The four most militarily powerful Muslim-majority nations—Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Egypt—are aligning based on strategic calculation rather than religious affinity. This development signals the emergence of a weaker America in the Middle East and a reordering of the great-power competition between the U.S. and China.
Ricardo Martins
The Real Strategic Interests Behind Each Member
Each country possesses distinct motivations for participating in the alliance. Analyzing their respective capabilities (as discussed in Part 1) and strategic interests is essential for assessing the potential longevity and outcomes of this pact.
This transformation carries substantial geopolitical implications that are unlikely to be reversed by even the most significant U.S. military interventions
Türkiye is engaging in what Chatham House describes as “opportunistic hedging.” By reaching out to organizations such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Türkiye seeks not only alternatives to alliances like NATO, but also increased leverage within them. Following its exclusion from the F-35 program in 2019 due to the acquisition of Russia’s S-400 system, Ankara aims to establish strategic partnerships that diminish its reliance on American approval. The KAAN fighter agreement with Saudi Arabia exemplifies this approach: if Riyadh acquires a fifth-generation fighter from Türkiye without American congressional oversight, it could fundamentally alter the political economy of U.S. defense exports. Additionally, Türkiye aims to deter Israeli military activity, particularly in response to Israeli leaders characterizing “Türkiye as the next Iran,” which Ankara interprets as a significant strategic warning.
Saudi Arabia is seeking strategic insurance. According to one analyst, Saudi Arabia enhanced its longstanding military relationship with Pakistan in 2025 to “complement the US’s decreasing Gulf deterrence and to contain Israel’s rising military assertiveness in the Middle East.” For Riyadh, this approach provides redundancy. While Saudi Arabia continues to value its relationship with the United States, it is simultaneously cultivating partnerships that mitigate its vulnerability to changes in U.S. policy. Notably, Riyadh has also engaged Pakistan to balance Türkiye’s expanding influence, incorporating Islamabad as a counterweight to Ankara.
Egypt‘s participation is influenced by its economic dependence on Gulf states and a strong belief in the existential importance of Red Sea security. Cairo receives approximately $1.5 billion annually in U.S. military aid, historically linked to its peace treaty with Israel. However, Egyptian policymakers increasingly regard Israel as an unreliable neighbor whose future actions may not align with Egypt’s interests. Recent conflicts in Gaza and Israeli actions in Lebanon and Syria have significantly shifted both public and elite opinion in Egypt. President El-Sisi also perceives an opportunity to reassert Egypt’s traditional leadership role in the Arab world, a position held during Nasser’s era and sought ever since.
Pakistan is broadening its strategic identity beyond South Asia. Its involvement in the defense pact aligns with the broader U.S. policy of “burden sharing.” As noted, “The US has essentially told Saudi Arabia to take the lead on the Palestinian issue, given its position as a key Arab power.” This directive led Saudi Arabia to seek additional partners, including Türkiye. Concerned about Türkiye’s increasing influence, Riyadh incorporated Pakistan as a balancing force against both Türkiye and Iran. “That’s how Pakistan became part of the broader regional architecture.” Through this arrangement, Pakistan gains financial support, increased diplomatic influence, and enhanced strategic stature. Its role as host of the US-Iran talks has further established Pakistan as an indispensable regional mediator.
The Pakistani Nuclear Umbrella: Does It Cover All Members?
This issue remains highly sensitive. A senior Saudi official informed Reuters that “this is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means,” yet did not explicitly reference nuclear sharing. This marks the first military pact between an Arab Gulf state and a nuclear power. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif initially suggested the possibility of nuclear sharing but subsequently retracted this statement, denying such provisions. The resulting ambiguity has fueled speculation and left the precise terms of the agreement unclear.
Practical analysis indicates significant geographic limitations for Türkiye, but substantial coverage for Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s Shaheen-II missile has a range of 1,500 km, while the Shaheen-III extends to 2,750 km; both are capable of reaching any target in Iran, directly addressing Riyadh’s security concerns. As Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and now head of the U.S./Middle East Project, observes, the critical issue may not be whether Pakistan’s deterrent explicitly covers Saudi Arabia, but whether Tehran perceives it as such, given that deterrence operates as much on psychological grounds as on physical capabilities.
