By Alberto Cossu
The Middle East is undergoing a reshaping of its security architecture. The trilateral defense agreement signed in August 2026 by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, known as the Mecca Pact, is a significant indication of this transformation. Yet its meaning cannot be inferred from an assumed common stance against Israel or the United States.
The region is not simply regrouping around a new imperial center: deterrence agreements, industrial networks and connectivity projects are overlapping, often backed by the same countries but oriented toward different goals. The thesis of this article is that the future distribution of power will depend on the ability to integrate these dimensions, rather than solely on the strength of military alliances. The test is not theoretical: the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia and the effects of the 2026 conflict involving Iran are putting security guarantees and trade corridors under strain at the same time.
Any rigorous analysis must first distinguish the legal content of the agreements from the intentions attributed to their signatories. The Mecca Pact, signed on August 7, 2026 and whose details became known the following October, when it was sent to the Turkish Parliament, has sixteen articles. It regards an external armed attack on one party as an attack on all and commits the parties to use every necessary means to eliminate threats to sovereignty, territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders. It provides for political-military coordination, intelligence sharing, logistical support, industrial cooperation, a committee made up of the foreign and defense ministers of the three countries, and a secretariat based in Saudi Arabia, whose first secretary-general will be the retired Pakistani general Nauman Mahmood. The agreement has a ten-year term. The agreement names no enemy state. The ratification clause also reminds us that signature does not automatically mean the system is fully operational. [1][2]
That the Pact does not identify an adversary does not mean it lacks a deterrent function. Rather, its deterrent role must be understood in the light of national interests. For Saudi Arabia, the vulnerability of its energy facilities, the security of the Gulf and the Red Sea, and the pressure exerted by Iranian capabilities and regional militias are structural factors. For Turkey, strategic projection, access to defense markets and the consolidation of an autonomous position within NATO also weigh heavily. For Pakistan, the relationship with Riyadh is central, the value of military cooperation and recognition of a role extending beyond South Asia. These motivations can converge without merging into a single doctrine.
The distinction is essential: the text of the agreement designates no enemy, but the strategic perceptions of the signatories do not coincide. Riyadh is primarily concerned with the risks posed by Iran and the armed networks linked to it; Ankara regards Israeli action in the Levant and in Syria as a growing concern; Islamabad concentrates its security planning on the confrontation with India. These are different national priorities, which can coexist within a defensive agreement without automatically turning into a common strategy against a specific state.
Any reading that attributes a single predetermined adversary to the Pact therefore faces an obvious difficulty: it has to explain why Riyadh should subordinate its security priorities to Turkish ones, and why Islamabad should take on commitments incompatible with its own strategic agenda. It would be equally mistaken, however, to describe the Pact as an exclusively anti-Iranian alliance. Threats can be perceived differently and change over time. Tehran’s position on the agreement, even if it translated into diplomatic openings, would not in itself demonstrate either a strategic convergence or the disappearance of regional rivalries.
Implementation is the real test, against the backdrop of the Houthi offensive. On October 5, at the emergency meeting of the committee in Riyadh, the three countries rejected any attack on the Kingdom’s security and territorial integrity, without naming the Houthis, and decided on the rapid deployment of forces and capabilities in Saudi territory, without specifying their role. [2]
On October 8 the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, reiterated that this is a defensive agreement and that Turkey will not send troops into another country’s territory to carry out attacks. [3] On 20 October Reuters reported that the Pact had been sent to the Turkish Parliament for ratification; a Turkish official indicated that Ankara’s contribution should be limited to equipment, intelligence sharing and weapons systems. [4] Since the Turkish Constitution requires separate parliamentary authorization for any deployment of troops abroad, ratifying the Pact is not equivalent to an operational green light; Pakistan, for its part, has not sought parliamentary approval, although its institutions have declared their support. [1][4]
The case shows the distance between a general assistance clause and concrete decisions on the use of force. Governments retain different constitutional constraints, threat perceptions and political costs. Speaking of a fully fledged “Islamic NATO” would therefore be premature.
Alongside the Mecca Pact there is a second layer, often more promising in structural terms. On October 21, 2026 Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar and Indonesia signed the Badr memorandum in Doha, at the level of defense ministers, focused on industrial cooperation, technical training, and research and development in the defense sector. [5] This is not a replica of a collective-defense clause. The partial overlap of participants (Turkey and Pakistan appear in both arrangements, Saudi Arabia only in the Pact, Qatar and Indonesia only in the memorandum) points instead to the emergence of overlapping frameworks of cooperation: some states share military guarantees, others take part in industrial and technological programs. Their degree of integration will depend on investment, intellectual property, interoperability, joint production and access to critical components.
