Behind New Delhi’s cautious approach to Saudi-Pak pact
New Delhi may be accurate in calculating that Riyadh is hardly keen on signalling hostility to India. Yet it must prepare for an even more adversarial Islamabad
Distilling it down to a rudimentary question, had the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia military pact been in place during Operation Sindoor’s four-day conflict between India and Pakistan, would the Saudis have been obliged to rush to Pakistan’s rescue? The defence agreement is being likened to an “Islamic NATO” because of the clause that states “any aggression against either country shall be considered an act of aggression against both.” This is an echo of Article 5, the collective defence clause of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Now of course, Operation Sindoor is not an act of aggression by India against Pakistan. In much the same way as the Americans took out then al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, India attacked terror bases inside Pakistan as retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. It is Pakistan’s response — sending more than 1,000 armed drones and missiles, including one that was intercepted not far from Delhi — that escalated it into a military conflict.
But, the question persists. Pakistan would have still attempted to present it as an act of aggression; would the Saudis have been forced to bite?
India’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has only strengthened over the past few years. Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s State visit in April saw a plethora of agreements. Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be comfortable with being drawn into any military tensions in the region. The pact appears to be more a signal to Israel than anything else, as well as to the United States — coming as it does a week after Israel bombed targets inside Qatar and Washington either failed or declined to stop this action.
Clearly, the Arab States are displaying their lack of belief in the US as a security stabiliser. The Saudi decision, like so many other geopolitical tremors, has been triggered by the fault lines and seismic shocks of US President Donald Trump’s inchoate foreign policy. And it is one more example of strategic hedging in a world upended by a combination of two factors — America’s declining hegemony and Trump’s undependability and lack of stability.
India’s response to the Pakistan-Saudi military pact was restrained, saying only that it was being seen as a “formalisation” of a long standing arrangement. But that there are national security implications for us was acknowledged. The foreign ministry spokesperson said the government would “study the implications of this development for our national security as well as for regional and global stability”.
India may be spot on in its quiet calculation that the Saudis are hardly keen on signalling hostility to us. And yet, India must prepare for an even more adversarial Islamabad, emboldened as it is likely to be by Riyadh’s hand locked in its hand. Yes, it’s unlikely that Saudi Arabia will want to or need to commit troops and energy to Pakistan’s proxy war against India. Perhaps this will amount to no more than merely symbolic grandstanding.
But Pakistan, shielded by China, funded by the Saudis and invited to lunch by the Americans, may well choose the path of grander delusions. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US has pointed out that the military pact could open the way for Islamabad to purchase American weapons using Saudi funds. The new alliance may also challenge the India-Middle East Economic Corridor, an ambitious counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative that sought to connect India to Europe via Saudi Arabia and other West Asian nations.
And Pakistan’s defence minister Khwaja Asif signalled ambition and intent just hours after the pact was signed with Saudi Arabia, by declaring that the doors are not closed to other Arab nations who may want to join the alliance.
Pakistan, a theocracy, is using two cards here — its possession of a nuclear weapon and its Muslim majority identity to call for a larger coalition. “I think it’s a fundamental right of the countries and people here, particularly the Muslim population, to together defend their region, countries and nations”, Asif is quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. Earlier this month Pakistan’s deputy PM told Al Jazeera that Pakistan, as part of the Ummah (the global Muslim community bound together by religion), would “discharge its duty”.
So India should not be surprised if Pakistan welds its policy of State-sponsored terrorism with nuclear blackmail and religious rhetoric to forge a more shrill response towards India in the months to come.
That trade talks have resumed between India and the US, and Trump has extended an olive branch to Modi is one headache less for India’s diplomats to grapple with. And yet, where the trade deal finally lands is anybody’s guess. As is Trump’s blow-hot, blow-cold volatility.
The next few months will need cold resolve, clever tactics, artistic trapeze walking and some big ideas. India has shown how that worked well with Trump’s tantrums, by flexing New Delhi’s autonomy at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China last month with the PM’s interactions with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, while refusing to get drawn into a wrangling match with Trump’s boorish aides. More of that, please.
And from a national security lens, a near-permanent state of war-readiness.
Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views expressed are personal
