The myth of an emerging Islamic NATO

In recent months, sections of the media and strategic commentary have been abuzz with claims that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey are moving toward the creation of an “Islamic NATO.”

This narrative suggests that amid a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape in West Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia, Muslim-majority states are seeking a collective security arrangement outside traditional Western frameworks and independent of the United States.

Pakistani leaders have also contributed to this discourse. Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar suggested that if more Muslim countries joined such arrangements, “it will effectively become a new NATO.”

A closer examination, however, reveals that talk of an Islamic NATO is largely symbolic rather than substantive, constrained by deep internal rivalries, enduring structural dependence on the United States, and broader geopolitical calculations that render it operationally unviable.

Renewed talk of an “Islamic NATO” must be understood in the context of shifting regional dynamics in West Asia, particularly under Donald Trump’s leadership, which disrupted long-standing assumptions about US security guarantees.

The perceived inability or unwillingness of the United States to decisively protect its strategic partners during moments of crisis—most notably following Israeli military actions in the region—triggered anxiety among several West Asian states.

In September 2025, Israel carried out a rare airstrike in Doha, Qatar, targeting Hamas leadership, an action Qatar condemned as a violation of its sovereignty. The strike was particularly alarming because Qatar hosts the United States’ largest military base in the region, Al Udeid Air Base, raising doubts among Gulf states about the reliability of the US security umbrella.

Although the Trump administration later issued an executive order pledging to defend Qatar if attacked, the incident created strategic uncertainty and prompted recalibration across the region. Regional actors began questioning a fundamental issue: If a strategic partner can be attacked today, could others be next tomorrow?

This anxiety was compounded by intensifying rivalries across West Asia, growing instability in the Eastern Mediterranean and unresolved conflicts stretching from Gaza to Yemen.

Against this backdrop, the Pakistan-Saudi mutual defense pact, formally signed as the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement in September 2025, became a focal point for speculation about a broader Islamic military alliance.

The pact states that an attack on one country would be considered an attack on both. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said, “If either Pakistan or Saudi Arabia is attacked from anywhere, it will be considered an attack on both nations, and we will respond together.”

Structurally unworkable

Despite the rhetoric, the idea of an Islamic NATO falters under strategic scrutiny.

First, Pakistan, often portrayed as a central pillar of the imagined alliance because of its nuclear capability, operates under severe constraints. Pakistan’s economic, financial and military dependence on the US remains overwhelming.

The US Pentagon exercises significant leverage over Pakistan’s military establishment, and US influence over Islamabad’s strategic decision-making—particularly regarding nuclear assets—is well documented.

In any hypothetical conflict involving Israel, it is inconceivable that Pakistan could offer meaningful military support without explicit or implicit US approval. Given Washington’s unwavering commitment to Israel, such approval is virtually impossible.

Second, Saudi Arabia remains deeply embedded in the US security architecture. Riyadh hosts US military assets and relies heavily on American defense systems, intelligence and training. Any Saudi military action contradicting US or Israeli interests would trigger strategic pushback.

A Saudi-backed military bloc acting independently against Israel would therefore be a contradiction in terms.

Third, a Saudi military alignment against India is highly unlikely. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is pursuing economic transformation and requires strong partnerships with major economies. Riyadh views India as a long-term economic partner as it diversifies away from oil dependence.

This economic calculus reinforces Saudi Arabia’s incentive to maintain stable relations with India, making any disruptive military alignment against New Delhi—or against the US-Israel strategic axis—even less plausible.

Fourth, Turkey, despite its assertive rhetoric, is a NATO member state. Its defense establishment is institutionally and operationally tied to NATO structures. The notion that Turkey could participate in a parallel military alliance targeting Israel while remaining within NATO ignores alliance politics and strategic reality.

NATO members would not permit Ankara to undermine core Western strategic interests under the guise of an alternative bloc.

Fifth, the very invocation of the term “NATO” is conceptually misleading. NATO is not merely a coalition of states but a deeply institutionalized alliance forged during the Cold War, anchored in Article 5’s explicit mutual defense guarantee and sustained by integrated command structures, shared doctrines and decades of coordination.

None of these attributes exist—or are even emerging—among the states purportedly associated with an Islamic NATO.

Internal rivalries

Perhaps the most glaring flaw in the Islamic NATO concept is the absence of Iran. Iran is arguably the Muslim-majority state facing the most acute external threats in the region, yet it is excluded by design from any such arrangement.

This exclusion exposes a fundamental paradox: How can an alliance claim to represent Islamic collective security while excluding Iran? The answer is straightforward. Iran’s inclusion would place any such alliance in direct confrontation with the US—an outcome Washington would never permit.

