India’s Response to the Makkah Pact: Build Deterrence, Not Mirror Alliances
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed on 7 August 2026 by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye, introduces a binding mutual-defence variable that New Delhi cannot ignore, yet must not overreact to. The pact’s mutual-defence language—that an armed attack on one is an attack on all—has raised legitimate questions in New Delhi, especially against the backdrop of Pakistan’s history of cross-border terrorism and Türkiye’s demonstrated support for Islamabad during the 2025 confrontation that followed the Pahalgam attack and India’s Operation Sindoor.
India does not need to copy the Makkah arrangement or rush into formal counter-alliances. What it does need is a clear deterrence architecture that ensures neither Pakistan nor its potential partners ever conclude that the pact offers a protective shield against the consequences of state-sponsored terrorism.
Terrorist organisations calculate costs differently from conventional states. Leaderships prepared to absorb casualties, rebuild infrastructure and continue campaigns are less deterred by the diplomatic or economic pressures that constrain governments. Crucially, Riyadh’s signature on this pact is driven primarily by the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran and persistent Houthi missile threats to Saudi oil infrastructure, rather than a coordinated anti-India manoeuvre. Facing unreliable US security guarantees, Saudi Arabia is seeking alternative regional deterrents to secure its own borders.
When such groups are used as instruments of state policy with a degree of deniability, the risk is that a new mutual-defence commitment could unintentionally alter the calculus. The uncomfortable but necessary question is: what happens if another major attack occurs, India responds against the responsible infrastructure, Pakistan retaliates, and attempts are made to draw the Makkah framework into the confrontation? Uncertainty itself can weaken deterrence if Pakistani planners begin to believe that external involvement will constrain India’s options.
India’s response must therefore reverse that perception. The Makkah Pact will not immunise Pakistan from the consequences of terrorism. Achieving this requires more than statements; it requires credible capability, layered partnerships and advance preparation. The Ministry of External Affairs’ official reaction—stating that New Delhi is simply “closely following the development”—rightly signals calm. However, keeping this composure requires tangible, underlying adjustments to India’s defence postures.
Primary layer: India’s own hard-power deterrent
Deterrence cannot be outsourced. India’s first and most reliable line of defence remains its independent military strength. Modernisation must be viewed as an asymmetric counterweight to the combined assets of the Makkah bloc: Saudi capital, Turkish NATO-grade aerospace technology, and Pakistan’s standing military. India’s regional denial and punishment architecture must expand to a level capable of raising the costs of any external intervention to unacceptable levels.
Central to this is India’s ballistic missile programme. The operational Agni-IV and Agni-V systems already provide ranges that place every corner of West Asia within reach. Agni-V, in particular, with its demonstrated capability exceeding 5,000 km (and estimates ranging higher), delivers credible long-range conventional and strategic options. Work on the next-generation Agni-VI continues, with design work completed and the programme positioned for further development once clearances are finalised; projected ranges of 8,000 km and beyond, combined with MIRV technology, would further extend and harden this reach.
These land-based systems operate under the disciplined framework of the Strategic Forces Command, which manages India’s nuclear assets under the Nuclear Command Authority. Complementing them is a maturing nuclear triad whose sea-based leg—centred on the growing fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines—provides a survivable second-strike capability. A true blue-water navy, able to operate across the Indian Ocean with carriers, submarines, surface combatants and supporting aviation, multiplies this deterrence by ensuring that any adversary contemplating intervention must also factor in consequences far from the original theatre of conflict.
Beyond blue water navy, missiles and nuclear triad command, the broader architecture requires continued investment in space-based surveillance and resilient satellite constellations, long-range precision strike, ballistic and cruise-missile defence, advanced air defence, unmanned systems and counter‑drone warfare, electronic and cyber capabilities, long-range aviation, and—critically—the industrial capacity to sustain and replenish forces during a prolonged conflict.
India’s geography already confers a decisive advantage in the Indian Ocean. Combined with its expanding capabilities, this makes the calculation for any external power straightforward: direct involvement against India would not be confined to a single front and could entail costs that are difficult to justify.
The message need not be stated publicly. Any external power contemplating direct involvement must also factor in the consequences across distant domains. The objective is simple: intervention must not be worth the cost. This is capability-based deterrence, not inflammatory rhetoric.
