Four militaries are discussing a regional security framework, but their divisions may turn collective defense into another instrument of bloc politics.
The Cradle
The proposed arrangement would bring together three regional powers in an unprecedented defense partnership.
Just over two months after the trilateral draft became public, Egypt joined the foreign ministers of Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan in Riyadh on 19 March on the sidelines of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit for their first quadrilateral consultation.
Although Cairo had not formally joined the proposed defense pact, its inclusion suggested that the three-way initiative could be developing into a wider Muslim security framework amid regional war, attacks on Gulf infrastructure, and growing doubts over Washington’s security guarantees.
The question is what Riyadh wants the arrangement to defend, who will direct it, and whether a force presented as regional autonomy could sharpen West Asia’s existing divisions.
Riyadh’s security wager
Pakistan’s Minister for Defense Production Raza Hayat Harraj told Reuters that the proposal was separate from the Saudi–Pakistani Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed in September 2025. He said it had been in the pipeline for 10 months, although all three governments still had to reach a consensus. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed the talks but stressed that no agreement had been signed.
Reports following the March meeting said the war with Iran and attacks on Gulf states ranked high in deliberations. Fidan, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, and Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar considered deeper security cooperation.
Analysts argue that the framework could strengthen Riyadh's regional position while redistributing the kingdom's security burden.
Zahir Shah Sherazi, executive vice president of BOL News, tells The Cradle that the structure would allow the kingdom to spread its military risks and add political weight to its deterrence. Turkiye’s defense-industrial capacity, Pakistan’s military and nuclear capability, and Saudi Arabia’s financial and diplomatic influence would reinforce one another.
“In addition, this framework will enable the kingdom to counterbalance, to some extent, the erosion of its legitimacy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, reinforcing its claim to regional leadership,” he says.
The makings of a wider bloc
No government has announced a quadrilateral treaty, and its prospective mandate remains unclear. Yet the pace of consultations suggests that the proposal has moved beyond media speculation.
The Cradle contacted Pakistan’s former prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, and Harraj for further details about the March meeting in Riyadh, but both declined to comment.
Aimen Jamil, a journalist and researcher covering West Asian affairs and Pakistan’s foreign policy, says the sustained strategic exchanges between the original three states – and now Egypt – indicate that the discussions are advancing.
“While a formal announcement is yet to be made, there are credible signs that such a defense cooperation framework is on the verge of being concluded,” she tells The Cradle.
Jamil says the initiative is intended to strengthen collective defense, improve interoperability, and increase self-sufficiency. Its importance will rest on whether those objectives produce a binding mutual-defense commitment, a standing force, or merely a mechanism for consultation and joint exercises.
Dr Ghulam Ali, a senior research fellow at the Center for Global Peace and Strategic Studies in Taiwan, says the proposed force remains in its infancy. Yet he points to the Saudi–Pakistani pact as evidence that proposals dismissed as rumor can quickly acquire institutional form.
“Given the transformation in the Gulf and the West Asia, which is shifting the balance of power, altering alliances, and reducing conflict, the core of this agreement will primarily be defense-oriented,” Ali says.
Pakistan’s existing commitment to Saudi Arabia gives the proposal military substance. Their September 2025 pact treats aggression against either state as aggression against both. In 2026, Pakistan deployed around 8,000 troops, roughly 16 fighter aircraft – mostly JF-17s – drone units, and a Chinese-made HQ-9 air-defense system. Reuters reported that Riyadh financed the deployment, which Pakistani personnel operate.
Islamabad has warned Tehran that attacks on Saudi installations could trigger its treaty obligations. It has also warned Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government against threatening Saudi territory or obstructing Red Sea shipping, asserting its right to defend maritime interests. Such commitments could pull Islamabad into confrontations far beyond South Asia.
The Iran fault line
Tehran has welcomed the principle of a collective Muslim security system that excludes the US and Israel, but Iran has so far received little place in the framework now taking shape.
As regional tensions intensified, Iranian officials again called on West Asian states to assume responsibility for their own security and establish a pact free of US and Israeli participation.
