October 10, 2025 • 48 mins
A fresh jolt in West Asia: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement. Is it just a formalisation of a decades-old security relationship or the birth of an 'Islamic NATO'?
On the latest episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan unpack what's real, what's posturing and why the announcement landed just as Israel struck targets in Qatar, a US ally, trying to mediate with Hamas. The episode especially explores what the agreement means for India.
The two discuss:
-Trace the Pak-Saudi security history and what's actually "new" in this pact
-Decode India's response and how New Delhi should read Riyadh's move
-Ask the uncomfortable bit: money flows to military to militants?
-Explore the nuclear chatter: Pakistani umbrella for Saudi?
-Revisit the long-running theory of US contingency plans around Pakistan's nukes
-Game out an "Op Sindoor 2.0" scenario: where does Saudi sit if India-Pakistan tensions flare?
Tune in!
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound Mixed by Aman Pal
On the latest episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan unpack what's real, what's posturing and why the announcement landed just as Israel struck targets in Qatar, a US ally, trying to mediate with Hamas. The episode especially explores what the agreement means for India.
The two discuss:
-Trace the Pak-Saudi security history and what's actually "new" in this pact
-Decode India's response and how New Delhi should read Riyadh's move
-Ask the uncomfortable bit: money flows to military to militants?
-Explore the nuclear chatter: Pakistani umbrella for Saudi?
-Revisit the long-running theory of US contingency plans around Pakistan's nukes
-Game out an "Op Sindoor 2.0" scenario: where does Saudi sit if India-Pakistan tensions flare?
Tune in!
Produced by Taniya Dutta
Sound Mixed by Aman Pal
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in our Defense.
Welcome to Another Defense. One of the world's most complex
regions may have just gotten a bit more complex. The
Middle East, or rather, should I say the West Asia
when you look at it from the Indian point of
(00:48):
view of the world map and not the American In
the last thirty days or so, we've seen a strike
being carried out against a USLI by Israel, surprisingly and
the signing of a defense agreement defense packed between Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia. The agreement is known as the Strategic
(01:10):
Mutual Defense Agreement, and it has sort of maybe surprised
some people and not really surprised some people because it
is being also seen as the formalization of something that
anyway was happening for several decades. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
have been close friends for several several years now. Some
have referred to it as the potential start of an
(01:32):
Islamic NATO, coming together of all Islamic countries that would
sort of function as the NATO, where they say that
an attack against one of them is an attack against
all of them. Remember that Pakistan is the only Islamic
country in the world to have nuclear weapons, and that's
something that has been talked about as well in the
aftermath of this pact. And very interestingly, the pack comes
just days after his struck Qatar while it was hosting
(01:56):
talks for ceasefire in Gaza. What's going on over yere?
You're going to go that? And for that I have
with me. How are you good to be back? The
great as always, great as always to have you something,
you know. I kind of feel for Qatar at times
because in this during the course of a conflict between
Israel and Iran, a conflict it's sort of tried to
(02:18):
negotiate peace in it's been hit by both of them,
uh Iran once and then now very recently Israel uh
in a strike that Israel says was carried out to
target Hamas operatives, and many people see those people being
there to actually you know, sort of get ceasefire going
on in Gaza. So complex situation, as always in the
(02:41):
Middle East.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Complex situation. But you know, this reminds me of Dave
of that street fight when someone gets into separate two
guys and both those guys land one blow each trying
to separate the fight.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I mean, I mean, this is actually this is a
serious business, serious business.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Lives are lost. It's very unfortunate what happened, but you know,
those are the pitfalls of trying to play mediator, you know,
in a very complex region, as you mentioned, and the
fact that you have Hamas on your territory, you also
have the Taliban on your territory, so I think you know,
a couple of years back, it is a country that
punches way above its its size, and a couple of
(03:22):
years back they decided that this is where they wanted
to go, and they wanted to become like the Switzerland
of West Asia, and they accordingly made those kind of investments.
They are a very rich country. It's one of the
richest countries per capita in the world because of their
massive gas reserves and they've kind of used it to
(03:43):
build influences, cultivate political alliances, getting the Taliban their hamas there.
