By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad
The decline of American hegemony has elites celebrating “new alliances.” But a NATO of the East is no liberation — it’s just another racket for the ruling class.
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Saudi royals, Pakistan’s military, and India’s rulers all use insecurity as theater. Their alliances protect elites, not the people — and replicate the very empire they denounce.
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Gaza is burning. Children are being buried beneath rubble, hospitals are starved of fuel, and the world watches in horror as one of the most grotesque spectacles of militarism in our time unfolds. And what are the region’s so-called leaders doing in response? Are they building ties to stop the slaughter, to end occupation, to insist that the future of their peoples be one of peace and dignity? No. Saudi princes are signing new defense pacts. Pakistan’s generals are salivating over the prestige of protecting Riyadh. India’s rulers are fretting about their oil flows and plotting new hedges with Washington and Moscow. While Gaza bleeds, the ruling classes of South Asia and the Gulf are cashing in, as though war were not tragedy but opportunity.
What we are witnessing is not a sober recalibration of alliances for the sake of stability. It is an arms bazaar dressed up as geopolitics, a grotesque theater of insecurity in which monarchs, kleptocrats, and demagogues strut across the stage proclaiming themselves protectors while the real project is simpler: entrenching their power, guarding their palaces, and deepening the militarization that immiserates their own people.
The Saudi–Pakistan Pact: A Marriage of Insecurity
The recent defense treaty between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has been treated in mainstream commentary as a pragmatic step in the shifting sands of global power. But there is nothing pragmatic — much less noble — about one of the world’s most repressive monarchies formalizing its long-cultivated ties with one of the world’s most bloated military establishments. This pact is not about safeguarding people; it is about safeguarding regimes.
Saudi Arabia, long dependent on U.S. protection, is hedging its bets. Pakistan, perpetually in crisis but always armed to the teeth, is only too eager to provide. The symbolism is clear: Riyadh and Islamabad are making their relationship public, with Pakistan stepping forward as the new shield of the kingdom. What this really means is that Saudi oil wealth and Pakistani military might are fusing in a pact that offers their citizens nothing but more militarization.
It is worth remembering that these ties are not new. Saudi Arabia bankrolled Pakistan’s nuclear program decades ago, on the implicit understanding that, if needed, the weapons could be shared. The cozy bond between the House of Saud and the generals is as old as the Cold War, when both countries served as loyal subcontractors for Washington’s empire — funneling arms and money to Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s while their own societies were hollowed out by authoritarianism and austerity. Today’s defense pact is simply the latest iteration of a partnership that has always prioritized regime security over human security.
America’s Fingerprints
Of course, none of this makes sense without reckoning with the elephant in the room: the United States. For nearly eighty years, Washington has been the guarantor of Gulf monarchies. The famous 1945 meeting between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud inaugurated a simple bargain: the U.S. would protect the House of Saud, and the House of Saud would keep the oil flowing. Every bullet fired, every dissident jailed, every bomb dropped on Yemen carries American fingerprints.
Even Pakistan’s role as Saudi Arabia’s hired gun is a legacy of U.S. designs. During the Cold War, Washington encouraged Islamabad to cultivate its role as a regional military power, a counterweight to India, and a convenient proxy in Afghanistan. The Pakistani generals learned their lesson well: military dependency on Washington could always be leveraged into domestic political dominance at home. The result is the garrison state we see today, where the army is both kingmaker and king.
The irony is rich: after decades of relying on U.S. patronage, Riyadh and Islamabad now posture as independent actors striking a new alliance. In truth, they are merely replicating the American model. They are not rejecting U.S. hegemony; they are mimicking it. An “Eastern NATO” in which Pakistan plays enforcer for Saudi Arabia, with China lurking as supplier and Russia nodding along in approval, is no alternative to Western imperialism. It is its mirror image.
India’s Calculus: Oil, Rivalry, and Opportunism
If Pakistan is eager to play bodyguard for Riyadh, India is equally eager to wring geopolitical advantage from the shifting balance. New Delhi’s rulers — who never miss a chance to wrap themselves in the mantle of anti-colonialism while deepening ties with Washington — see Saudi Arabia’s tilt toward Islamabad as a threat. Their nightmare scenario is one in which Gulf oil, upon which India is heavily dependent, becomes entangled in the India–Pakistan rivalry.
