ZHOU Bo: Senior Fellow, CISS, and China Forum Expert, Tsinghua University

The Mecca security pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan stipulates that an armed attack against one shall count as an attack against all three. Yet the real message is directed at the United States: if being an American ally offers no immunity against attack, there is little point in waiting for Washington to honour its security guarantees.

That there has been no official White House statement casts some doubt on whether Donald Trump is really “very happy to see that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have recently, and finally, signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement”, as the US president wrote on social media. “It shows that the Middle East is coming together and how countries will finally be able to defend themselves in a more meaningful way.”

Superficially, the needs of the three nations are complementary: wealthy Saudi Arabia lacks military capacity, Turkey harbours ambitions across Eurasia and nuclear-armed Pakistan seeks financial support. Their strengths fit neatly together, cemented by a shared Sunni faith.

But it is too early to argue that the Middle East is coming together. The concept of “middle power” may be in vogue after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for middle power solidarity amid great power rivalry in his landmark Davos address. Yet neither Pakistan nor Turkey, plainly middle powers, are strictly Middle Eastern countries, despite ambitions to extend their influence.

And the major powers will not walk away. America’s role in the Middle East might shrink in the long term but a new regional security architecture is unlikely to be short of its presence. The European Union, for instance, has talked about strategic autonomy for over a decade. The Ukraine conflict, however, exposed the hollowness of that ambition, as European security still fell back on American leadership and Nato’s military umbrella.

Besides, eroding US influence in the region runs counter to Israel’s interests. Even if Washington were inclined to step back, Tel Aviv would go to great lengths to drag it back into the fray and cling tightly to its American backing – notwithstanding the fact that Israel’s killings in Gaza have shifted public opinion across sizeable segments of the US population, including young Jewish communities.

Beijing has not issued a formal statement on the pact either. It should view the agreement with cautious approval. China has a long-standing preference for locally led security frameworks and supports regional powers in assuming greater responsibility for their stability. The pact complements its push for common and comprehensive security.

In recent years, as China’s clout has grown, voices have increasingly called for Beijing to step in as a security guarantor. Voices are strongest in the Middle East, in part because China is the only major power that has friendly ties with all nations in the region, including Israel.

But this diplomatic balancing act was sustainable partly because regional powers did not have acutely hostile relations with one another before the Gaza war. Should armed conflict erupt, China would find itself squeezed between opposing sides asking for support – a parallel to its predicament over the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russia’s role in the Middle East has shrunk, but it is far from being pushed out of the picture. Ukraine-related obligations have tied down plenty of its energy and other resources, yet Moscow can still sustain its foothold, drawing on long-established diplomatic ties, technical military cooperation with Iran and residual military and political assets in Syria. Although it lacks the capacity to steer major regional events or launch bold new initiatives, Russia can still serve as a secondary diplomatic broker and keep up modest weapons sales.

How far can the pact realistically go? The catch is who, exactly, would invade any of the three. Israel functions as a shared threat more than a direct foe, yet an Israeli military strike against any member is hard to imagine. Israel has no cause to attack Pakistan or Turkey – both are American allies as well. And before the Gaza war erupted, Saudi-Israeli normalisation was almost within reach.

The pact is unquestionably bad news for Tehran: it unites the three most powerful Sunni states, a dynamic that naturally bodes ill for Shiite-led Iran. Backing proxies like the Houthis and Hezbollah will also become more costly. Yet if even Washington cannot make Iran bend, no regional power will dare launch a direct military assault against Tehran. Conversely, Tehran is highly unlikely to start an open war against any Mecca pact member – its doctrine rests on asymmetric leverage and proxy power, rather than territorial invasion.

India, which regards Pakistan as its primary regional threat, will frown on the deal too. With Pakistan now backed by two of the most powerful Muslim nations, New Delhi will have to factor in potential pushback from Saudi Arabia and Turkey when planning military operations in Kashmir. The pact is particularly awkward for India given its traditionally close economic and energy ties with Saudi Arabia, one of India’s largest oil suppliers. Turkey, meanwhile, has long been an outspoken supporter of Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.

The pact so far is a straw in the wind – but could it be the first move in a tectonic shift? Throughout its modern history, the region has served as a geopolitical chessboard for external powers. Today, great powers command far less ability to dictate regional outcomes than they did a generation ago. A regional order shaped by regional states is no longer unthinkable.