So they have a stake in literally every conflict in
the region. So, and you know conflicts like you mentioned,
West Asia is an extremely complicated least. There's fights that
have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years, right,
(04:04):
and you have a Qatar. They're kind of a Switzerland
where everyone can come there and talk to, you know,
each other, and without fear of being targeted, which up
until down until now is the Israelis have put a
question mark on that. But you know that is the
that is West Asia for you. There's something going on
(04:25):
all the time in every single country there.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And the reason I mentioned what happened in Qatar is
because many people have linked the signing of the Pact
between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to that, even though the
two countries have said that this has been under negotiation
for several years now, but people have linked it to
that because now people see that perhaps that US security
umbrella that was presumed to be there previously may not
(04:49):
be there anymore, or just that Israel is behaving too
much of an errand sort of a nation that it
will not even listen to its own friend US.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So very you know, interesting state of play there with
the Israeli strike on Kata and I think that was
of course one reason that the Saudis went into that
defense agreement mutual defense back with Pakistan, but there are
other reasons as well. The traditional fear that they have
(05:19):
of unnuclear armed Iran. That is the biggest worry, and
they have said so in the past very openly in
media interviews where Prince Mahmat bin Salman has said, if
Iran goes nuclear, that's a red line for us. We
will have to go nuclear immediately. And they have contingencies
for this. There have been lots of stories in the
(05:40):
past BBC, Bruce Riddel and all of that. They've come
out with stories which suggests that between four and six
Pakistani nuclear warheads have been set aside for the Southeast
in case of a contingency, and that has been the
case from the nineteen eighties and the nineties because it
is widely believed that the Pakistani nuclear weapons program it
was crowdfunded from the GCC countries. By the GCC countries,
(06:05):
a lot of the other Muslim countries as well contributed,
but Saudi was one of the main benefactors of Pakistan,
the Pakistani military as they developed these nuclear weapons, they
bought those missiles. And the understanding, the unwritten understanding. We
don't know if there is a written agreement, but the
understanding seems to be that Saudi Arabia will dial Islamabile
(06:27):
in case it needs assistance if there is a crisis
like nuclear Iran. And that also kind of explains the
rapidity with which Donald Trump entered the arena and he
got benjaminetan Yah that call. You remember that PHO photograph
of him holding the telephone receiver and BB making that
(06:48):
call apologizing to the Kataries for that strike. So it's
the US, you know, telling everyone who the boss is
in the Middle East. And you know, let's forget that.
Whoever says that the US is in retreat and decline
does not understand that the US has tremendous interests in
(07:08):
past Asia. It's got huge investments, not only in the
oil extracting economies, but also basis permanent bases. There are
tens of thousands of US soldiers, sailors, airmen based there.
They have permanent basis the fifth Fleet is based there.
They have carriers, strike groups, they have fighter jets all
across West Asia, and that's been the case for decades.
(07:29):
And I don't see the United States pulling out of
West Asia anytime soon, right.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I wanted to talk about some of the background over
because you know, like I said, some people were quite
surprised by this announcement of this fact, some not so much,
but everybody did note that the history of the Saudi
and Pakistani relationship goes back decades and they've been very
very close friends. And in fact, during my research, I
(07:57):
found out that Pakistan in fact actually has in South
Area and has been giving some sort of training to
their officers and such. So tell us about this history,
tell us about the coming together of southi Arabia and Pakistan.
When did it happen, why did it happen? And when
it comes to West Asia, we've never really thought of
(08:17):
Pakistan as being a key player. This makes it seem
as though it's going to be a key player. So
tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, So, you know, interesting question. They've and you know,
the Saudi Pakistan relationship dates pat several decades it but
it accelerated after the nineteen seventy one war with India,
when Pakistan was cut in half. Literally they lost their
eastern province East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. And when Zulfikar
(08:45):
Alibutu took over the country, what he did was too
you know, they had a severe identity crisis. They were
in a state of shock and they didn't understand what
had gone wrong. We lost half our country. And what
they started to do to realign themselves to the Muslim world,
they wanted to become more Islamic. Zulfikaralibuto started the process. Zia,
(09:09):
who dethroned him, executed him in a judicial execution they
call it. He accelerated the process and they took Pakistan.
They said, Pakistan is actually in Islamic country. We need
to be more Islamic and otherwise there's no difference between
us and India.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Zia said that first. Muni actually what you heard him
say in April was exactly what Zia had been saying
for several years that he was in office, but never
so overtly as Muni made that one speech of his
sixteenth of April, just about a week before the Pulwama massacre.
The process actually began in the seventies and Pakistan said, hey, listen,
(09:52):
we may not have oil, we don't have resources, but
we have a military. We are very good at this.
