The Mecca Pact and the rise of strategic hedging

The mutual defence agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan in Mecca on August 7 could mark an important turning point in the geopolitics of West Asia. Its significance lies not merely in its provision that an attack upon one member will be considered an attack upon all three, but in what it reveals about the changing calculations of three of the most important states in the Muslim world. For decades, West Asian, especially the Gulf, security has depended overwhelmingly upon the United States. The new pact does not terminate that dependence. Saudi Arabia remains closely tied to Washington militarily, Türkiye is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Pakistan retains an important, if complicated, relationship with the U.S. which has been recently strengthened because of the personal chemistry between U.S. President Donald Trump and Field Marshal Asim Munir. What the agreement suggests instead is a growing determination among regional powers to supplement external security guarantees with arrangements of their own.