WILL SAUDI ARABIA’S NEW DEFENSE AGREEMENT WITH PAKISTAN HAVE PROLIFERATION CONSEQUENCES?
Policy Alert
September 19, 2025
The deal seems mostly symbolic given that Riyadh is a major trading partner with India—Pakistan’s main adversary—but the implications may nevertheless be significant for regional proliferation concerns, nuclear energy ambitions, and related U.S. diplomacy.
During a state visit to Riyadh on September 17, Pakistani
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif joined Saudi Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Salman in signing a “strategic mutual
defense agreement,” which states that “any aggression
against either country shall be considered an aggression
against both.” Diplomatically, this move appears to express
regional frustration with Washington, accentuated in recent
days by the Trump administration’s handling of Israel’s
attack on Hamas leaders inside Qatar. Yet the agreement has
probably been long in gestation. In November 2024, Pakistani
army chief Asim Munir traveled to Riyadh for talks on “ways
to further strengthen defense cooperation,” then visited again
this June accompanied by Prime Minister Sharif, and a third
time this week for the agreement’s signing.
Some have speculated that the Saudis will now have access to
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. When asked whether Pakistan
would be obliged to provide the kingdom with a nuclear
umbrella, a senior Saudi official told Reuters, “This is a
comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all
military means.” Since 1998, Pakistan has produced an
estimated 170 nuclear warheads deliverable by ballistic
missiles, aircraft, or cruise missiles.
Riyadh’s own nuclear weapons ambitions have become
increasingly explicit over the years. In 2018, Crown Prince
Muhammad told 60 Minutes, “Saudi Arabia does not want to
acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran
developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as
possible.” And in 2022, the kingdom’s foreign minister told a
conference in Dubai, “If Iran gets an operational nuclear
weapon, all bets are off.” Although Iran’s nuclear program
took a heavy hit from the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaigns
in June, concerns persist about the whereabouts of its stocks
of uranium, much of which had been enriched to near
weapons grade.
Saudi Arabia is thought to have plans for a centrifuge
enrichment plant, and the kingdom currently limits the access
of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). Well-placed Western officials also concede that the
kingdom was the fourth, unpublicized customer of A. Q.
Khan, the late Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator who
sold centrifuge equipment to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. In
1999, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, a full brother to
the current king, visited Pakistan’s main enrichment plant at
Kahuta.
Concerns about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear weapons plans date
back further, to 1988, when the kingdom acquired nuclear-
capable, long-range Dong Feng–3 missiles from China. U.S.
officials learned of this deal only when the missiles were
spotted on trucks being transported to their launch sites in the
Saudi desert.
On September 15, IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi
outlined the broader challenge: “Even within some countries
in good standing with their obligation under the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, there are now open discussions
about whether or not to acquire nuclear weapons. Think for a
minute about a world where instead of a few, we would have
twenty or twenty-five countries armed with nuclear weapons.”
The Pakistan-Saudi agreement will also concern Washington
because of the hoped-for nuclear arrangement with the
United States that would likely complement Israel-Saudi
normalization should it once again become viable. And it
would hinder the India–Middle East–Europe Economic
Corridor (IMEC), which is designed to establish a sea and
land trade route connecting India and Israel via Saudi Arabia
and Jordan. The details and meaning of the Riyadh accord
may well become clearer when the Pakistani prime minister
soon arrives in New York to attend the session of the UN
General Assembly.
Simon Henderson is the Baker Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of its Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy.
THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
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