SINCE September 2025, Pakistan has signed multilayered and multi-domain defence agreements with several Arab and Muslim states. It has signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Saudi Arabia, the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) with Turkiye and Saudi Arabia, and a defence pact with Kuwait. Pakistan has recently signed another defence agreement — the Badr agreement. Pakistan, Turkiye, Qatar, and Indonesia are signatories to this pact.
These defence deals have, in the past year, increased Pakistan’s strategic relevance in the Middle East. Interestingly, each accord carries the explicit provision for joint defence production and investment in the defence industry. This clause in every defence pact reveals Islamabad’s long-term strategic objective of moving from a buyer-seller relationship to a co-production partnership with reliable partners in the region.
There are four primary strategic factors that have driven Islamabad’s emphasis on the joint defence production clause in each defence pact.
The India factor remains the primary driver. New Delhi’s defence budget now exceeds $80 billion, and its rapid induction of advanced platforms has widened the qualitative gap. Joint production arrangements with middle powers are likely to allow Pakistan to accelerate defence modernisation without bearing the full research and development cost. By manufacturing components and subsystems domestically, Pakistan can sustain a higher operational tempo and maintain credible conventional deterrence.
Islamabad believes that strategic parity in South Asia does not require numerical equivalence. It primarily requires the ability to absorb, adapt, and indigenise technology at a pace that may prevent New Delhi from achieving decisive superiority over Islamabad. These defence deals, therefore, function as a force-multiplier for Pakistan’s conventional and strategic capabilities.
Pakistan’s defence pacts over the past year have increased its strategic relevance.
Islamabad’s second strategic objective is the diversification of defence suppliers and reduced reliance of its defence supply chain on Western weapons.
Historically, Islamabad has relied on Chinese weapons but the extent of dependency has increased significantly in the last two decades. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has noted that this dependency is nearly 80 per cent. Although Pakistan and China enjoy unprecedented trust and depth in their all-weather strategic relationship, in theoretical terms, heavy reliance on any single external source worries Islamabad.
Similarly, Islamabad is increasingly seeking to decouple its military procurement from Western-reliant supply chains. This approach is rooted in Pakistan’s historically bitter experiences with sudden embargoes and sanctions, alongside Islamabad’s broader resistance to the West’s tendency to use defence exports as political leverage over the Global South during geopolitical crises.
Primarily, Islamabad is eager to cultivate robust, non-Western defence partnerships to secure reliable and uninterrupted arms supplies free from the influence of foreign powers. By integrating affluent Saudi and Qatari capital with the technologically advanced Turkish weapons industry, Pakistan is building an insulated, collaborative defence network with the middle powers to achieve this strategic objective. Islamabad believes that these defence deals, alongside its strategic alliance with China, may allow Islamabad to minimise its conventional vulnerabilities, help modernise its armed forces, and ultimately achieve a much higher degree of long-term strategic autonomy.
Moreover, Islamabad is acutely aware that the intensifying US-China strategic competition will make it increasingly difficult to maintain a purely China-centric defence supply chain in the long run. Therefore, by building parallel defence production partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkiye, and Indonesia, Pakistan is creating a middle-power buffer to avoid unwanted political pressure from the US. Interestingly, these countries are not fully aligned with either Washington or Beijing, and provide Islamabad greater room for manoeuvre.
Third, the economic factor equally occupies the strategic motivations of Islamabad. Pakistan wants to enhance its ability to modernise the defence production industry and increase defence exports. Pakistan’s official defence exports stood at approximately $280m in 2024. The recently concluded deals can significantly enhance defence exports to $650-700m by 2027, crossing the $1bn mark by 2030.
The Gulf states, seeking to reduce their own dependence on Western suppliers, constitute the most immediate and lucrative market for Pakistani defence exports. Joint ventures under the Badr agreement, MJDA and SMDA are designed to produce systems that meet the Gulf’s operational requirements, while carrying Pakistani certification, and, crucially, a lower price tag. Successful penetration of these markets would generate much-needed foreign exchange for Pakistan, create skilled employment, and justify further capital investment in the domestic defence industry.
Beyond the Gulf, there is also potential for niche exports to African and Central Asian countries that face similar budgetary constraints and seek cost-effective, reliable platforms.
The fourth objective linked to the third is to attract foreign direct investment to Pakistan’s defence sector. The joint production clauses are structured to encourage equity participation rather than simple technology licensing. Early commitments already indicate potential inflows of $1.2-1.5bn over the next five years in manufacturing facilities, testing ranges, and human capital development. These investments will upgrade the physical infrastructure of Pakistan’s public-sector defence industry. These inflows can stimulate related industries, including electronics, metallurgy, and software, while creating thousands of high-skill jobs for individuals who would otherwise migrate overseas.
Time will tell whether these defence deals can deliver a meaningful technology transfer. The most important question is whether such a multipronged approach can genuinely enhance Pakistan’s long-term strategic autonomy or will merely redistribute its dependencies. It is also unclear to what extent these defence deals can genuinely reduce Pakistan’s strategic vulnerabilities.
However, despite these uncertainties, these defence deals will bring critical capital and technical know-how, while reducing vulnerability to external supply shocks. Yet Islamabad must calibrate its exposure with precision. Over-commitment in the complex security theatres of the Middle East can risk entangling Pakistan in conflicts whose political and military logic lies beyond Islamabad’s core interests. Therefore, Pakistan must pursue these opportunities with strategic clarity and within well-defined red lines.
The writer is a strategic analyst of international security. The views expressed are his own.
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2026