This is more or less true. The PA is a force for hire and has fought at the behest of the Arab military before. The same goes for the nuclear missiles. The Pakistani Defence minister has stated that they will share them with KSA if needed.
Saudi Arabia signs mutual defence pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
Too much, negativity & pessimism for Indian side take. You are assuming India will sit quietly & the nations pakistan is taking to, are willing to destroy their relations with India, just because, pakistan offered something.
Its a very absurd & low-effort take on the whole issue.
They're one and the same . The very name of the nation is derived from the clan name Al Saud . That's how deeply the two are intertwined.
Houthis aren't a major part of the security calculations. In any case the Saudis initiated hostilities there along with their allies when the party they backed in Yemen in the civil war lost power .
The Houthis themselves have bitten off more than they could chew by taking on the entire world with the Red Sea attacks on merchant navies & then compounded that error by engaging the Israelis.
Result - a significant part of their leadership got taken out recently. They'd remain a nuisance at best especially since their sponsor Iran is busy licking its wounds regrouping & reorganizing.
For those curious to know the events of 1979 when the Grand Mosque at Mecca was over run by Islamic terrorists.
It was a seminal event in the history of modern KSA , something which the present leadership under MBS would be painfully aware of determined to avoid a repetition.
The video doesn't mention the role of Fauji Foundation in the siege of the Grand Mosque alongside Saudi & western special forces operatives especially in the crackdown which followed.
Why Pakistan has troops in Saudi Arabia – and what it means for the Middle East
With Iran and India on manoeuvres and the war in Yemen still unfolding, Pakistan’s stakes in the Middle East are as high as ever.
theconversation.com
IR/geopolitics/strat affairs guru Peter Zeihan puts the Saudi-Pak defense agreement into context.
Leaked Documents Reveal Details of the Secret Saudi Arabia–Pakistan Mutual Defense Pact
The U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad pushed Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia into the spotlight.
www.dropsitenews.com
On Saturday, as Pakistan was in the middle of mediating hard-won ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran, Saudi Arabia made a sudden revelation that appeared to undermine Pakistan’s status as a neutral host. In a statement posted on X, the Saudi Ministry of Defense announced “the arrival of a military force from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan at King Abdulaziz Air Base in the Eastern Sector,” adding that the force would include a contingent of military aircraft and would improve “operational readiness between the armed forces of the two countries.”
Those deployments are the result of a defense pact signed last year between Riyadh and Islamabad that has now been activated amid an ongoing regional war and numerous Iranian attacks against military and energy targets in Saudi Arabia.
Ceasefire talks collapsed over the weekend in Pakistan, with the American delegation leaving without an agreement. But Pakistan is far from out of the picture; secret documents obtained by Drop Site News reveal the extent to which Pakistan is committed by treaty to potentially become a participant in the war it was attempting to mediate.
The details of the Pakistan–Saudi Arabia defense agreement have never been made public or even reviewed by Pakistan’s parliament. They are being reported here for the first time based on an archive of classified documents about the pact obtained by Drop Site.
Talks in Islamabad
On Saturday, April 11, right as Vice President JD Vance was conducting negotiations with the Iranian leadership in Islamabad, the Saudi Ministry of Defence announced that Pakistan has sent its forces, including fighter jets, to Saudi Arabia under their defense pact. Pakistan had actually been quietly conducting airlifts of military equipment throughout December and January, noted by open-source intelligence monitors. The announcement coming on a day of consequential negotiations in Islamabad could be seen as a form of pressure on Iran. Notably, the Pakistani government did not release a corresponding statement about the deployments.Historical Pacts
In later years, the scope of Pakistani commitments to Riyadh would grow substantially. In August 2021, a summary of a new amendment to the defense agreement was sent to the government of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan. The amendment added a profoundly important new component to the pact, effectively committing Pakistan for the first time to engage in the physical defense of the Saudi government if requested.Pakistani foreign policy has long been determined by the country’s powerful military establishment, which serves as kingmaker for Pakistani politicians and has conducted clandestine agreements and diplomacy for decades outside the purview of the country’s weak democratic institutions.
But for almost a year, the amendment to the 2005 pact sat on Imran Khan’s desk. The description of Pakistani obligations also left ambiguous the question of whether the threat to be combatted at Saudi government request was foreign or domestic. According to two former officials who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information, Khan was apprehensive about signing an agreement that would obligate the Pakistani military to participate in a foreign war.
