Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia sign defensive military pact in August
As world leaders gather for the annual UN General Assembly, middle powers are building a complex web of diplomatic, military and trading alliances designed to shield themselves from disruptions in US foreign policy under President Donald Trump, The Guardian reported Monday. Observers including former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former UK foreign secretary David Lammy have predicted that Trump will concentrate further on disruptive foreign policy after November’s midterm elections, on the reasoning that potential domestic legislative gridlock would not extend to the foreign policy domain.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, attending what the paper said will be his final UN general assembly this week, has urged Trump that the United States could achieve more in alliance with others than alone — a message that is likely to receive short shrift. John Bew, a foreign policy adviser to four former British prime ministers, characterizes the emerging arrangement as “a sub-threshold international order.” Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the world is moving “from a situation where countries saw themselves within the context of an alliance system – ‘How do we plug and play and make it all about interoperability with American grand strategy?’ – towards one where the primary goal is: ‘How do we hedge and how do we make sure that we can defend ourselves if America isn’t there?’”
Outside the US-led architecture, those hedging networks are deepening. The recent Brics summit in Delhi ended with a 140-paragraph declaration centered on how sovereign states can insulate their economies, supply lines and payment infrastructures from western financial networks. The Indian commentator Navroop Singh said “the operational strategy does not aim to eradicate the dollar overnight,” but aims “to construct a parallel, non-dollar pipeline through which bilateral commerce, especially in strategic commodities like oil, gas, agriculture, and critical minerals can flow unhindered by extraterritorial oversight of the United States.” Formed to manage border disputes among former Soviet states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s activities long ago expanded to include an economic dimension fostering connectivity, trade and investment. At the SCO meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on September 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the gathering that “the overwhelming majority of countries do not subscribe to power politics, do not want conflict and confrontation, and do not wish to remain closed off and left behind. Instead, they aspire to secure an equal place on the world stage through their own development and international cooperation.”
Within US-led groupings, the recent ambition has been narrower. In the G7 and NATO, success has been measured by whether public disintegration has been avoided, according to The Guardian. In Europe, the Munich Security Conference has promoted discussion of a “Europeanised NATO,” conceived as an alliance of the five main European military powers — Germany, France, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom — a constellation that, the paper reported, conveniently bypasses Brexit and would allow those states to work together to face the Russian threat. The Chatham House thinktank has suggested as many as six different mini-alliances could form within the UK alone, covering submarines and air engines, critical minerals and free trade. Marc Lynch, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, wrote in Foreign Affairs that “if Washington could not even be counted on to consult its allies, defeat its adversaries, or protect its partners from the fallout of its regional misadventures, then what good were its promises? The fundamental bargain the United States offered has crumbled, and it will not be easily rebuilt.”
Defense spending has tracked the concern. Poland, the Baltic states and Scandinavia have raised their defense budgets by 71%, 134% and 126% respectively since 2022, the paper reported, while the call to buy European arms is growing. Some European diplomats, according to The Guardian, privately expressed relief that the US was unable to repeat the success of Venezuela in Iran — despite no affection for the Iranian government.
The biggest recent manifestation of the new alignment came in the Middle East on August 7, when Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Mecca pact — a defensive military alliance that, The Guardian reported, for some is about ending dependency on the US military umbrella and for others combatting Iran, and that “is likely to rewrite the Middle East’s security architecture.” Trita Parsi, from the US foreign policy thinktank the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the experience has left Gulf Cooperation Council states feeling acutely exposed: “If you sit in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries right now, you must feel tremendously vulnerable because you have put all your eggs in the American security basket and it turned out not only not to work, but it was supposed to be a guarantee that others would be deterred from attacking you. Instead, the US started a war against the wishes of most Gulf countries and within that war, the entire infrastructure of the US bases turned out not to be a deterrent, but a magnet.”
The pact followed an Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Doha on September 9, 2025 — the first such attack on a Gulf Cooperation Council state — which prompted a reassessment of whether Iran or Israel posed the primary regional threat. Retired Gen. David Petraeus said US bases in the Gulf became “no longer viable” after Iranian missiles and drones struck them during the Iran war. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said Gulf nations now judge that “self-sufficiency when it comes to security is the only way forward.” Parsi acknowledged that what the pact will become remains uncertain: “Is it another bloc formation that at its core divides the region, leading to rivalry and confrontation, or is it, as the Turks insist, an open constellation that is not targeting anyone but based on collective security?” The Guardian also noted that Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 requires foreign investment, tourism and reliable energy routes, and that endless wars promoted by Israel and not constrained by the US for purposes not in Saudi Arabia’s long-term interest are a ball and chain on the Saudi economy.
Canada faces the American dilemma most acutely. Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, urged middle powers to reorganize. Speaking to the European Parliament this week, Carney argued that associate membership of the EU would not be purely economic but would reflect “an affinity of deep-rooted shared values” that implicitly Canada no longer shares with the United States. Bob Rae, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, wrote that for a middle-nations alliance to thrive, Carney would need to be clearer about what values Canada stands for, including upholding international law. Rae characterized the United States as a “predatory hegemon” that “tears up treaties” and “makes a mockery of international law.”
South Korea finds itself in a similar position. Washington abruptly scaled back Ulchi Freedom Shield, the annual joint US-South Korea exercise meant to counter the North Korean threat, cutting the drills from 11 days to five in August, citing costs, Trump’s desire to improve relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and South Korea’s reluctance to support the war against Iran. The reduction has intensified debate in South Korea and Japan about pursuing independent nuclear weapons, especially given the apparent indifference of the US and the international community to North Korea’s program. The friction has opened space, the paper reported, for China to promote itself to South Korea and across Asia as a more reliable partner.
India, dependent on the Middle East for nearly 60% of its crude oil and about 70% of its liquefied natural gas requirements, may need to form its own hard-power security partnerships in the region.
Whether the new alignment is reversible divides analysts. Kurt Campbell, who under Joe Biden’s presidency latterly as deputy secretary of state did more than anyone to reconstruct American alliances across Asia after the Trump first term, insists his task can be repeated. There is no need to panic, he said, arguing that “by the winter there will be a dramatic resurgence in discussion, debate, hope and, frankly, optimism about what comes next.” The old centrifugal forces, including European aversion to Chinese protectionism and US dominance in artificial intelligence, will resurface, Campbell said.
The counterview is that something fundamental has changed. Once bitten, twice shy, the old transatlantic order will not be restored, and something new, less predictable, more fragmented is already taking shape.