The nuclear issue is both technical and political. Providing a genuine nuclear umbrella necessitates forward-deployed delivery systems, integrated command-and-control infrastructure, and a willingness to risk nuclear retaliation on behalf of an ally. No nuclear power has extended such a guarantee to a non-NATO Middle Eastern state. The closest precedent is the American nuclear umbrella over Japan, South Korea, and Europe, which required decades of institutional alliance-building—an achievement not yet realized in the Saudi-Pakistani relationship.
Is This a ‘Muslim NATO’? Or a Challenge to America’s Security Umbrella?
The term “Islamic NATO,” frequently used in media discourse, is a mischaracterization. The participating countries have explicitly rejected this comparison. Rather than replicating NATO’s deep integration or mutual defense guarantees, the pact aims to establish a flexible, regionally controlled security framework.
Turkish sources told Middle East Eye that the agreement “would not mirror the guarantees and commitments of NATO” but would instead serve as “a security platform to enable greater cooperation in the defense industry.” Türkiye remains a NATO member and has no intention of leaving the alliance. A formal collective defense treaty with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt would create potential conflicts with Article 5 obligations.
For comparison, NATO has an integrated military command (SACEUR), conducts regular large-scale joint exercises, maintains formal nuclear-sharing arrangements (such as B61 bombs in five countries), and identifies a specific adversary. In contrast, the quadrilateral framework lacks these features; its only formal mutual defense provision is the bilateral Saudi-Pakistan SMDA, rather than a multilateral treaty.
The primary challenge posed by this pact is to American influence, rather than to military capability. While the United States encourages Gulf states to assume greater responsibility for their own defense, it remains wary of security networks that diminish Washington’s traditional leverage. The KAAN fighter agreement is of particular concern to U.S. officials; if Riyadh acquires advanced jets from Türkiye without U.S. approval, it could disrupt the established business and political dynamics of American defense exports in the region.
Washington Reaction
The Trump administration is likely to adopt a pragmatic rather than principled approach to the quadrilateral framework. It has encouraged Gulf states to increase defense spending and reduce reliance on American troops, objectives that the quadrilateral framework appears to support.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt praised Pakistan, saying it had been an “incredible” mediator in the US-Iran talks and noting that this was “important” to the president. Washington is not treating the framework as a hostile act. It is treating it as a useful burden-sharing measure, at least publicly. The friction is more specific: Türkiye’s talks with Saudi Arabia on the KAAN sparked US pushback, with Washington expressing concern about the transfer of advanced aerospace technology to the Kingdom. The KAAN program uses some Western-origin subsystems, and American officials have signaled that joint production with Saudi Arabia could trigger export control restrictions.
The United States’ primary concern extends beyond arms transfers; it centers on the potential erosion of longstanding levers of influence. Historically, these four countries have been managed through defense agreements, financial aid, and export controls. However, if they are now able to supply each other with military capabilities, these traditional pressure points lose effectiveness, thereby diminishing Washington’s capacity to influence regional outcomes.
The Greater Israel Project
In a broader geopolitical context, Daniel Levy observes that the concept of a “greater Israel” extends beyond territorial expansion. It involves projecting Israeli hard-power dominance across the region by ensuring that neighboring states are either destabilized and fragmented or rendered dependent through vulnerability. The attacks on Iran were intended not primarily for regime change, but to induce state collapse and chaos, thereby eliminating any counterbalance to Israeli regional dominance.
According to this logic, the Gulf states became collateral targets: by involving U.S. forces in strikes against Iran from Gulf bases, Israel ensured that Iran would retaliate against the Gulf, thereby weakening these states and prompting them to seek security guarantees from Israel, as demonstrated by the UAE. As Levy states, Israel is attempting to foster Gulf dependencies on itself, including the establishment of corridors for transporting Gulf oil through Israeli ports.
The characterization of “Türkiye as the next Iran,” as articulated by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, reflects a similar logic: any regional power with the potential to establish an alternative security architecture must be isolated before it can consolidate its position.
This evolving perception of threat has contributed to the unification of these four otherwise divergent nations. The regional sense of insecurity has shifted significantly, with much of the Arab world now viewing Israel as the principal destabilizing force. This transformation carries substantial geopolitical implications that are unlikely to be reversed by even the most significant U.S. military interventions. The emerging regional security pact among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Egypt represents a development that demands close observation, as well as attention to the role of China in the background.
Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics
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