Pakistan-Saudi Defence Agreement: Uncertainty and Strategic Vagueness Resurface
Summary
The Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), signed by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in September 2025, was presented as a landmark moment in bilateral relations, formalizing decades of informal security cooperation between the two nations. However, the agreement faces its first significant test amid Operation Epic Fury, launched in February 2026, during which Iranian drone and missile strikes on Saudi infrastructure and threats to the Strait of Hormuz have created precisely the security scenarios the SMDA was designed to address. Despite these developments, Pakistan has maintained a deliberately ambiguous public stance, neither committing to operational support for Riyadh nor clarifying the practical terms of the agreement under active conflict conditions. This pattern of hesitation echoes Pakistan's 2015 refusal to deploy forces in support of Saudi Arabia's Yemen campaign and subsequent diplomatic tensions during the Imran Khan era, which collectively damaged bilateral trust. A deeper structural problem underlies these episodes, as Pakistan consistently fails to clearly articulate or strategically leverage the security value it offers, entering major defence agreements without extracting proportional economic, diplomatic, or strategic concessions in return.
Key Takeaways
- 1. Pakistan's strategic ambiguity during Operation Epic Fury signals a recurring failure to translate defence commitments into concrete operational postures when tested under real conflict conditions
- 2. The SMDA's credibility is at serious risk, as Saudi policymakers are acutely aware of Pakistan's hesitation and domestic constraints, including its significant Shia population and Iranian border proximity
- 3. Pakistan has a documented history of underdelivering on Gulf security expectations, most notably its 2015 refusal to contribute forces to the Yemen campaign, creating lasting diplomatic damage
- 4. Islamabad consistently undersells its strategic value by entering major security agreements without sufficiently leveraging them to secure durable economic, military, or diplomatic benefits in return
- 5. The broader Gulf security environment, destabilized by Iranian aggression and reduced confidence in American security guarantees, makes Pakistan's ambiguous positioning increasingly costly to regional alliance credibility