By Ayesha Khalid Chaudhry, September 2025
On 17 September 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed their Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA). The promise was simple but sweeping: any aggression against one will be treated as aggression against both. For two countries that had long cooperated informally on security matters, the formalisation of this partnership marked a striking shift.
The pact immediately stirred debate. What does it actually mean? How binding is it? Can it change the balance of power in the Gulf and South Asia?
The agreement itself has not been made public. There were few official statements. The pact was described as defensive by Pakistan’s Foreign Office. The Saudi Press Agency said it would strengthen deterrence. The phrase ‘attack on one is an attack on both’ was repeated by both, but neither provided further details. Both repeated the line that attack on one is an attack on both but neither gave details about how it would work in practice.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif narrowed the ambiguity. He stated that there were ‘no exceptions’. When asked if nuclear weapons were off the table he bluntly replied, ‘Whatever defence capabilities are available in our arsenal... there are no limits,’. He went on to say that if other Gulf states wanted to join the pact, it could be expanded to include them. In one stroke, the agreement was transformed from a vague cooperation to a collective defence treaty.
This language used in official press releases made it sound like NATO. The Minister also referred to it as ‘NATO-like.’ However, the distinctions are pronounced. Allies are required by Article 5 of NATO to consider an attack on one as an attack on all. However, it does not require each member to respond in the same way. Every state has the right to ‘take such action as it deems necessary.’ NATO’s strength has been its adaptability. This collective defence clause in Article 5 has allowed NATO to endure for many years. After 9/11, some allies sent combat forces, others contributed intelligence or logistics. Solidarity was clear, but no one was forced into commitments beyond their capacity.
There is not much room for such discretion in the SMDA as it is publicly stated. The Minister decided to phrase it as ‘no exceptions, no limits.’ While that might reassure Riyadh, it also raises expectations that Islamabad might find difficult to live up to. Where NATO’s power comes from flexibility that allows for political manoeuvring, the SMDA at least in rhetoric portrays itself as absolute commitment.
The irony is that a bilateral pact between an oil-rich monarchy and an economically fragile but nuclear-armed state is being publicly cast as more absolute than NATO, often described as the most successful alliance of the modern era. There are two possible interpretations. The first is that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia genuinely seek to bind themselves without caveats, pursuing a form of absolute deterrence in an unstable region. The other is that the rhetoric is stronger than the reality. The SMDA may in practice resemble NATO’s Article 5, with discretion preserved behind the scenes while public language is designed to signal resolve and intimidate adversaries. In either case, the outcome is the same: both nations have changed how the region views them by announcing no exceptions, no limits.
However, there is still one issue. The text of the treaty has never been made public. The promise that both sides are attempting to convey may even be weakened by this secrecy, which breeds uncertainty and speculation. Strong alliances are usually transparent about their commitments.
NATO’s credibility comes not just from Article 5 but from the fact that it is publicly visible. Riyadh and Islamabad run the risk of appearing less serious if the SMDA text is kept secret, and other countries might write it off as being shallow.
Whether the pact strengthens deterrence or creates new vulnerabilities will only become clear in a future crisis. The wider risks and opportunities for Pakistan, and how the pact plays out across the Gulf and South Asia are questions I take up in a follow-up article.
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