantors. Not only has the US, Saudi Arabia's

06:13long-time security guarantor, made it overwhelmingly clear it wants to withdraw from the Middle East, this American

06:18administration also seems unable or unwilling to rein in Israel, which has now attacked basically all its

06:25neighbours. While Saudi Arabia maintains the timing was incidental, this new pact came literally days after

06:31Israel's striking Qatar, which signalled to other Arab countries that even an alliance with the US isn't

06:37enough to guarantee against Israeli aggression, and that they therefore need to create new non-American

06:43security architectures capable of deterring Israel. Things have also been helped by Saudi Arabia's

06:49recent rapproachment with Iran, mirroring the rapproachment that Pakistan began under Imran Khan.

06:55For context, Saudi-Iran relations have been stabilising for a few years now, but the rapproachment has

07:00accelerated in recent months, presumably motivated by neutral anxieties about Israel.

07:05MBS and Iranian President Masoud Pazeshkian met in Qatar on Monday, where Pazeshkian apparently suggested a

07:12quote, Islamic alliance to deter Israel. And a day later, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council

07:19travelled to Riyadh, which suggests that Saudi Arabia is at least considering the idea. In this light, perhaps the

07:26interesting question is whether this new pact is just a reflection of the recent upswing in bilateral relations between

07:32Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, or the beginning of a wider multilateral alliance of Muslim countries worried about Israeli

07:39overreach. This might sound far-fetched, but on Friday, Pakistan's defence minister insisted that the pact and the

07:46Pakistani nuclear umbrella could be expanded, and even apparently floated the idea of a quote, Arab-Islamic NATO, not

07:54dissimilar to the Iranian proposal at the meeting in Qatar earlier this week. With the rise of complex geopolitical

08:01situations like these, as well as confusing economics and the growth of AI, things are moving very fast right now.

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