The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, Gulf Dynamics, and the Horn of Africa

A Pivotal Shift in Geopolitical Alignment

The signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (the Mecca Agreement) by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif marks a major strategic realignment across the Middle East and South Asia. At its core, the trilateral mutual defence pact establishes a collective security principle: an armed attack against any one of the three signatories is treated as an attack against all three.

This pact formalises a strategic triangle that merges three distinct geopolitical strengths into a unified framework:

Riyadh (Financial Power & Strategic Footprint): Provides immense financial capital, control over critical maritime energy corridors in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and political leadership within the Gulf and Arab world.

Ankara (Defence Tech & NATO Experience): Brings a rapidly expanding defence industrial base—notably advanced drone technology, naval engineering, and precision weaponry—alongside operational experience as NATO’s second-largest military.

Islamabad (Military Manpower & Nuclear Capability): Offers vast, combat-tested military personnel, extensive experience in joint training and intelligence, and the Muslim world’s only established nuclear capability.

The agreement emerges after months of escalating regional volatility and structural shifts in West Asian security. The conflict involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran has led to repeated drone and missile strikes targeting Gulf infrastructure and disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. These developments highlighted the immediate threat to Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification plans and energy security. While Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad remain connected to Western security frameworks, there is a growing impetus across the region to reduce absolute reliance on Washington. The pact reflects a transition toward a regionally driven security architecture capable of greater self-reliance, extending earlier bilateral commitments—most notably the 2025 Saudi–Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) and expanding Turkish–Pakistani defence tech partnerships—into a single, cohesive trilateral bloc.

Redefining Regional Security Architecture

Rather than relying on a single superpower’s security umbrella, regional actors are constructing overlapping, multilateral defence blocs. This shift gives Gulf states greater diplomatic and military leverage when navigating relations with Washington, Beijing, and Moscow.

The agreement commits all three nations to joint military exercises, integrated strategic planning, accelerated defence technology transfers, co-production (unmanned systems, air defence, and naval platforms), and deeper cross-border intelligence sharing.

This creates a formidable collective deterrence framework along Iran’s western flank (Saudi Arabia) and eastern/northern flanks (Pakistan and Türkiye). While Saudi officials emphasize that the agreement is purely defensive, Türkiye’s inclusion—and the scale of combined military power—adds a new variable to Israel’s strategic calculations. New Delhi is also monitoring the development due to the deep integration of Pakistan’s military apparatus with Turkish technology and Saudi capital.

The Makkah Compact represents one of the most consequential realignments in modern Middle Eastern geopolitics. By combining Saudi capital, Turkish defence innovation, and nuclear Pakistan, the three nations have laid the groundwork for a security bloc designed to deter external threats and project collective stability across West Asia.

Impact on the U.S.–Israel–Iran Dynamic

While formally framed as a defensive collective security arrangement, the Makkah Pact introduces structural shifts that alter calculations for Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran alike.

A key vector of the broader regional conflict has seen Iran targeting Gulf infrastructure and hosting proxy strikes through regional militias when targeted by U.S.-Israeli military operations. Under the pact, any direct Iranian strike or escalation against Saudi territory risks drawing in Pakistani and Turkish military capabilities. This creates a collective deterrence line that limits how far escalation can proceed without risking broader regional contagion involving non-Arab states.

Tel Aviv’s military options rely heavily on overflight access, regional intelligence, and implicit coordination with Gulf states. With Türkiye—a sharp critic of Israeli operations in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran—now formally tied to Saudi defence, Israel faces a more restrictive diplomatic and security envelope across the Middle East.

For Washington, the pact highlights a shift from sole security guarantor to potential burden-sharer. The agreement reflects a deliberate move by Riyadh to diversify its defence umbrella beyond absolute dependence on the United States. While U.S. defence planners favor regional allies taking on greater responsibility for deterrence against Iranian aggression, the inclusion of Türkiye (a NATO member often at odds with U.S.-Israeli policy) and Pakistan (a nuclear-armed power) creates a power bloc operating independently of U.S. command structures, diluting Washington’s exclusive leverage over Gulf security.