This industrial dimension deserves particular attention. A network of defense industries can create mutual dependencies, common standards and shared operational capabilities. But it can also generate new asymmetries, especially if one partner controls essential technologies, software, sensors or command systems. Turkey’s centrality cannot be measured simply by counting the signatories of its agreements: one must verify which capabilities it really controls, which components it imports, and to what extent its partners are willing to depend on its industrial base. An organizing power is judged not only by its ability to convene summits but also by its capacity to sustain cooperation.
Security and industry define the first layer; the second is connectivity. The two are not separate: the sea lanes and energy facilities the Pact seeks to protect are the same ones on which the corridors discussed below depend. This is where a purely military reading shows its limits.
The other major regional framework, often treated separately, is the one promoted by the United States through the Abraham Accords and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. The normalization agreements opened the prospect of closer relations between Israel and some Arab countries, in particular the Emirates. The IMEC, announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, gave that prospect a geoeconomic dimension. It is not an agreement legally derived from the Abraham Accords, but it shares a strategic premise: the possibility of turning normalization and regional cooperation into material networks of trade, energy and communication. [6]
The original IMEC memorandum envisages an eastern corridor between India and the Gulf and a northern one from the Gulf to Europe, with links through the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. The design integrates maritime and rail transport, digital cables, energy connections and potentially hydrogen infrastructure. [6] It is therefore not simply a logistical alternative to the Suez Canal: it aims to build a system of interdependencies that strengthens India’s role, the platform function of the Gulf monarchies and European access to Asian markets.
Within this geography, Saudi Arabia occupies an irreplaceable position. Saudi territory guarantees the overland continuity of the planned route, and Riyadh has the financial and political resources to shape its realization. Saudi-Israeli normalization is not formally required by the 2023 memorandum, but it would be a powerful enabling factor for cross-border passage, investment and the stability of the Levantine segment. Saudi Arabia has not joined the Abraham Accords; for precisely this reason its future choice is a central variable and not an established outcome. The Middle East Institute stressed in 2026 how far regional instability has slowed the original configuration of the IMEC. [7]
The project’s current status warrants caution. According to some accounts, the war in Gaza froze the rail segment through Jordan and Israel, while the 2026 conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, hit the maritime link through the Gulf: a corridor designed to reduce exposure to chokepoints depends in part on the very waters that regional instability has repeatedly closed.
The initiative would now be advancing through bilateral arrangements and through components less tied to the contested rail route, such as digital cables, green hydrogen and electricity interconnections. [9] At the same time, on October 6 the French special envoy for the IMEC, Gérard Mestrallet, stated that Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Greece and Cyprus have expressed interest in joining and that a ministerial meeting before the end of the year will consider expanding the corridor’s perimeter, a decision that rests with the eight original signatories; he also pointed to tensions linked to Iran and Gaza to argue for the need for multiple routes. [10]
This reveals a strategic tension that a purely military analysis cannot capture. Turkey has objected to its exclusion from the IMEC route, because a link between India, the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean could reduce its function as a privileged passage between Asia and Europe. Ankara supports the Development Road, an initiative promoted by Iraq and formally backed also by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates through the quadrilateral memorandum signed in Baghdad on April 22, 2024. The project aims to connect Iraq’s major Gulf port of al-Faw to the Turkish border through some 1,200 kilometres of new or upgraded rail and road infrastructure, continuing toward European markets through Anatolia. The estimated cost is around $17 billion. It is not a route that is already fully operational: financing, stability in Iraq, route security and coordination between Baghdad and Erbil remain decisive conditions. The project predates the announcement of the IMEC and cannot be reduced to a Turkish response, but the competition between the two heightens its geopolitical value. [8]
The IMEC and the Development Road are not equivalent routes: the former connects India to Europe through the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel; the latter links the Gulf to Europe through Iraq and Turkey. They can diversify connections and serve partly different markets or flows, without ceasing to compete for investment, traffic, digital infrastructure and regulatory influence. The United Arab Emirates take part in both initiatives: a concrete example of the possibility of supporting several networks at once. Riyadh can therefore cooperate with Ankara on defense while pursuing a different connectivity project with Washington, New Delhi and European partners. Military convergence does not automatically imply identical geo-economic interests.