“The second party [Pakistan] is obligated to send its forces to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia upon a request of the first party, to support the armed forces of the first party in dealing with any threat that affects its security, safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity and interests,” the amendment stated. “A protocol will be signed between both parties and attached to this agreement to clarify the details of such arrangements.”
While imposing sweeping obligations onto Pakistan, the text of the document did not commit Saudi Arabia to any specific reciprocal support. Instead, Saudi Arabia has provided financial support to Pakistan’s unstable economy over the years. The Kingdom currently holds more than $5 billion in deposits at the State Bank of Pakistan, which are rolled over periodically.
Between August 2021 and April 2022, commentators aligned with the Pakistani military continuously pressured the government over its policy towards Riyadh—alleging that Khan, who had continued to hedge on signing the agreement, was destroying the country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.
In April 2022, Khan was removed from government in a thinly veiled military coup. The summary was ultimately signed in February 2024 by the military-backed caretaker government that came to power after imprisoning Khan and banning his political party.
The amendment was speedily approved by the caretaker federal cabinet appointed by Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir. However, documents show that the language of the new amendment expanding Pakistani obligations to Riyadh was hotly debated inside the military establishment after it was signed. The amendment was one-sided, some worried, and would obligate Pakistan to defend Saudi Arabia, without imposing a reciprocal obligation on Riyadh.
Assessments also noted the amendment did not clearly differentiate between conventional and nuclear forces. The documents show that the Pakistani military was only interested in committing conventional forces to any deal with Saudi Arabia, and sought to explicitly exclude nuclear capability from the obligation.
Internal debates also noted that threats to Saudi sovereignty and interests might not remain confined within Saudi territory, and could require military action outside Saudi Arabia. The Pakistani side subsequently sought to narrow the scope of its obligations to Saudi territory.
Many of these concerns were eventually addressed in the 2025 SMDA, signed months before the Iran war. Even though the immediate catalyst for the SMDA seemed like the Israeli strike on Qatar last year, it was always clear that the agreement was directed at Iran—as has all Pakistan-Saudi cooperation since the 1980s. The SMDA is not part of the leaked documents. But public disclosures from Pakistan suggest that the new agreement was an update to the old MCA; renaming the agreement while including additional amendments to the security relationship.
Bypassing Parliament
The conditions in which such reciprocity may be triggered remain unclear, however. Saudi Arabia has limited capacity to provide military assistance to Pakistan in a conflict. The primary strategic rival to Islamabad remains India, which enjoys close political and economic ties with Riyadh. Pakistan is also currently involved in a fierce cross-border war with Afghanistan, for which Saudi Arabia has not provided material assistance.Despite their numerous private agreements, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had a difficult history actually enacting meaningful security cooperation.
The war with Iran has once again raised the question of if and how the agreement can be enforced. The current version of the defense pact signed in 2025 has already been called into question, as Pakistan has been loathe to involve itself in a military confrontation targeting Iran, which currently enjoys widespread support among the Pakistani public.
“The Saudi pact is becoming a problem for us,” a source described as being familiar with Pakistani military decision-making told the Financial Times in an article about Pakistani mediation efforts on March 28. The comments also shed light on what Pakistan expected to get out of the deal: “It was supposed to be cash for deterrence. But we’ve not gotten any new Saudi investments, and deterrence failed.”
For now, the deployment remains largely symbolic and is not likely to have an immediate effect on the war as a whole. A Pakistani military expert who spoke to Drop Site News on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter said the deployment on Saudi territory offers limited utility in the current scenario. Iran is not conducting—and is not expected to conduct—a ground invasion of the Arabian Peninsula. Pakistani support for missile and drone defense would also not add much to the U.S.-provided defensive support that Riyadh presently enjoys.
Under the current terms of the deal, which is entirely defensive, Saudi Arabia could not request that Pakistan counterattack Iran, even from Saudi territory. An attack launched from Pakistani soil also appears unlikely, and would likely fall outside the scope of the SMDA.
Even a limited conflict with Iran would be politically radioactive inside Pakistan. It would place Pakistan on the side of the Israel-led coalition—an allegiance that would be highly unpopular with many Pakistanis. And it would also be a strategic nightmare for a country that is already facing two other hostile countries on its border, and would risk the prospect of total encirclement if ties deteriorated with Tehran.
In that light, Islamabad’s continued commitment to acting as a peacemaker makes sense as an attempt to ward off a strategic disaster that could engulf its own interests. In a statement the day after the collapse of the talks, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar held out hopes that Pakistan would continue to find a way to bridge the gap between Washington and Tehran.
There are some people who have started noticing a pattern and have started to question certain "agreements".