Principal external pillar: Israel–Greece–Cyprus–UAE–India strategic framework
While own capability is primary, isolation remains a risk. India already possesses a strong set of complementary relationships that can be connected into a structured strategic-security network without becoming a rigid NATO-style alliance.
Israel remains a deep defence and technology partner with India. Greece and Cyprus share established trilateral cooperation with Israel and have their own concerns regarding Turkish assertiveness. The UAE has emerged as one of India’s most important Gulf partners; the January 2026 Letter of Intent for a Strategic Defence Partnership already covers industrial collaboration, advanced technology, training, special operations, interoperability, cyber and counter-terrorism. Geography links the Indian Ocean through the Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean, supporting maritime security, energy corridors such as IMEC, and overlapping interests in technology and stability.
India should now move beyond overlapping bilateral toward a more institutional five-country Israel–Greece–Cyprus–UAE–India framework. Practical areas for formalisation include defence technology co‑development and supply-chain resilience; structured intelligence sharing on terrorism, maritime and cyber threats; space and satellite cooperation for surveillance and domain awareness; maritime security coordination and naval interoperability; air and missile defence technologies including counter-drone systems; cyber and electronic warfare; and logistics arrangements for maintenance, repair and replenishment.
A second, quieter layer is equally important: a confidential crisis-response protocol agreed in advance. Details need not be public, but partners should know how intelligence, imagery, emergency supplies, ammunition replenishment, maritime surveillance, cyber support and diplomatic coordination would function if one member faces a major security crisis it did not initiate. The purpose is not to draw Greece into a South Asian conflict or Israel into confrontation with Türkiye. It is to ensure India is never strategically isolated.
This combination of own capability plus a ready network changes an adversary’s calculation from “India can be isolated” to “conflict with India risks activating a wider set of capabilities and support.” While recent diplomatic chatter hints at a public, reactionary counter-alliance between India and Israel, New Delhi must resist this. Keeping this five-country framework quiet and focused on crisis response, rather than loud geopolitical posturing, preserves India’s strategic flexibility.
Armenia remains valuable for balancing Turkish and Azerbaijani influence and should continue as a separate bilateral defence track. Israel’s close relationship with Azerbaijan makes full inclusion in the core Mediterranean–Gulf–Indian Ocean framework impractical and unnecessary. Multi-alignment allows overlapping, issue-based cooperation without forcing every partnership into one structure.
Diplomacy and calibrated engagement
Saudi Arabia must not be pushed into an adversarial category. It remains economically, strategically and diplomatically vital. India should engage Riyadh directly for quiet clarifications on how the pact would operate in an India–Pakistan contingency originating from terrorism. The objective is for Saudi Arabia to conclude that its interests are best served by remaining outside such a confrontation.
Türkiye presents a harder challenge. Operation Sindoor showed Ankara’s readiness to support Pakistan politically and, in certain reports, materially. India’s approach should remain two-track: avoid unnecessary diplomatic confrontation while building the military and partnership depth that makes any direct Turkish involvement prohibitively costly.
Iran retains functional value for connectivity (Chabahar, INSTC), energy and selective intelligence. Engagement should stay practical and limited; overt security alignment would complicate relations with Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Russia–India–China format offers little utility against India’s Pakistan-centric concerns and carries unnecessary baggage.
Three reinforcing layers and the window for preparation
India’s response therefore rests on three mutually reinforcing layers: first, independent military capability sufficient to make external intervention unattractive; second, institutionalised strategic partnerships that expand access to technology, intelligence, logistics and diplomatic depth; and third, pre-agreed crisis mechanisms that ensure those partnerships can become operational when needed.
The Makkah Pact is real and warrants monitoring, particularly any deepening of Türkiye–Pakistan defence‑industrial ties. It is not, however, a sudden existential threat requiring panic or zero-sum bloc-building. Multi-alignment remains India’s comparative advantage. The task is to reinforce it with harder power and clearer contingency arrangements so that the pact becomes irrelevant to Pakistan’s terrorism calculus.
India should not assume another major attack is inevitable, nor that the threat has vanished. The prudent course is to prepare now—before any next test—so that the message is unmistakable: a terrorist organisation cannot invoke a defence treaty, and a state that sponsors terrorism cannot assume third-country arrangements will shield it from consequences. Deterrence is created by capability, credibility and preparation. That architecture must be in place before it is required.
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