Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s Landmark Defense Pact

Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering the overlooked security gaps in the race toward sovereign AI and the fragile edifice of Western support for Ukraine.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defense agreement Wednesday that obliges both countries to come to each other’s aid in the event of a military attack. The agreement was announced during a visit to Riyadh by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who received a red-carpet welcome complete with a Saudi air force escort of his plane and full royal protocol.

It is an important development for the region’s geopolitical balance of power, though not unexpected given the two countries’ historically close ties. Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to recognize Pakistan following its independence in 1947, and they have since cooperated closely on security, religious and economic issues.

More recently, the bilateral relationship had become somewhat one-sided, with Saudi Arabia forced to provide multiple bailouts for Pakistan’s struggling economy. But this week’s agreement indicates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, still sees value in keeping Islamabad close given its large military and nuclear arsenal. 

While coverage of the deal has understandably focused on the timing, coming a week after an Israeli airstrike in Qatar that enraged gulf nations, an agreement like this does not come together so quickly. A Saudi official told the Financial Times that the two sides had been “working on this for well over a year and based on a two to three year conversation.”

Still, the attack on Qatar means that Gulf nations will almost certainly seek to diversify their strategic partners away from the U.S., as Saudi Arabia has done this week. Given Riyadh’s influence among its neighbors, we should expect to see greater Pakistani cooperation with nearby countries like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well.

The pact also marks another important victory for Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. Widely seen as the most powerful figure in the country, Munir was appointed to his role in 2022, around the start of the “two to three year” timeframe for the defense pact cited by the Saudi official in the FT. He accompanied Sharif on his visit to Riyadh and met with Saudi leaders there.

While Munir has mostly stayed in the background since taking his current position in 2022, this year he has taken an increasingly public role in Pakistani state affairs—particularly in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April that triggered a brief conflict between the two. Munir has also been instrumental in cultivating warmer ties with the U.S. under President Donald Trump.

One important open question about the deal is whether it places Saudi Arabia under Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence umbrella. While the agreement itself does not explicitly specify that, Riyadh at least seems under the impression that it provides a nuclear security guarantee. When asked by CNN whether Pakistan would be obliged to extend its nuclear umbrella, a Saudi official replied, “this is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.”

In recent years, artificial intelligence has emerged as the most significant driver of global data center demand, which is expected to triple by 2030. The scale of these investments underscores AI’s significance not only for economic competitiveness but also for national security, which is driving governments to pursue “sovereign AI”: the ability of a nation to ensure it can develop, govern and use its AI models. Yet, the race to achieve sovereign AI is overlooking critical security vulnerabilities in the very data centers that power the AI models, Seungmin (Helen) Lee writes.

From the moment Donald Trump returned to the White House this year, European leaders made it a top priority to safeguard NATO’s pledge to remain on Ukraine’s side in its war against Russian aggression. Above all, they sought to prevent Trump from undercutting Kyiv in his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So far, the efforts have proven largely successful. But the fragility of Western backing for Ukraine has become excruciatingly obvious, Frida Ghitis writes in her weekly column.

New anti-drone systems that employ lasers are being developed and purchased by a growing number of countries, including in Europe, as the war in Ukraine continues to demonstrate the deadly effectiveness of drone warfare. Laser-based anti-drone systems have particular promise, and one model developed by an Australian defense company claims to be able to shoot down 20 drones a minute at a cost of less than 10 cents per shot, The New York Times reports.

However, because of the variety of combat drone models in existence, and the massive numbers of them that are employed on the battlefield simultaneously, “no single system will ever be able to counter all drones,” Ulrike Franke wrote in an August WPR column. Layered systems that combine many counter-drone technologies, including electronic jamming, kinetic systems like lasers, and physical barriers like netting are likely to achieve the best results, she wrote.

The sister-in-law of Togo’s longtime ruler Faure Gnassingbe, Marguerite Gnakade, was arrested Wednesday at her home. Gnakade previously served under Gnassingbe as defense minister but became a vocal critic of his government in recent months following a harsh crackdown on anti-regime protests that erupted in June.  

There have been periods of political unrest in Togo in the past, but this time the popular mobilization was led not by “political parties or civil society organizations, but instead by young bloggers and web activists—primarily on TikTok,” Tangi Bihan wrote in a July WPR briefing.

Calls to recognize a Palestinian state are building, with the U.K. set to vote for recognition next week at the U.N. General Assembly, and Democratic senators in the United States introduced legislation today that calls for U.S. recognition of Palestine. As Dana El Kurd wrote in WPR this week, however, recognition that is not accompanied by action to force an end to the war in Gaza, or even any effort to understand what kind of state Palestinians would support,  is a mere “fig leaf that can be held up in front of domestic audiences to placate growing public discontent.”

Argentines took to the streets in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to protest cuts to government services. As James Bosworth wrote this week, Argentines’ patience with the economic policies of President Javier Milei seems to be running short after Milei recently became embroiled in questions about corruption in his government.

More from WPR

• Dana El Kurd on the absence of Palestinian voices in the recent push for Palestinian statehood.

• Ulrike Franke on Germany’s resurgent arms industry.

• Benjamin Gedan and Jana Nelson on the challenges facing oil-rich Guyana after President Irfaan Ali’s reelection.

• Mary Gallagher on the case for U.S. strategic ambiguity over Taiwan.

Read all of our latest coverage here.