Saudi Arabia may buy Pakistani manpower and nuclear symbolism, but it builds its future with India — from oil security and green-hydrogen leadership to Vision 2030 smart cities, cutting-edge technology and the 2.7 million Indians powering its economy. New Delhi’s de-hyphenated West Asia policy and non-interventionist military doctrine mean Riyadh can hedge with Islamabad while deepening an enduring, forward-looking partnership with India.
A Pact That Made Headlines but Changed Little
Saudi Arabia’s decision to sign a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Pakistan in September 2025 was bound to attract attention. The pact declares that any aggression against one signatory will be treated as aggression against the other — language that appears, at first glance, to signal a dramatic realignment of Gulf security. Yet a closer reading suggests something quite different. Rather than announcing a new military axis, Riyadh has simply formalised a long-standing practice of outsourcing select security functions to Pakistan, while preserving the autonomy of its own armed forces. For India, the development is far less disruptive than the headlines imply; the India–Saudi partnership rests on foundations broader, deeper and more forward-looking than troop deployments.
Gulf Monarchies and the Security Outsourcing Logic
Gulf monarchies have long lived with a paradox: they are wealthy enough to procure advanced weaponry yet reluctant to build strong, independent militaries that might threaten regime stability. History across the Middle East is replete with generals who turned their arms against their rulers. Saudi Arabia, acutely aware of this risk, has kept its military relatively small and politically subordinate, relying on external manpower to fill critical gaps. For decades Pakistan has been the most willing supplier — training Saudi pilots, guarding vital oil facilities and even intervening during the 1979 Grand Mosque crisis. The SMDA is therefore better read as codification than revolution.
Pakistan’s Fiscal Desperation and Prestige Play
Pakistan’s motives are also transparent. Its economy is deeply distressed, dependent on IMF programmes and periodic Saudi bailouts. The country is still reeling from recent catastrophic floods that devastated infrastructure and livelihoods, compounding economic fragility and making cash the need of the hour. Islamabad repeatedly seeks deferred oil payments, deposits and humanitarian assistance. By offering troops and the symbolic aura of a nuclear weapons state, it tries to monetise one of the few strategic assets still available. Even so, the pact is carefully drafted: the term “aggression” rather than “attack” preserves Saudi discretion and avoids automatic war commitments. Pakistan’s foreign policy record — staunchly anti-Israel, occasionally tilting toward Iran — and its domestic fragility further limit its credibility as a guarantor of Saudi security.
Saudi Arabia’s Capability Gap Behind the Pact
Saudi Arabia’s procurement pattern reinforces this logic. The Kingdom is among the world’s largest buyers of arms and munitions, importing sophisticated aircraft, missiles and precision systems largely to maintain ties with Washington and Europe and to project prestige. Yet it continues to face a shortage of trained personnel to operate and maintain this arsenal effectively. Pakistani officers and technicians have long filled that gap. The SMDA is thus about sustaining capacity, not about reshaping Riyadh’s grand alignments.
India’s Strategic Culture: Autonomy, Not Military Guarantees
India sits on a very different plane. New Delhi has never exported collective defence guarantees or stationed forces to secure foreign regimes. Its strategic culture values autonomy and avoids entangling alliances. Instead, India exerts influence through economic statecraft, advanced technology and discreet but credible security dialogue. This makes the Saudi military relationship with Pakistan non-competitive: Riyadh can buy manpower from Islamabad while simultaneously deepening a partnership with India that is economic, technological and future-oriented.
Energy and Economic Interdependence
Over the past decade India and Saudi Arabia have redefined their ties. Energy remains the anchor: Saudi Arabia is consistently among India’s top three crude suppliers and bilateral trade now stands around $42 billion a year. But the relationship no longer stops at oil. India has become a partner of choice in Riyadh’s ambitious Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify the Saudi economy into smart cities, advanced manufacturing, digital services and sustainable energy. Indian engineering and IT majors are present in mega-projects such as NEOM City, while Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund enjoys preferential regulatory access to Indian markets — a sign of mutual trust and long-term interdependence.
Green Hydrogen: A New Frontier of Cooperation
Clean energy, especially green hydrogen, is a promising new frontier. Saudi Arabia aims to become a global hub for low-carbon fuels as it prepares for a post-oil future. India, with ambitious renewable energy targets and competitive hydrogen production costs, is a natural collaborator. Joint initiatives under the International Solar Alliance and bilateral energy dialogues are already under way, positioning both countries as partners in the coming energy transition.