And what Pakistan has been doing has been literally renting
out its military to these saudiast to the Jordanians. Where
As you know, there was that very infamous Black September
Massacre of nineteen seventy where Brigadier Ziaoul huck oversaw the
(10:15):
massacre of thousands of Palestinians because the Jordanians felt that
the Palestinians were trying to overthrow the Jordanian rule, and
king who sent turned to the Pakistanis, and the Pakistanis
sent the Pakistan Army a few thousand soldiers led by
General Zia and they massacred the Palestinians, and of course
(10:36):
in return, the Jordanians gave them fighter aircraft one zero
Fource F eighty six is also i believe during the
nineteen seventy one war. But in the aftermath of the
seventy one war, Pakistan became more useful to the GCC country,
especially to Saudi Arabia, and there were there was a
(10:57):
contingent of more than three thousand brigade size that was
more or less permanently positioned for the safety of the
Maka and Madina sites, particularly after the nineteen seventy nine
violent insurrection where you know, one of the siege of Makka,
that very famous incident in nineteen seventeen nine where a
(11:17):
bunch of Saudi insurgents tried to take over the mosque.
They took it over, they held it for a couple
of days. One of them declared himself to be the Mahdi,
and you know all of that. So Saudi was deeply
insecure at that time, and they turned to the Pakistanis
and again the Pakistani sent this contingent of three thousand
plus soldiers who've been there ever since, from the late
(11:39):
nineteen seventies. And now, you know, the thing is that
the break actually came in twenty fifteen when this great
Saudi park relationship that had been going on for several
decades hit a roadblock when the Saudis wanted to go
and invade Yemen in twenty fifteen, a decade ago, they
turned to the Pakistanis and said, listen, we need you
(11:59):
to say some soldiers. That's when the chief at that
time it was was it Rahil Sharif or is it Bajui?
I remember, I forget which one of the two it was.
But he turned around and said that no can do
because this is this doesn't you know, cover the mutual
agreement that we have. We don't see that as a
threat to us. Very wisely stayed away from that horrible
(12:23):
war that's been going on for now for a decade now,
and that actually was a rupture between the Saudi Pak
relationship because the Saudist how dare you guys say no
to us? We've funded you guys, We've you know, help
you build up your military machine. We've given you so
much of aid for the last several decades and you
say no to us. So you know, from then on
(12:46):
twenty fifteen, you actually saw the Modi government coming in
here and you saw excellent ties between India, Saudi Abs
and the uas right for a decade. Now you've seen
probably the best leader to leader ties between India and
Saudi Arabia and the UE then we have at any
point in the past. You know, they've given the Prime
(13:09):
Minister mod the their highest state honors. Now they're literally
a phone call away. So now cut to twenty twenty five.
A decade later, you have Field Marshal Field Marshal Money
taking over and he's playing this you know, T twenty
match of geopolitics, trying to you know, go to Washington,
multiple meetings with Trump, he goes in, they meet the Southeast,
(13:34):
and of course they pull off this very very Uh.
It's a historic agreement if you ask, There's no two
ways about that. And I think we may have been
taken by surprise here. The Southeast did mention that they
had kept India informed about this, but the agreement as
it's played out is a bit of a surprise to us,
(13:56):
and it is something that we, you know, possibly didn't
see coming because we were so let's say, complacent about
our relationship with the Saudi Arabians, and of course the
ue that this would have taken us by surprise. But
that's what Pakistan has been doing. Literally in the last
(14:18):
couple of months, they've been.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Moving to the US to an extent.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, even the US see they're playing tactic. They're very
good at tactics, right, They move very quickly, they make
themselves useful, that's their playbook, right, Whereas we play the
long game, you know, it's it's like an elephant's gate.
I would say India's foreign policy is like an elephant
that's walking very slowly and steadily, and surely it's moving ahead. Right.
(14:44):
You won't see an elephant, you know, running helter skelter. Well,
they do, but those are rogue elephants. We are not
a rogue elephant. We move straight. We move on a path,
a pre distant path, a pre decided path, and it
might look very slow, ungainly and all, but that's how
we've been moving for the last couple of years. And
(15:05):
all the provocations that you've seen, whether it comes from
Islamabad or JHQ rawal Pindi or even from Washington as
we've been seeing off late, haven't thrown us off course.
