► Wen Observer Network Ruan Jiaqi

Following Israel¡¯s air strikes on its U.S. ally, Qatar, a new dynamic has emerged in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, which has been reliant on U.S. military protection for decades, this week officially signed a joint defense agreement with Pakistan, the only country in the Islamic world that has nuclear weapons.

The U.S. State Department has not yet responded to this. The US media "Wall Street Journal" analyzed on the 18th that this agreement may change the regional balance of power.

This is the first time that U.S. long-term partners in the Middle East have sought to get rid of their reliance on Washington¡¯s national security. Saudi Arabia has also turned to Pakistan, a regional ¡°military power¡± with Russia and China, while alsoining ties with the United States. The U.S. media also stressed that Saudi Arabia itself will maintain close relations with China in 2023, precisely under China¡¯s mediation, Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a reconciliation agreement to relief.

In this regard, Lin Minwang, a researcher and vice president of the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University, told Observer.com that the Basha mutual defense agreement is an "obvious manifestation" of the weakening of the influence of the United States in the Middle East. The core incentive lies in the continuous decline of the security commitment of the United States to countries in the Middle East, which leads to the loss of trust in Saudi Arabia and other countries, and instead actively seeks multi-dimensional security support to protect their own interests.

However, he believes that the Bassa Agreement is not enough to break the overall balance of power in the Middle East. Lin Ming Wang pointed out that the core influence of the balance of power in the Middle East still depends on the interaction of global and regional core forces, while Pakistan is not a global power and has not reached the degree to restore the overall pattern of power in the Middle East.

Speaking about the deep foundation of Bashar¡¯s cooperation, Lin Ming-wen stressed that the agreement between the two countries was not a ¡°sudden alliance¡±, but a ¡°formalization and escalation¡± of historical cooperative relations. He said that since 1971, Pakistan¡¯s diplomacy has gradually slanted to the Islamic world, and the relationship with Saudi Arabia is closest in the Middle East. For a long time, the two sides have formed a ¡°Saudi funding support, Pakistan export security forces¡± cooperation model, and the Saudi royal family¡¯s part of the security defence work is even responsible by the Pakistani army, this high level of security mutual trust and political mutuality, laying a solid foundation for this joint defence agreement.

Lin Minwang further pointed out that Pakistan's own security concerns are also the key motivation to promote the implementation of the agreement. On the one hand, after Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, it released a signal that "it will target Pakistan", which made Pakistan highly vigilant; On the other hand, the recent strengthening of cooperation between Israel and India has further exacerbated Pakistan's security anxiety. These external security pressures have forced Pakistan to transform its deep security relationship with Saudi Arabia into a formal alliance.

Lin Minwang bluntly said that from the logic of security cooperation, the mutual choice between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan essentially has some "helpless" realistic attributes.

"Because if you want to establish a security alliance, it is definitely best to find an alliance with a country with the strongest military power. At present, the big countries to choose from are the United States, China and Russia. But it is impossible for China and Russia, and the relationship with the strategic competition with the United States is too strong," he said. "Then we can only settle for the next best thing, and Pakistan's relationship with the United States is also very good. Forming an alliance with Pakistan will at least not be strongly opposed by the United States."

These realistic considerations may also affect other Gulf countries¡¯ security partnership choices. Lin Ming-wen expects that in the short term, ¡°strong security alliances¡± based on deep political mutual trust such as Bashar al-Assad will not increase, but multi-security cooperation will undoubtedly become a trend as Gulf nations tend to seek security partners outside the United States.

Regarding the impact of the deal on the U.S. military deployment in the Middle East, Mr. Lin said that ¡°the overall impact is limited¡± and that ¡°Saudi Arabia is largely looking for a ¡®substitute¡¯ outside the U.S., rather than completely replacing the U.S. security role in the Middle East.¡±

At the level of influence in South Asia, Lin Minwang focused on analyzing India's possible response. He said that although India is not happy to see Basha deepen defense cooperation, it has long recognized the long-term close relationship between the two countries. "More importantly, the country targeted by Basha's agreement is obviously Israel, not India, which India will also judge."

In addition, whether Pakistan will provide Saudi Arabia with a "nuclear umbrella" is also concerned. Lin Mingwang said that according to the contents of the external statements of the two sides there is a nuclear protection content, but any nuclear protection provision will be limited in terms of quality, now the agreement itself is not transparent enough, whether it really offers depends on its determination, will and situation changes, and also whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are really facing a nuclear threat, it is now difficult to say.

On September 17, Saudi Arabia's Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (ex-right) held a meeting in the capital Riyadh with the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif.