Iran’s primary leverage during its confrontations with the U.S. and Israel has been the threat of disrupting shipping in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, alongside targeting Gulf oil facilities. The pact raises the cost of this tactic: an attack on Saudi facilities carries the explicit risk of provoking Turkish air assets and Pakistani military forces. Tehran has reacted with caution; while it fears the formation of a hostile security wall along its western and eastern flanks, the non-aggressive stance stated by Ankara and Riyadh leaves room for diplomatic backchannels to prevent the pact from turning into an offensive anti-Iran coalition.

In sum, Saudi Arabia gains a multi-layered security shield without being solely reliant on Western intervention; Iran faces higher costs when pressuring Gulf states; Israel navigates reduced operational flexibility; and the United States sees regional burden-sharing accompanied by a reduction in its monopoly as the sole security guarantor for the Gulf.

Securing the Bab al-Mandeb & Horn of Africa

The strategic footprint of the Makkah Agreement extends beyond the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea corridor, the Bab al-Mandeb strait, and the Horn of Africa.

The Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb choke point are critical economic and security arteries for Saudi Arabia, powering its western seaboard, the Jeddah Islamic Port, and mega-projects like NEOM. Escalating drone and missile barrages alongside Houthi-enforced shipping blockades in the Bab al-Mandeb have exposed Saudi Arabia’s maritime flank. The integration of Turkish naval engineering and Pakistani defence capabilities creates a multi-layered shield over these shipping lanes, raising the cost for non-state actors or regional rivals attempting to disrupt commercial transit.

The Horn of Africa is intrinsically linked to Red Sea security. The Makkah Pact synergizes existing footprints into a stronger posture: supercharging Türkiye’s footprint in Somalia, where it maintains its largest overseas military facility (TurkSom in Mogadishu) alongside a maritime defence deal with the Somali government. Under the pact, Turkish operational infrastructure in the Horn gains financial backing from Saudi Arabia and operational integration with Pakistan, reinforcing Mogadishu’s authority over its maritime domain.

This creates a counterweight to unilateral port arrangements or breakaway enclave recognitions (such as Somaliland or Puntland port concessions) championed by competing regional actors. As Ethiopia seeks commercial and naval outlets to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the presence of a unified Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani security bloc around Somalia and the Bab al-Mandeb forces Addis Ababa to navigate a tighter, multilateral security framework when securing maritime trade corridors.

Furthermore, the pact reshapes broader regional rivalries:

UAE & Coastal Enclaves: Abu Dhabi has historically built footholds across coastal Horn enclaves (Assab, Berbera, Socotra). The Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani alignment establishes a strong counter-axis checking unilateral expansion along the coastline.

Israel: Tel Aviv has sought to expand its maritime monitoring in the Red Sea basin. With Türkiye formally anchoring Saudi Red Sea defences alongside Pakistan, Israel faces a far more restrictive maritime environment in the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandeb.

Sudan & Eritrea: Port Sudan sits at the heart of Red Sea security computations, with both Riyadh and Ankara holding significant stakes in maintaining stability along Sudan’s coast. Eritrea, controlling crucial Red Sea coastline and islands near the Bab al-Mandeb, will likely leverage this alignment to balance regional pressures, aligning its maritime security closer to Saudi-Turkish financial and security incentives.

Operational Ambiguities and Long-Term Viability

Despite comparisons to NATO’s Article 5, analysts highlight critical operational differences: the Makkah Pact currently lacks an integrated command structure, permanent standing headquarters, or institutionalized deployment mechanisms.

Public details remain vague regarding automatic military intervention thresholds, specific troop deployment obligations, or whether the pact covers non-state actor skirmishes. While the three nations share core security interests, Türkiye remains a NATO member with its own foreign policy agenda, Riyadh maintains complex ties with global powers, and Pakistan faces pressing domestic economic and security challenges.

Like many predecessor pacts in regional history, the Makkah Agreement presents a bold framework for collective security whose ultimate test will lie in implementation. Time will tell how this operational camaraderie holds under the pressure of real-world crises across West Asia and the Horn of Africa.

Contributed by Costantinos Berhutesfa