It’s arduous to say which is an even bigger achievement for Islamabad’s diplomacy: U.S. President Donald Trump’s shift towards Pakistan or the excitement over the lately introduced Saudi-Pakistani “Strategic Mutual Protection Settlement,” each of that are reverberating throughout Southwest Asia—although the U.S. tilt could show ephemeral.
The accord highlights a tsunami of near-Kissingerian diplomacy in simply the previous six months: a gorgeous reset with the USA—at India’s expense, boosted protection and commerce ties with Turkey, a protection accord with Malaysia, a commerce and power deal with Iran that was introduced throughout an August go to by the Iranian president, and the enlargement of already robust ties to China throughout Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s September journey to Beijing.
Pakistan’s buoyancy is all of the extra outstanding contemplating that final spring, because the nation acquired its twenty fourth bailout from the Worldwide Financial Fund, the monetary world’s fear was that Pakistan would possibly change into a failed state. The sense of shock amongst South Asia wonks at how swiftly technocratic officers have stabilized their financial system rivals their amazement at Islamabad’s diplomatic bounty. All these achievements come regardless of rising terrorist insurgencies in Balochistan and among the many Pakistani Taliban alongside the nation’s border with Afghanistan.
What does this imply in the long run? The proximate trigger for the Saudi-Pakistani protection pact seems to be Israel’s bombing of a Hamas workplace in Qatar. The concept that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had license to assault Qatar—the host of the most important U.S. air base within the Center East and an in depth U.S. accomplice—surprised Riyadh and different Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia is now pricing U.S. unreliability into its regional safety technique. Pakistani officers have stated that the door isn’t closed to different Gulf states additionally becoming a member of the protection pact. But the latest NATO-like safety assure that Washington made to Qatar and stories {that a} comparable accord could quickly be reached with Saudi Arabia recommend that the USA acquired the message and is doubling down on its regional safety position.
Alternatively, the Saudi-Pakistani offers could match up with Trumpian aims. If stories of a brand new U.S. protection technique of retrenchment—and prioritizing the Western Hemisphere—are appropriate, then Washington could welcome Islamabad taking part in a higher position as a Gulf safety supplier, maybe as an additional layer of insurance coverage. Pakistan’s assist for Trump’s Gaza peace plan will assist hold Islamabad in his good graces.
Nonetheless, Pakistan’s deepening Gulf ties could danger ensnaring the nation in regional conflicts akin to Yemen’s civil warfare or in a peace stabilization pressure if Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip is realized. The Saudis—main oil suppliers to India who’ve their very own strategic partnership with New Delhi—could have some powerful selections in a future India-Pakistan confrontation.
Some argue that the protection pact is extra of a formalization of long-standing Saudi-Pakistani army and financial ties than a seismic occasion—and recommend that it might be a type of prolonged deterrence, with a Sunni Muslim nuclear weapon breaking Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly. In his 2024 e book Struggle, American journalist Bob Woodward quotes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman telling a U.S. senator, “I don’t want uranium to make a bomb. I’ll simply purchase one from Pakistan.”
A Saudi-Pakistani joint assertion used NATO-like language to explain the settlement, stating “that any aggression in opposition to both nation shall be thought-about an aggression in opposition to each.” How both the Saudis or Pakistanis reply to any given safety menace has not but been examined.
Saudi-Pakistani protection ties stretch again to the Nineteen Seventies. Pakistani commandos helped the Saudis quell a terrorist assault on the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, and the Pakistani army now has some 2,000 troops in Saudi Arabia coaching and advising Saudi troops. Pakistan, in the meantime, wants Saudi cash. Riyadh has prolonged and rolled over loans—$3 billion final December—and reportedly finalized approval for a long-discussed $10 billion oil refinery in Gwadar, including to the China-Pakistan Financial Hall undertaking.
But probably the most outstanding results of shrewd Pakistani diplomacy—within the Richard Nixon-to-China class—is the resurrection of atrophied U.S.-Pakistan ties, diminished because the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, whereas additionally fracturing the U.S.-India connection. India fears that Trump’s Pakistan shift is upending 25 years of cautious cultivation and trust-building of distinct U.S.-India ties. Earlier than this administration, India had more and more been seen in Washington—with robust bipartisan assist—as a key accomplice, a counterweight to China, a pillar of what was then the USA’ Indo-Pacific technique.
Islamabad’s new entente with Washington trusted a serendipitous chain of occasions that started in March, when Pakistani intelligence helped the U.S. seize the Islamic State-Khorasan operative accountable for the Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. troopers in August 2021. The U.S. Centcom commander, Military Gen. Michael Kurilla, praised Islamabad’s “phenomenal cooperation” in counterterrorism following the operation.