“The time has come to establish a security alliance without the presence of the United States and Israel,” Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a video message addressed to the Arab and Islamic world on 25 March.
The initiative predates the latest war. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye inaugurated their Trilateral Defense Collaboration platform in Riyadh in August 2023.
At its second meeting in Rawalpindi in January 2024, they discussed defense equipment, technology, research, and how their expertise, finances, and personnel could achieve “shared objectives” and greater self-reliance.
Those objectives appeared more clearly during the Riyadh consultations. Reports that Iranian attacks on oil-producing monarchies dominated the meeting raise the possibility that a structure promoted as Muslim self-reliance could develop an anti-Iranian edge.
Jamil, however, cautions against drawing that conclusion at this stage:
“At this point, I would not describe it as fundamentally anti-Iranian. It will rely a lot on the mission of the alliance, its strategic goals, and how it operates and functions. It is not an anti-Iran coalition so long as it continues to focus on collective defense, maritime security, counterterrorism, and strengthening regional security cooperation.”
She warns that the calculation would change if the alliance adopted a confrontational or exclusionary posture intended to contain Iran or advance the interests of one regional camp over another. Such a course could deepen the geopolitical divisions it claims to manage.
“The question will be whether it fosters inclusive regional stability rather than bloc politics or hegemonic ambitions,” she adds.
Iran may not regard the partnership as an immediate threat, Jamil says, but Tehran will watch how it affects the regional balance and its allies.
The grouping’s origins also expose a lack of unity over Iran. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are bound by mutual defense, while Turkiye and Egypt emphasize political dialogue. The four states have overlapping interests rather than a settled strategic consensus.
Sherazi points to the lack of a common position on Iran as the framework’s central weakness:
“The four members of the proposed West Asia defense force are not united in dealing with Iran. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have not remained neutral due to their bilateral defense agreement signed last year and want Iran to stop targeting the kingdom. Pakistan has expressed military readiness and warned Iran many times.”
Turkiye and Egypt, he adds, have taken a different course and favored negotiations to end the crisis. A security alliance can survive differences among its members, but it cannot function as a credible joint force without agreement on the threat it is being built to confront.
Autonomy beneath a US umbrella
Supporters of the proposed pact have presented it as a possible route toward reducing the US military presence across the oil-producing Persian Gulf states. Iran has repeatedly demanded the closure of US bases in the region, and a capable regional force that eventually displaced foreign troops would answer one of Tehran’s central security demands.
Analysts see little sign that Washington is preparing to leave. The US maintains bases, defense agreements, weapons contracts, and command infrastructure across the Gulf. The new US–Saudi civilian nuclear cooperation agreement underlines those ties, although it faces congressional review and President Donald Trump has sought to condition it on Saudi normalization with Israel.
Ali argues that the emerging regional framework will supplement Washington’s military architecture rather than displace it:
“This pact will not replace the US forces and bases in the Gulf region. The US has even approved a nuclear deal with the KSA. This is a watershed in the West Asia milieu because it is the first time that the US has agreed to enter into a nuclear deal with an Arab Muslim country. Washington is not going to minimize its presence in the West Asia; rather, it is trying to further deepen and consolidate its position and strengthen its strategic reengagement with the GCC countries.”
Jamil is equally cautious about suggestions that the emerging arrangement will make US bases redundant.
“That's too early to conclude. The US has a big military infrastructure and strategic alliances in the region, so it is unlikely that an immediate substitute will be found. But such an approach may, over time, diminish the region’s need for external security services,” she observes.
If the framework prioritizes cooperation, conflict avoidance, and sovereignty without seeking supremacy, she says, it could contribute to long-term stability. Other states may eventually seek links with it across West Asia and South Asia.
The proposed agreement therefore carries two competing futures. It could pool Muslim states’ capabilities and slowly loosen a security order built around foreign bases and US guarantees. It could also leave that order intact while giving Riyadh a new instrument with which to police its neighbors and restore its claim to Arab and Islamic leadership.
The decisive test will not be the number of armies assembled beneath the pact, but whether they are permitted to define regional security for themselves – and whether Iran is treated as part of that region or as the enemy against which it must be organized.
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