Consequently, any Islamic NATO that did materialize would in practice be oriented against Iran rather than Israel. This reality alone disqualifies it from being credibly described as an Islamic collective security framework.

Moreover, intra-Muslim rivalries—Saudi Arabia versus Iran, Turkey versus Arab leadership, Egypt versus Turkey and competition between the UAE and Saudi Arabia—make consensus-based military coordination nearly impossible.

NATO functions because of deep institutional integration, shared threat perception and binding collective defense guarantees. None of these conditions exist among the proposed Islamic NATO members.

A central flaw in much commentary is the assumption that the US has “left” the Middle East. In reality, the US remains militarily entrenched across the region, with bases, naval assets, intelligence networks and strategic partnerships spanning the Gulf, the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean.

What has changed is not presence but role distribution. Many indicators suggest that initiatives such as defense pacts and multilateral coordination among Muslim-majority states enjoy American consent, and possibly encouragement. Notably, neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has expressed serious opposition to the Saudi-Pakistan defense agreement.

Had the pact genuinely threatened Israeli security, it would have triggered intense scrutiny and opposition in Western policy circles. The absence of such a reaction is thus telling.

Rather than opposing these arrangements, the United States appears to view them as part of a broader effort to manage regional public opinion and prepare the ground for eventual normalization with Israel.

If an Islamic NATO were ever to materialize, it would likely do so with US approval. This helps explain why leaders in Muslim-majority countries promote the idea domestically: It allows them to project the image of independent collective security to their populations while the underlying strategic direction is shaped by Washington.

The recent “Board of Peace” initiative is a case in point. Despite Trump-era visa bans on several Muslim countries, many of those same states joined the proposed board—an initiative that aligns with the logic of the Abraham Accords and gradual normalization with Israel.

The expansion of such initiatives, despite US coercive measures, underscores the limited agency of these states, where participation often reflects dependency rather than autonomy.

A strategic fallacy

Claims that an Islamic NATO would provide extended nuclear deterrence—particularly through Pakistan—are deeply misleading. Even within NATO, extended nuclear deterrence operates under strict US control, and only a handful of states possess nuclear weapons.

The idea that Pakistan could extend nuclear protection to Saudi Arabia, Turkey or others ignores political, technical and strategic realities.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou has said he was told the Pentagon controlled Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Similarly, National Interest analyst Natiq Malikzada notes that “the pact does not explicitly include extended nuclear deterrence, and Islamabad’s nuclear doctrine remains focused on deterring India, not providing a broad nuclear guarantee to other states.”

Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is not an independent bargaining chip; it exists within a framework of intense international oversight and constraint.

Additionally, China’s deep defense ties with Pakistan add another layer of complexity. China supplied about 81% of Pakistan’s arms imports between 2020 and 2024, making Beijing Islamabad’s dominant weapons supplier.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states rely overwhelmingly on US weapons platforms, while Turkey also uses American equipment. Would NATO allow its members to be compromised? Any alliance facilitating the integration of Chinese defense technology into US-aligned militaries would be unacceptable to Washington.

This alone ensures that the Islamic NATO concept remains tightly circumscribed.

Implications for India

From India’s perspective, the Islamic NATO discourse warrants calm assessment rather than alarm. Even if such an arrangement took symbolic form, it would not be permitted to operate against Indian interests.

The US views India as a long-term strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific and would block any attempt to use such a bloc against New Delhi.

Pakistan may attempt to leverage the narrative politically or diplomatically, but it would gain little operationally. Any overt anti-India orientation would trigger counterbalancing coalitions involving India, Israel, the UAE, Greece, Cyprus and others, neutralizing whatever symbolic value the bloc might claim.

Strategic history shows that balancing produces counterbalancing. Attempts to consolidate power through exclusive alliances often provoke opposing alignments that dilute their effectiveness.

Ultimately, the idea of an Islamic NATO is more rhetorical than real—a political tool aimed at domestic audiences rather than a viable security architecture. Structural dependence on the US, deep internal rivalries, the exclusion of Iran, NATO constraints and broader geopolitical calculations ensure that such a bloc cannot function as a genuine collective defense alliance.

Rather than signaling a decline in American influence, these developments underscore Washington’s continued centrality in shaping regional outcomes. The likely endgame is not confrontation with Israel but gradual normalization under US mediation.

For India, the appropriate response is strategic patience: monitoring developments, strengthening partnerships and avoiding reactive policymaking. In geopolitics, symbolic posturing often masks deeper dependencies, and the so-called Islamic NATO is a textbook example of this reality.

Dr. Imran Khurshid is associate research fellow, International Centre for Peace Studies (ICPS), New Delhi; adjunct fellow at the Peninsula Foundation; visiting faculty member at Nalanda University, Rajgir, Bihar; and author at Middle East Forum.