India’s likely response is twofold: lean harder on Russia for oil and arms, and cultivate Washington as a hedge. The irony is that while Prime Minister Modi talks endlessly of sovereignty, India remains locked in a game of dependency: dependent on Gulf energy, dependent on Russian weapons, dependent on American markets and diplomatic cover. The “world’s largest democracy” has become adept at hedging, but hedging is not liberation. It is simply another word for opportunism.
Multipolarity Without Justice
This is the great illusion of the current moment: that a so-called multipolar order will inherently be more just than American unipolarity. It will not. When Saudi princes, Pakistani generals, and Indian demagogues talk of multipolarity, they are not envisioning a world of peace, equality, or democracy. They are envisioning a world in which they, too, can act with impunity — buying weapons from China instead of the U.S., striking oil deals with Russia instead of Europe, but always keeping their people in chains.
The tragedy is that this is being sold as progress. Commentators celebrate Saudi Arabia’s diversification as though breaking free from Washington’s orbit were itself emancipatory. But diversification of arms dealers is not liberation. A kingdom armed by Beijing instead of Washington is still a kingdom. A Pakistan serving as Riyadh’s praetorian guard is still a garrison state. An India balancing Moscow and Washington while brutalizing Kashmiris is still a carceral democracy. Multipolarity without justice is simply more poles for the same circus tent of empire.
Militarism as Addiction
The rulers of these states are addicts. Saudi royals are addicted to foreign arms to protect their gilded palaces. Pakistani generals are addicted to their status as defenders of the nation, which conveniently doubles as defenders of their own privileges. Indian rulers are addicted to the performance of strength, forever seeking new allies to shore up their domestic authoritarianism. And the United States — the great pusher in this global narcotics ring — keeps the supply flowing, even as new dealers like China and Russia muscle in on the territory.
Like any addict, these rulers will sacrifice everything for their next hit. Social welfare, public health, workers’ rights, democratic freedoms — all are thrown into the furnace of militarization. The result is grotesque: vast arsenals alongside starving populations, nuclear weapons alongside collapsing healthcare systems, lavish palaces alongside slums without electricity.
The Road Not Taken
But what if the response to Gaza, to U.S. decline, to global insecurity, were different? What if instead of diversifying arms suppliers, these states diversified solidarity? What if instead of building new military alliances, they built new social alliances — binding themselves not by contracts for weapons but by commitments to justice, healthcare, education, and peace?
This is not naïve idealism. It is the only realistic alternative to endless war. Imagine a Saudi Arabia that used its oil wealth not to import missiles but to fund schools from Sana’a to Gaza. Imagine a Pakistan whose generals traded their uniforms for civilian governance and poured their budget into clean water rather than nuclear arsenals. Imagine an India that measured its strength not in warships but in its ability to eradicate poverty. Such a vision is dismissed as utopian, yet the real utopia is the belief that more weapons will bring peace.
The Deadly Joke
The bitter humor of it all is that while rulers congratulate themselves on clever hedges and multipolar maneuvering, their people are not fooled. Everyone knows the new Saudi–Pakistan pact is not about protecting the average Saudi or Pakistani. Everyone knows India’s frantic balancing act is not about securing the average Indian family’s fuel supply. These are games played by elites whose primary fear is not invasion from abroad but uprising from below.
The rulers fear their own people more than they fear each other. That is why they cling to weapons, to alliances, to defense treaties written in the blood of innocents. Militarism is not a shield against foreign enemies; it is a cudgel against domestic democracy.
Conclusion: Not Another NATO
The lesson of NATO has been clear for decades: militarized alliances entrench hegemony, fuel wars, and serve ruling classes. The response to NATO’s decline should not be an “Eastern NATO” or a “NATO of the Global South.” It should be something radically different: cooperation without militarism, alliances without domination, relationships rooted in peace and social justice rather than guns and oil.
Gaza today is the most searing reminder of what militarism produces: rubble, corpses, trauma. For Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and India to respond to this moment with new defense pacts and strategic hedges is not just cynical; it is obscene. If they truly wish to break free from the West’s suffocating grip, they must do more than swap weapons dealers. They must reject militarism itself.
Until then, the princes, generals, and demagogues will keep cashing in — and their people, like Gaza today, will keep bleeding.
Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.
21 September 2025
Source: countercurrents.org