On September 17, 2025, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement in Riyadh. The text’s most striking line—“any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”—moves the two longtime partners from quiet security cooperation to a formal collective-defense pledge.
For New Delhi, which has simultaneously deepened ties with Riyadh while managing a tense rivalry with Islamabad, the agreement sharpens the strategic triangle in the Gulf–South Asia security theater.
India’s initial public response to the agreement was restrained. The Ministry of External Affairs underscored India’s “wide-ranging strategic partnership” with Saudi Arabia, saying it would “study the implications” while expressing hope that Riyadh would keep “mutual interests and sensitivities” in mind.
That effectively meant New Delhi will hedge, not howl, but is on full alert.
New NATO language
Riyadh and Islamabad have had decades of quiet defense ties, including training and deployments. What’s new is the NATO-style language.
In a region where US reliability as a security guarantor is increasingly in doubt, and where Israel–Iran tensions reverberate across the Gulf, Saudi Arabia’s move to lock in with a Muslim-majority, nuclear-armed partner is geopolitically consequential.
Pakistan’s defense leadership even suggested that its nuclear capabilities could be extended to Saudi Arabia under the pact, an assertion that will set off alarms from Tel Aviv to New Delhi.
India’s anxiety will be less about a war with Pakistan that has Saudi backing and more about the signal it sends: Saudi Arabia now has a formal, rapid-response partner with which India has a long-standing and often bitter rivalry.
That complicates New Delhi’s crisis calculus with Pakistan and injects uncertainty into India’s burgeoning energy, investment and connectivity ties with Riyadh.
From petrochemicals to new-economy projects, Saudi Arabia is central to India’s energy security and flagship investment plans. Meanwhile, over 2 million Indian nationals live in Saudi Arabia.
New Delhi has invested diplomatic capital in elevating ties to a “strategic partnership” over the last half-decade. While a defense pact with Pakistan will not unwind these ties, it raises Riyadh’s political cost for any action perceived as tilting against Indian security interests.
Moreover, India has touted the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A Saudi–Pakistan alignment that becomes the Gulf’s default security spine could dilute India’s leverage on corridor routing, standards and commercial priorities, especially if Riyadh must balance Indian expectations against Pakistani sensitivities.
The Indian Navy’s presence in the Gulf and Arabian Sea has expanded with anti-piracy and Houthi-related convoying. A tighter Saudi–Pakistan defense axis could complicate deconfliction protocols in the northern Arabian Sea, especially if an India–Pakistan crisis coincides with a Gulf security flare-up.
Nuclear shadow or real umbrella?
Islamabad’s suggestion that its nuclear program could “be made available” to Saudi Arabia under the pact is ambiguous but potent.
Even if it never leads to basing or warhead transfers (which would trigger global nonproliferation blowback), the deterrence signaling alone shifts perceptions.
For India, the risk is not a Saudi nuclear breakout; it’s the perception of a Saudi nuclear backstop that empowers Riyadh in regional bargaining.
To be sure, experts caution against overreading the umbrella notion, noting the legal, technical and diplomatic hurdles between rhetoric and reality. But Indian decision-makers cannot ignore worst-case scenarios.
If Pakistan frames any major Indian coercive action as indirectly threatening Saudi interests, Islamabad might feel freer to escalate under the cover of Saudi-linked deterrence.
Islamabad now has new diplomatic leverage in any India-Pakistan crisis under a NATO Article-5-like clause, enabling it to quickly secure the political backing of Saudi Arabia.
Although Riyadh may not provide military support, early symbolic alignment could complicate US and UN crisis management and limit Saudi neutrality. Expect sharper Saudi-linked narratives in media during Kashmir flare-ups, bolstering Pakistan’s domestic messaging of Muslim-world solidarity.
For India, clear maritime and aerial “rules of the road” are crucial. Any Saudi–Pakistani exercise, even routine, risks blurring operational clarity in the Arabian Sea.
During a standoff, India would need to devote extra attention and assets, wary that benign drills or intelligence sharing might carry unintended strategic signals.
Isreal-India calculus
The pact comes as India’s quiet security ties with Israel have deepened in air defense, drones and intelligence, and while Israel’s conflict dynamics reverberate across the Gulf.
Saudi Arabia’s closer defense coordination with Pakistan, alongside Israel’s new deterrence challenges, sharpens the triangular tensions India must navigate.
Jerusalem policy circles explicitly frame the pact as a strategic shift affecting both Israel and India. New Delhi will take note of this convergence as it coordinates technology, intelligence and contingency planning with Israel, without imperiling its Gulf interests.
India will likely avoid a public rupture. Instead, expect more high-level political engagement, faster-tracked energy and investment deals and expanded defense dialogue that keeps lines to Riyadh, providing a safeguard against Pakistani overreach.
New Delhi’s initial messaging already reflects this approach. Moreover, any suggestion of operationalizing a Saudi nuclear umbrella via Pakistani assets – whether talk of deployment, training that hints at nuclear integration, or missile postures – will prompt firm Indian demarches. New Delhi will aim to deter perception cascades, not to rewrite the pact.
Additionally, India will work with the US, EU partners and the UAE to lock in commercially credible IMEC segments and protect energy logistics from Gulf security turbulence. If IMEC falters, India’s fallback will be to expand east-facing corridors and strengthen Indo-Pacific logistics where Saudi interests are limited.
New Delhi is likely to propose predictable notice mechanisms for exercises and transits in the Arabian Sea and Red Sea, including with Riyadh, to minimize misunderstandings during subcontinental crises. The aim is to normalize India’s presence as a stabilizing force, not as a rival’s signal.
Therefore, the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defense pact is less about imminent war and more about shifting alignment dynamics in the Gulf–South Asia space. It raises the stakes for Saudi–Pakistani military signaling, introduces a nuclear-tinged ambiguity that India cannot ignore and complicates New Delhi’s crisis diplomacy with Islamabad as well as its connectivity drive with Riyadh.
India’s best response to the pact is to deepen the India–Saudi bilateral relationship, articulate clear red lines on nuclear signaling and strengthen economic corridors—all while keeping the temperature low in public. The strategic triangle has grown sharper, and New Delhi must ensure it does not become a trap.
Md Obaidullah is a visiting scholar at Daffodil International University, Dhaka. He is also a graduate assistant at the Department of Political Science, University of Southern Mississippi. He has published extensively with Routledge, Springer Nature and SAGE. Obaidullah also regularly contributes to prominent platforms, including the LSE South Asia blog, The Diplomat, Asia Times, The Geopolitics, Modern Diplomacy, The Business Standard, Daily Observer, New Age and Dhaka Tribune.