The Wall Street Journal also believes that the Basha agreement will deal a blow to the U.S.-led plan to "promote Israel's deeper integration into the Middle East security partnership to contain Iran." Before the current round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Qatar air strikes, these efforts had already made some progress. Now, with the increasing criticism of Israel's military actions by the international community and regional countries, Saudi Arabia has admitted that the relevant negotiations with Israel have also ended.

Saudi political commentator Ali Shihabi, who has close ties with Saudi leadership, said: ¡°There are concerns that Israel seems to be abusing its influence in the region and being able to do what it wants here.¡±

According to Shihab, the Saudi defence agreement is not intended or unable to replace U.S. military forces in the region, after all, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. remain closely coordinated in the field of security and intelligence, but the agreement does send a clear signal to the U.S. and Israel that the Gulf region is looking for other security guarantees.

The Wall Street Journal that the wealthy Gulf Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain rapid economic growth in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Saudi Arabia is the country with the largest military scale and the largest population among the Gulf Arab countries. In addition to maintaining close relations with the United States, Saudi Arabia also maintains close relations with China. In 2023, it was under the mediation of China that Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a reconciliation agreement and achieved easing of relations.

Riyadh¡¯s confidence in Washington¡¯s security guarantees has been declining since 2019, as the United States has failed to respond with force to the attacks on key Saudi oil facilities.

This is not an isolated case: In 2022, the United Arab Emirates believed that the Biden administration did not respond adequately to Yemen¡¯s Houthi-armed ballistic missile attacks on its capital and also questioned U.S. security.

The recent Israeli attack on Qatar has sparked collective discontent and protests in the Arab-Islamic world.

The US media pointed out that the attack triggered a wide range of crisis sentiments in the Gulf countries. On the one hand, these countries pin their own security on the military protection of the United States; on the other hand, they invest billions of dollars in the American economy through military purchases and other economic cooperation. But now, the United States is powerless to prevent its ally Israel from launching a missile attack on another ally in broad daylight.

"In the past, the Gulf countries always believed that even if the chaotic situation of neighboring failed countries had lasted for years or even decades, they could stay out of it," said Bader Al-Saif, assistant professor at Kuwait University and analyst of Gulf affairs. "But now, in just a few months, we have been involved twice."

A few days after the attack, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman led a delegation to visit Qatar, and in 2017, it was Salman who dominated the three-and-a-half-year economic blockade of Qatar.

On September 17th, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince and Prime Minister mohammed bin salman (right) held talks with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the capital Riyadh. Xinhua News Agency (photo courtesy of Saudi News Agency)

At the Arab-Islamic emergency summit held on September 15th, the leaders of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which boycotted Qatar with Saudi Arabia, also rarely attended. The joint participation in the meeting further highlights the current unity atmosphere of the Gulf countries.

¡°Qatar today is different,¡± said Rashid Al Mohanadi, a former Qatari defense industry official and head of Doha Risk Consulting Catalyst Consulting, ¡°from the moment the (Israeli) bombs fell, people began to rethink their relations with the West.¡±

Sun Degang, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Fudan University and an expert on Middle East issues, told Observer.com earlier that the policy of "seeking security by strength" pursued by Israel and the United States even has offensive realism, but it has made many Arab countries realize that the more direct threat at present may not come from Iran, but may come from Israel. "So we see that the Arab-Islamic world has formed some kind of 'anti-Israel United front' at least at the political and diplomatic levels."

Salman and Shabaz photographs

As for the impact of Sabah cooperation on my country's arms exports and security influence exports, Sun Degang believes that the overall opportunities outweigh the challenges.

He said that China's current Global Governance Initiative, Global Development Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative and Global Security Initiative are providing important "ideological public products" for Middle Eastern countries; at the same time, the U.S. arms sales monopoly in the Gulf has been broken, and more and more maritime associations and Arab countries will choose to diversify arms procurement, no longer relying on the United States alone, but choosing more suppliers, which is of course good for China.

However, it should be noted that reducing dependence on the United States does not equal a shift to ¡°buy only Chinese weapons¡±.¡±Sun DeGong added that the Middle East arms procurement choice diversification, in addition to the United States, China, there are options such as Turkey, Europe and even India, in the future more likely to form a ¡°arms supply diversification and even multipolarization¡± pattern: the U.S. share will be diluted, but will still play an important role; for China, this is an emerging market, the overall opportunity is greater.

Sun Degang also mentioned that the second China-Arab Summit planned to be held in China next year means that Arab countries' "looking east" is no longer limited to the economic level. Under the new situation, cooperation in politics and even security fields will also be diversified.

¡°I think China generally has no subjective willingness to add new military bases in the Middle East, but will actively address the real demands of Arab countries: on the basis of energy, economic, trade and scientific and technological cooperation, security cooperation will create new growth points and areas of cooperation.¡±