By Iftikhar Shah Mashwani
The strategic landscape of the Middle East and South Asia is undergoing a potentially significant transformation. An emerging defence partnership involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye, alongside reported interest from Syria and Bangladesh, is raising a larger question about the future of American influence: is Washington preparing to carry a lighter military burden in the region while concentrating greater resources on its long-term technological competition with China?
The defence arrangement signed in Makkah on August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye is based on the principle that an armed attack against one would be treated as an attack against all.
The three countries also agreed to expand defence cooperation. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has stressed that the arrangement is not directed against any particular country and has left open the possibility of other states joining.
That possibility has attracted attention. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani said on August 21 that Damascus had not yet decided whether to participate and that discussions were continuing. Bangladesh has also reportedly shown interest, although no final decision has been announced.
If the framework eventually expands, it could create a defence network stretching from the Gulf and Türkiye through Syria to South Asia. Yet describing it immediately as an “Islamic NATO” would be premature. Its importance lies less in whether it can replace American military power and more in what it reveals about changing regional thinking.
Countries that have traditionally depended heavily on Washington for security are increasingly exploring arrangements that provide them with greater strategic autonomy. The security shocks that followed October 7, 2023, regional confrontation involving Iran and Israel, and uncertainty about the durability of American commitments have accelerated this debate.
The more important development, therefore, may not be America’s disappearance from the Middle East but the gradual transformation of the U.S.-led regional order. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan can maintain important relationships with Washington while simultaneously developing their own security architecture.
For Washington, such burden-sharing may not necessarily be undesirable.
Maintaining extensive military deployments across the Middle East, Europe and the Indo-Pacific is enormously expensive. At the same time, America’s most consequential long-term competition with China is increasingly centred on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, quantum technologies, industrial automation, energy and digital infrastructure.
The strategic calculation could therefore be changing. If trusted regional partners can assume greater responsibility for security while remaining broadly aligned with Western interests, Washington could potentially reduce some military costs and risks without surrendering all of its regional influence.
That would allow greater attention to be directed towards China, whose technological ambitions present a fundamentally different challenge from traditional military competition.
Beijing increasingly treats artificial intelligence, industrial data and advanced manufacturing as components of national power. China’s ability to coordinate state policy, infrastructure, data and industrial investment gives it significant advantages in rapidly expanding strategic technologies.
America operates under a very different model. Its strength comes from private enterprise, world-leading universities, capital markets, scientific research, entrepreneurship and an open political system. These characteristics have historically driven extraordinary innovation.
Yet that same democratic system creates constraints that China’s centralised political structure encounters to a much lesser degree.
Artificial intelligence requires enormous quantities of electricity, land, water and computing infrastructure.
As data-centre construction accelerates across the United States, local opposition is becoming politically important. Communities are increasingly asking who will pay for additional electricity generation, transmission infrastructure and water consumption.
Several American states are reconsidering incentives and regulations surrounding large data centres. Political pressure has emerged in states including New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Illinois and Texas over energy costs, water consumption, tax concessions and land use.
The issue crosses party lines. Democratic and Republican politicians alike increasingly face voters concerned that the economic benefits of AI infrastructure could be accompanied by higher utility costs and pressure on local resources.
Privacy represents another dimension. AI-powered surveillance and data collection are creating concerns about civil liberties, turning artificial intelligence from a Silicon Valley business issue into an increasingly important electoral question.
This highlights the fundamental difference between the American and Chinese systems. Beijing can mobilise resources rapidly when the central government declares an industry strategically important. Local resistance has much less ability to delay national projects.
In the United States, citizens can protest, challenge projects in court, pressure local governments, organise through the media and vote against politicians who support developments they oppose.
That freedom is not a weakness in itself. It remains one of America’s greatest institutional strengths. But it creates a strategic challenge: can a democratic society build AI infrastructure quickly enough to compete with a centralised rival without sacrificing civil liberties and local accountability?
Saudi Arabia’s evolving strategy fits directly into this changing global environment. Riyadh is not abandoning Washington. Instead, it appears to be expanding its strategic options by strengthening relationships with the United States, China, Pakistan, Türkiye and other partners simultaneously.
The Makkah arrangement should therefore be understood within a broader trend towards strategic diversification rather than simply as an anti-American alliance.
There is also a harder geopolitical calculation. Regional military forces are considerably less expensive to maintain than American forces. If capable allies can shoulder more responsibility for regional stability while Washington retains diplomatic, technological and strategic influence, the United States could reduce costs while concentrating resources on areas where its future global position may ultimately be decided.
This does not mean Washington is about to close its Middle Eastern bases, nor does it mean China has already displaced the United States. Both conclusions oversimplify a much more complicated transition.
Instead, global power is becoming increasingly distributed among several centres. Saudi Arabia brings financial and energy influence; Türkiye possesses a growing defence industry; Pakistan contributes substantial military capabilities; China commands enormous industrial and technological resources; and the United States retains unmatched combinations of technology, finance, alliances, universities and military reach.
The Makkah defence arrangement may therefore represent one element of a much larger restructuring of global power.
If Syria and Bangladesh eventually move closer to the framework, it could reinforce the perception that Middle Eastern and South Asian states increasingly want greater control over their own security arrangements.
For Washington, the decisive challenge will be managing that transition without losing strategic influence. Allowing friendly regional powers to assume a larger security role could ultimately complement, rather than undermine, American strategy.
The emerging contest may therefore be less about America abandoning the Middle East than about redefining how American power is exercised—shifting some of the burden of regional security to partners while concentrating increasingly on the arena where the next era of global dominance may be determined: artificial intelligence, advanced technology and economic power.