India is central to understanding this transformation. New Delhi seeks more resilient routes to Europe, stronger technological cooperation with Israel and deeper ties with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. For India the IMEC is an instrument of economic and strategic projection, not merely a piece of trade infrastructure. Pakistan’s participation in the Mecca Pact introduces an element to monitor, but it does not warrant turning the agreement into an anti-Indian coalition. India’s relations with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are too important to be reduced to its rivalry with Islamabad.
China’s role also calls for a broader perspective. Beijing maintains economic relations with the Gulf monarchies, strategic ties with Pakistan and energy and political interests with Iran. The Belt and Road Initiative offers an alternative frame of reference, even if individual projects respond to different financial and territorial conditions. The competition therefore does not pit two monolithic blocs against each other. Many regional actors seek to benefit at once from Chinese investment, American guarantees, Turkish cooperation and access to Indian and European markets.
This multiplicity of relationships is often described as strategic autonomy. The term is useful only if it goes beyond rhetoric. Autonomy is measured by the ability to diversify military suppliers, keep alternative routes accessible, negotiate financing and preserve room for choice during crises. From this point of view the Mecca Pact could increase Saudi bargaining power toward the United States without necessarily replacing its guarantees. Similarly, the IMEC could strengthen integration with Western partners without preventing Riyadh from cooperating with Ankara or Beijing.
For Europe, and Italy in particular, the stakes are substantial. The IMEC proposes a link between Indian production chains, the logistical hubs of the Gulf and the Mediterranean. But its implementation will depend on political stability, the completion of the missing rail links, customs rules, the bankability of projects and the protection of infrastructure. European diplomacy cannot limit itself to backing a geopolitical label: it must assess which segments are actually achievable and their compatibility with the commercial and industrial interests of its partners.
The central challenge, therefore, is the relationship between security and connectivity. A military pact can reduce uncertainty and facilitate investment, but it can also harden rivalries if it is interpreted as an instrument of exclusion. An economic corridor can create incentives for cooperation, but it does not automatically eliminate political conflicts. The stability of the new Middle East will depend on keeping both possibilities open: credible deterrence and sufficiently inclusive economic integration.
Three criteria can be used to assess future developments. The first is the actual ratification and implementation of the Mecca Pact: which bodies will function, which forces will be made available and subject to what limits, starting from the outcome of the Turkish parliamentary vote and the evolution of the Yemeni and Red Sea theaters. The second is the transformation of the Badr memorandum into funded and technologically significant industrial programs. The third is the progress of the IMEC, especially on the Saudi-Jordanian-Israeli segment, where politics and infrastructure condition each other. None of these outcomes can be taken for granted.
The Middle East therefore does not seem destined to replace one dependency with another. Instead, a negotiated order is taking shape, in which regional states seek multiple assurances and keep competing options open. Turkey has real capabilities and a recognisable strategic ambition, but it cannot assume that military cooperation gives it control over Saudi economic choices. Saudi Arabia is at once Ankara’s security partner and an essential node of the Indo-Mediterranean project promoted by the United States. India is not a spectator but a potential beneficiary and promoter of a new economic geography; China remains a structural presence.
The contest over the Middle East’s emerging order will not be settled by identifying a common enemy, but by the ability to turn security guarantees into stability and connectivity projects into working infrastructure. The Mecca Pact, which identifies no specific adversary, and the Abraham Accords are not necessarily incompatible; nor are the IMEC and the Development Road mutually exclusive by definition. The latter, an Iraqi initiative backed by Turkey, Qatar and the Emirates, could add a Gulf-Europe route through Anatolia to the Indo-Mediterranean one of the IMEC. Their coexistence will, however, be marked by competition for investment, trade flows, geographical centrality and political influence. Saudi Arabia remains the hinge between regional security and India-Europe links. The durability of this emerging order will depend on the ability to reconcile divergent national interests without turning that plurality into a new rigid confrontation. – Notes and Sources
Author: Alberto Cossu – International Management Consultant, collaborating with research institutes and government agencies on strategic and geopolitical analysis. He is a Geopolitical Analyst at Vision & Global Trends and a regular contributor to the journal Geopolitica. His work is also published in prominent Italian policy and defense outlets, including Airpress – Formiche, Analisi Difesa, and Digit-export, the online magazine of the Union of Chambers of Commerce of Lombardy. His research focuses on global geopolitical dynamics, with particular emphasis on the United States, India, Russia, China, and the Middle East, as well as on the strategic implications of innovation and emerging technologies in the evolving international order.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).