Towards that backdrop, a testy cellphone name between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi precipitated a rift in U.S.-India ties, creating a gap for Pakistan. In his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize Trump claimed credit score in Might for the cease-fire that adopted clashes between Islamabad and New Delhi, saying that he had “solved” probably the most intense Indo-Pakistan battle in 30 years. He adopted that with an supply to mediate within the Kashmir dispute, crossing India’s agency purple line in opposition to third-party mediation.
That led to a heated cellphone name with an irate Modi, who had invested closely in what he believed was a private relationship with Trump. Modi argued that the cease-fire was achieved by India and Pakistan’s efforts, not the president’s, incensing Trump. On the similar time, Pakistani officers lavished reward on Trump for the cease-fire, welcomed him to mediate in Kashmir, and nominated him for the Nobel Prize.
Not coincidentally, Trump then imposed 50 p.c tariffs on India for purchasing discounted Russian oil (a coverage that the USA had beforehand inspired and Trump and senior U.S. officers started trash-talking India. In late July, Trump stated that India, which grew at 6.5 p.c in 2024, was a”lifeless financial system”, whereas Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent repeatedly attacked India for “profiteering” from Russian oil.
The bitterness towards India created probabilities for Pakistan. That helps clarify a two-hour lunch between Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Trump in June in addition to a number of Trump conferences with Sharif on the United Nations, the White Home, and on the latest Gaza peace convention in Egypt.
On the similar time, it pushed New Delhi, often cautious of China’s rise, nearer to Beijing. Modi, flaunting his strategic autonomy, was in China final month clasping fingers with Chinese language President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin and planning to enhance financial ties.
Pakistan additionally acquired a extremely favorable commerce package deal out of Trump. Sharif dangled two prizes that the White Home is obsessive about: U.S. rights to develop what Trump says are large oil reserves (Pakistan imports 80 p.c of its oil) and rights to important minerals, for which a U.S. agency has introduced a $500 million funding. Remarkably, Islamabad retains its standing as a “main non-NATO ally” of the USA whereas thickening ties to all three main powers concurrently.
However these triumphs might not be sustainable. For starters, Pakistan’s shiny guarantees of a crypto deal, oil, and significant minerals to the USA could also be largely a mirage. With regard to grease, there could also be no large reserves. ExxonMobil and different oil corporations have explored Pakistani oil, come up dry, and left, and even Pakistani power officers doubt such large-scale commercially recoverable sources.
There is no such thing as a query that Pakistan has substantial important minerals, however most are positioned in Balochistan, the location of intensifying terrorist assaults on authorities targets which have given China pause. U.S. mining operations might be problematic at greatest. Then there may be Pakistan’s adroit multialignment with Moscow and Beijing. How will that fare as great-power competitors intensifies? What would be the destiny of U.S.-Pakistani heat if a few of these vulnerabilities fail to appreciate the promise of the brand new entente?
It’s definitely doable that the souring with India may very well be a Trump bargaining tactic supposed to realize leverage for a commerce deal nonetheless quietly being negotiated. Trump appeared to increase an olive department lately, plaintively saying that he “will at all times be mates with Modi” and that the USA and India share “a really particular relationship.” And Trump stated that in a cellphone name on Oct. 15, Modi pledged to cease shopping for Russian oil, although India denied it.
Not one of the fundamentals of the strategic logic driving U.S. coverage towards India have modified: Strategic competitors with China continues to drive Washington’s nationwide safety and industrial insurance policies. This might be true nonetheless the present commerce warfare—and a doable assembly between Trump and Xi—seems. The thought of India as a counterweight to China and an financial and expertise accomplice has not misplaced its attract for Washington, although Indian anger and resentment on the humiliating snubs will linger.
Pakistan’s diplomacy raises a number of questions on whether or not South Asia’s geopolitics are extra fluid than they’d beforehand appeared or whether or not polarization within the area is continuous. How will Iran, which publicly welcomed the protection pact, react to those new circumstances? Will the accord bolster or erode the fledgling Saudi-Iranian detente?
And never least, how will China reply to the brand new dynamics? Up to now, it has doubled down on its ties to Pakistan whereas welcoming probabilities to make good with New Delhi. For all of the promise of Pakistan’s diplomacy, India and China haven’t resolved underlying territorial and different disputes, India-Pakistan tensions stay excessive, and the Center East, is—properly—nonetheless the scorpion-and-the-frog Center East, the place countless cycles of revenge and missed alternatives are endemic.
However whether or not it lasts or not, Pakistan’s diplomatic offensive deserves due credit score. It has bolstered its strategic posture, diversifying each its assist and commitments whereas injecting extra uncertainty into the geopolitics of South and Southwest Asia.
