The Mecca pact signed on Aug. 7 between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey has variously been described as a “Muslim,” “Islamic,” “Sunni,” or “Middle Eastern” NATO. Some of these epithets might simply reflect commentators’ limited repertoire of alliance metaphors. But Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan explicitly referenced NATO in describing the new pact’s defense provisions.
Indeed, the pact declares mutual defense as a duty of its three members—an attack on one will be considered an attack on all. But it does not establish a central command system, any paths to achieve greater interoperability, or clear obligations in terms of defense spending and procurement. It also does not mention the use of nuclear weapons.
The Mecca pact signed on Aug. 7 between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey has variously been described as a “Muslim,” “Islamic,” “Sunni,” or “Middle Eastern” NATO. Some of these epithets might simply reflect commentators’ limited repertoire of alliance metaphors. But Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan explicitly referenced NATO in describing the new pact’s defense provisions.
Indeed, the pact declares mutual defense as a duty of its three members—an attack on one will be considered an attack on all. But it does not establish a central command system, any paths to achieve greater interoperability, or clear obligations in terms of defense spending and procurement. It also does not mention the use of nuclear weapons.
This is not to say that the alliance is meaningless. The Mecca pact builds on years of bilateral defense cooperation between the countries involved. This includes Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s defense cooperation, which began in the mid-1960s and has involved Pakistan training personnel and deploying troops in Saudi Arabia. This has provided critical help for the wealthy but insecure Saudi regime, which cannot risk a too powerful and autonomous military.
Pakistan and Turkey have also enjoyed deepening defense cooperation ties centered on weapons systems supplied by Turkey, which include four co-produced MILGEM corvette ships and 30 T129 ATAK helicopters. Pakistan may act as a conduit for transferring cutting-edge weapons developed by China, such as the co-produced JF-17 aircraft, to Turkey as well.
However, bilateral ties in themselves do not make for a strong alliance. Theorists of international relations identify four problems that weaken all alliances: chain-ganging, buck-passing, moral hazard, and free-riding. The Mecca pact is prone to all four types of these problems, but at present does not address any of them.
First, alliances are prone to chain-ganging, wherein one member drags in the other members of an alliance to a conflict that is inimical to their national interests. One should recall how Russia’s promises to Serbia led to its allies France and Britain entering the First World War to respect their treaty obligations.
In this case, Pakistan could try to make Turkey and Saudi Arabia parties to Pakistan’s long-running militarized rivalry with India. Saudi Arabia and India maintain cordial relations: India imports nearly $22 billion annually of crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum by-products from Saudi Arabia, and their total trade exceeded $40 billion in 2024. Turkey might also seek to pull Pakistan and Saudi Arabia into its deepening rivalry with Israel over Syria. Indeed, this particular risk is exacerbated by the ambiguity over who, if anyone, the Mecca pact is intended to defend against. Already, commentators have alternately described it as focused on Israel and focused on Iran.
Second, alliances can be prone to buck-passing, wherein members refuse to honor their alliance commitments, especially when one member is threatened by a nonmember. Alliance members pass the buck because the threats posed are not severe enough for them to enter wars or because the costs of a war are unacceptable to them. The partial and then complete annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany in 1938 was not prevented by France, which deemed it a minor issue, nor by Yugoslavia and Romania—with which Czechoslovakia had an alliance—because it appeared too costly.
A similar situation could arise if Iran attacked Saudi Arabia: Turkey and Pakistan would find that the costs of intervening outweigh any benefits. Iranian threats to Turkey consist mainly of severely weakened Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Syria, while Pakistan shares a border with Iran along its volatile Balochistan province, where Iranian support for armed Baloch proxies could be dangerous.
Additionally, all three countries have domestic political equilibriums centered on the military’s role in society and politics that could be disturbed by a war that weakened or empowered sections of the military. Political stability in Pakistan is tenuous: The army has created a controlled democracy in which different civilian parties electorally compete with tacit collaboration, while sections of the army also manipulate popular movements and Islamic groups.
Turkish politics are extremely polarized: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used various means—from controlling media to jailing opposition leaders—to maintain his grip on power. While the famously coup-prone Turkish military has been transformed by Erdogan, any hint of political interference from any segment of the military remains highly inflammatory.
Saudi Arabia’s population may be quiescent, but its complex tribal loyalties in the regular military and the National Guard—parallel forces constructed to prevent coups by one another—would create difficulties in any actual conflict.
A third problem with alliances is the risk of adventurism from members that are emboldened by the added military strength. This issue, which economists’ term moral hazard, was most prominently displayed when Germany’s blank check encouraged a ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire to bully Serbia and ignore Russia’s backing of it in 1914, leading to World War I.
Pakistan’s series of military crises with India, the latest one of which was an air war in 2025 that threatened Pakistan’s nuclear delivery capability, reveals this possibility. Turkey’s increasing belligerence to dominate the Levant and become a regional power, which has been couched in neo-Ottoman rhetoric, could also lead to a direct or proxy conflict with Israel in Syria that draws in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
At best, recognizing the aforementioned incentives for buck-passing might prevent alliance members from being too recklessly emboldened by the Mecca pact.
Fourth, domestic economic realities may encourage alliance members to lower their contributions for alliance institutions and activities in the belief that other members would make up for it.
Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia face extremely different economic realities. Pakistan has a primarily agricultural economy with endemic poverty. Turkey is a middle-income country, but economic policies by the Erdogan administration have created rampant inflation and external debt that slowed the economy and almost bankrupted the country. Despite dramatic policy changes in 2023, imposing higher interest rates that are restoring confidence, higher state spending continues, which may hobble economic recovery. Saudi Arabia’s economy still remains centered on exporting hydrocarbons. Thus, although it is the wealthiest of all three alliance partners, international prices will affect its defense spending.
The above-mentioned problems could have been dealt with at the onset. For example, although alliances may not publicly identify a common enemy or enemies to avoid increasing hostilities, they have to implicitly do so in order to adequately prepare to deter or fight them. Even if they lack centralized command systems for the members’ militaries, alliances also need to have clear obligations extending from accessing members’ military bases to budgetary allocations to defense and specific types of common defense equipment. None of these appear to have been part of the Mecca pact.
As long as these issues remain unaddressed, the pact may resemble the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), which was established in 1955 to deter Soviet aggression in the Middle East. Backed by a declining regional security provider, the United Kingdom, and its rising counterpart, the United States, it was severely weakened by the exit of Iraq after its British-installed monarchy fell to a popular coup, and the new regime preferred to remain neutral if not pro-Soviet.
Pakistan unsuccessfully attempted to draw in CENTO members into wars with India in 1965 and 1971, but the alliance did not even intervene to stop its military defeat and dismemberment by India in the latter year. Turkey invaded and occupied Cyprus—with its two British bomber bases—in 1974, which turned CENTO into something of a charade.
The one thing that might turn the Mecca pact into a stronger alliance, despite these continued challenges, would be the emergence of a more clearly defined external threat. Iran, weakened by war, as well as setbacks in Syria and Lebanon, does not provide such a threat. China, which maintains cordial ties with Turkey and defense ties with Saudi Arabia and treats Pakistan like an ally, will not play the role, nor will Russia. This leaves Israel—which has already sought to create a sphere of influence in the Middle East via the Abraham Accords—as the one state that could give life to the new alliance.
If the United States were to withdraw from providing regional security while Israel’s current approach to the region continues and gains traction, then a sense of shared threat might further bind the pact’s members. This, in turn, could eventually give birth to a unified command system as well as redoubled efforts at procuring arms from the West and China alike. Until then, however, the Mecca pact will remain little more than the sum of its parts.
