On September 17, in Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA).
The Context of Pakistan-India Relations
The conclusion of the SMDA, signed under the general slogan “Your enemy is our enemy,” immediately provokes the question: Does this mean that the KSA now faces the prospect of being drawn into the complex set of Pakistan’s disputes with India, disputes that periodically take the form of armed conflict? The most recent of these—short-lived but intense—broke out as recently as early May of this year.
Moreover, on the very day of the SMDA signing, during a public event of the Public Relations Service of the Pakistani Army, there were statements about the country’s “inseparability” from Kashmir. Clearly, such sharp wording is very much the result of the lingering “aftertaste” of that recent armed clash. Let us not forget, however, that it was precisely the leadership of the Pakistani Army that initiated attempts in both 2017 and 2021 to improve relations with India.
Today, however, the overall state of Pakistan-India relations looks bleak, almost hopeless. Pakistan has stepped up accusations against India of supporting a nearly unbroken chain of terrorist attacks carried out by separatist movements in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In turn, similar accusations—though directed the other way—are sent from New Delhi regarding terrorist attacks in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
When concluding this Agreement with one of the parties to a potentially nuclear conflict, did Riyadh take such circumstances into account, as well as other similar factors? In New Delhi, they are expecting an affirmative answer to this question, reminding observers of the until very recently friendly character of bilateral relations. Incidentally, those ties were helped along by a visit from the same Mohammed bin Salman to India in early 2019. The positive nature of Riyadh’s relations with both Islamabad and New Delhi enabled Saudi Arabia to offer mediation services for ending the above-mentioned conflict. In that sense, if any mediation was present at all in this case, it came from the KSA and a number of other Gulf states. So the U.S. president is claiming credit where it is not due. He already has enough to his name.
Signing the SMDA in the Context of U.S. and Chinese Regional Policy
Meanwhile, there is evidence that the unexpected news of the Pakistani-Saudi Mutual Defense Agreement raised eyebrows not only in New Delhi but also in Washington.
What should concern the United States even more, however, is the looming prospect of a sharp strengthening of the position of its key geopolitical rival, China. This applies to the subregion as a whole and, in particular, to the Persian Gulf. “Technically,” this will occur through Pakistan, with which Beijing has maintained quasi-allied relations. It is worth noting that after the current administration under D. Trump came to power in Washington, Islamabad initially sent signals of intent to restore bilateral relations, at least partially, to the level of the Cold War era.
Yet this was only a brief detour in Pakistan’s political course, as the country quickly realized what risks it would face by flirting with Beijing’s main geopolitical opponent. All the more so because during that same May conflict, Chinese weapons purchased earlier—above all, fighter jets and air-to-air missiles—performed exceptionally well.
In recent months, therefore, Pakistan’s leadership has clearly been “playing back,” demonstrating to Beijing its commitment to the further and comprehensive development of bilateral relations, describing them with the well-established term “ironclad.” This phrase was once again repeated during back-to-back visits to China by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari in September of this year. Among other things, the sides agreed to launch the next stage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, as well as Chinese investments of $8.5 billion in various sectors of Pakistan’s economy.
At the same time, the “restoration of the status quo” in China-Pakistan relations means that in implementing the recently announced intention by D. Trump to “return to Afghan Bagram,” it is unlikely that the transit route through Pakistan—once made available to the United States during the now ingloriously ended “War on Terror”—can be used again. Even more so since the very purpose of this “return to Bagram” is openly anti-Chinese in character. For the same reason, Moscow is unlikely to provide such services either, despite its intention to improve relations with Washington. One remaining potential option is Iran’s Chabahar Port, from which Afghanistan can (eventually) be reached via a railway now under construction. But Iran is regarded in the United States as, to put it mildly, a hostile country. And as of September 29 of this year, on the initiative of D. Trump, Chabahar has been removed from the list of ports exempted from U.S. sanctions.
It is difficult to say whether the current American president realizes that India is involved in the modernization of this port, regarding the project as key for developing ties—not only with Iran but also with Afghanistan—while bypassing Pakistan. In other words, New Delhi is once again receiving a “gift” from D. Trump, who had already struck at it with the cudgel of a “tariff war.”
The recent world hegemon is behaving rather clumsily on the international stage. And yet clarity in understanding what is happening there is more necessary than ever today, at a time when new factors of uncertainty are appearing one after another in the global political space.
Among the most noticeable of these is the Mutual Defense Agreement concluded between Pakistan and the KSA.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on issues of the Asia-Pacific region
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