High-Level Diplomacy and Connectivity
Diplomatic engagement has matched these economic and technological shifts. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi for the 2023 G20 Summit, his co-chairing of the India–Saudi Strategic Partnership Council with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the launch of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) signalled Riyadh’s view of India as a central partner in regional connectivity and global supply chains. India’s ability to offer a vast market, engineering expertise and a non-hegemonic, strategically autonomous posture makes it attractive as Saudi Arabia hedges among great powers while preserving its own agency.
Migrants and Civilisational Ties
The human dimension is equally significant. Nearly 2.7 million Indian migrants live and work in Saudi Arabia, forming one of the largest skilled communities abroad. They power hospitals, infrastructure projects, logistics and technology services, while their remittances sustain families and local economies back home. Ensuring a secure and attractive environment for this workforce is in Riyadh’s own economic and social interest. Centuries of maritime trade and religious pilgrimage have also bound the two societies, with Saudi authorities repeatedly expanding India’s Hajj quota — a quiet but significant gesture of goodwill that underscores the depth of people-to-people ties.
Multi-Alignment and India’s De-Hyphenated Policy
It is tempting but misleading to view Saudi Arabia’s military understanding with Pakistan and its strategic partnership with India as a zero-sum game. Riyadh is practising multi-alignment: maintaining U.S. defence links, courting Chinese investment, cautiously engaging Israel, employing Pakistani military labour, and deepening economic and technological integration with India. New Delhi, for its part, has long pursued a de-hyphenated West Asia policy, treating Riyadh on its own merit rather than through the prism of Islamabad. India’s measured response to the SMDA reflects a mature confidence in this differentiated value proposition.
Policy Implications for India
For Indian diplomacy the right response is strategic patience combined with proactive consolidation: accelerate participation in Vision 2030 and NEOM infrastructure; expand cooperation in green hydrogen and renewables; safeguard the rights and welfare of Indian migrants; and drive forward connectivity projects such as IMEC. Quiet maritime security and intelligence exchanges should continue without turning the relationship into a formal alliance — consistent with India’s tradition of non-intervention and strategic autonomy.
Beyond Zero-Sum Alliances
The deeper lesson is that West Asian geopolitics is no longer a winner-takes-all contest. The era when one dominant power defined the security and economic destiny of Gulf states has ended. Today Riyadh builds a deliberately multi-aligned portfolio: retaining U.S. defence technology and training, drawing Chinese capital and infrastructure, exploring pragmatic understandings with Israel, and employing Pakistani manpower for low-risk security tasks. Yet when it comes to future growth and diversification, it turns to India — a trusted partner offering market access, advanced technology, investment avenues and collaboration on transformative sectors such as artificial intelligence and green hydrogen.
For India, this multi-layered landscape is an opening, not a threat. By avoiding military entanglements and focusing on economic statecraft and innovation, New Delhi provides what no other partner offers: a vast and growing market, a sophisticated technology ecosystem, and a reliable but non-coercive relationship. In return, India benefits from Saudi capital, stable hydrocarbon supplies during its green transition, and participation in new trade arteries such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Such mutually reinforcing interests give the partnership a structural resilience far stronger than the transactional calculus driving the Saudi–Pakistan pact.
This is why the SMDA with Pakistan, while tactically useful for Riyadh, is unlikely to reconfigure the regional balance. It responds to immediate Saudi security anxieties and Pakistan’s search for cash and prestige but does not alter the Kingdom’s long-term calculus about where its economic and technological future lies.
Conclusion: Stability Beyond Symbolism
The Saudi–Pakistan defence pact is a headline event, not a strategic rupture. It reflects Riyadh’s balancing instinct and Pakistan’s search for economic oxygen. But it does not rewrite the deeper geometry of West Asia.
India’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is multidimensional, future-oriented, and resilient — built on energy flows, investment corridors, Vision 2030 transformation, G20-level political trust, and centuries of civilisational contact. Saudi Arabia needs manpower from Pakistan; it needs markets, capital, and technology from India.
For New Delhi, the wisest response is strategic patience, economic deepening, and narrative clarity. The future of India–Saudi ties remains secure, sophisticated, and insulated from the tactical manoeuvres of others — a lesson in how modern diplomacy transcends the old zero-sum logic of alliances.
Dr. Maheep is the Principal Investigator of a national project on India’s Soft Power Diplomacy and a prominent analyst of India’s foreign policy. With a PhD on the Arab Gulf States and expertise in Arab and Islamic studies, he has more than a decade of scholarship and public commentary on key global and regional issues.