You know, we've still persisted down that straight line of advance,
which is what we've been doing here. So while these
may be temporary hiccups, I think the long run, the
Southeast realize that India is going to be the third
(15:28):
largest economy whichever you look at it. India is going
to be the third largest economy, and we are going
to need oil and gas, and a lot of that
is going to come from Saudi Arabia. Right, They're one
of our biggest customers for suppliers of oil and natural gas,
oil particularly, and we're not moving away from that. We
(15:50):
will consume much much more than what you know, Pakistan does,
and we offer much more to the Southeast and the
UA than Pakistan ever. Yeah, so I think it's I
don't blame the Southeast also for what they did. You're
in a situation where a country that's a strategic partner
(16:10):
of the United States gets knocked by a ballistic missile attack,
several ballistic missiles. The US doesn't say and do anything,
and they say, hey, listen, what happened to this fabled
US umbrella security umbrella that all of us were supposed
to have been provided.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
With, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And I think that was, you know, a kind of
reminder to the US, like, if you don't protect us,
we've got to make our own choices.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Man, That's what happened. Yeah, right, good point about how
Pakistan has been going around, as in money particularly has
been going around, because that actually is I think that
reminds me of you know, how we keep saying that
Pakistani military chiefs usually are more CEOs than their actually
military officers.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, some some Pakistani army chiefs, not all of that,
some of them, and you know the dictator variety, like
you have four of them in the past, and you
have Muni, who's a course, I call him a quasi dictator.
And we've talked about this in the past. It's a
hybrid system that he's worked out because it suits him. Right,
he takes all the bookcase and that poor guy is
(17:12):
standing next to him, Shabaz gets all the brick backs, right,
anything that happens, that's the prime minister. I'm just the
army chief. He's the prime minister, you know, you know,
tell him that he's the elected guy. I'm just the
army chief. Blame him exactly. I mean, can you imagine
how catastrophic it would be for Muni if you were
actually running the country right now, Pakistan as it is
today with a dead crisis and the civil war that's
(17:35):
on there and people being massacred, the military being targeted,
not just in Baluchistan but in Khyber paktoon Koi, and
you know, trains are being blown up by insurgents and
multiple state for Express Expresses is an insurgent magnet.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
They hit it every few months.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But it's a terrible situation for this CEO to take charge,
so he lets someone else run the show for him.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah. Right. I wanted to talk about how India should
be looking at this, or how India will look at it,
because what I've read online is what I've seen a
sharp divide in how experts see this vis India. First,
let's look let's look at how India has reacted to it.
The NEA, in its statement has more or less said
(18:21):
that we've noted the development. Uh, we were aware that
this was coming, and this formalizes a long standing arrangement
between the two countries. With two countries, we will now
study the implications this development or this development has on
national security and we remain committed to protecting India's national interests.
So it's a pretty measured, pretty boilerplate foreign miaity statement
(18:44):
saying nothing, essentially basically saying they can't not well SKA.
But when it comes to the experts, when it comes
to the debate that's been going, there are two camps.
One camp says key, this will cause some alarm. Not
not about or not as much about Saudi being potentially
involved in a conflict in the future, but more about
(19:06):
the finances, more about the Saudi money flowing to Pakistan
and then some of it ending up with the army
and then that being used to again for men terrorism
against against India, which has been the case with a
lot of funds that Pakistan gets from many countries in
the world. The other camp says that again it's just
something that was all in existence. This is more formalization
(19:28):
of it. It's just been put down on paper. There's
much not much for INTA to worry. Like you said,
India is a major buyer of Saudi oil. It is
Saudi's second largest trade partner after China, very close with Japan,
and like you said, once again, in the last decade,
ties between Riyad and New Delhi have become very very
very warm. So Saudi will not want to risk that.
(19:50):
So it will obviously keep India in mind. Where do
you stand personally first, and then where do you think
the MEA would be on this?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
On this issue, well, I think you know the first
option that you outlined there is something that should cause
us great concern. I mean, of course we don't know
if there is actual evidence of a lot of Saudi
money actually going in there, but we've seen in the past. Right,
Pakistan will not be allowed to fail. It will be
allowed to fail, but not to fail. And a lot
(20:20):
of that comes from Saudi Is, one of the biggest
contributors to Pakistan a couple of billion dollars. They can
always pull out a few billion dollars to help the Pakistanis.
If I recall correctly, the numbers are something like almost
a third of the Pakistani debt is Saudi. Wow. Saudi
and Pakistan China are two of the biggest creditors to Pakistan.
(20:43):
So the big worry is that the Pakistani state is
re arming, as we all know, they were doing that
before Absindur and they are continuing to do that. The latest,
of course is the Amram, the new advanced versions of
the am Ram being sold to Pakistan by the Unit
United States. Saudi money is going to fund a lot
of this military expansion and that is what should worry us,
(21:07):
because it's not just the money coming in. The Pakistanis
could pull the Saudis into joint development of programs, for instance,
defense programs, and if you see, for instance, Saudi pilots
training in Pakistan, or Saudi troops not just Pakistani troops
(21:27):
in Saudi Areba. But if you start seeing Saudi soldiers
in Pakistan, Saudi aircraft in Pakistan, all of that would
cause great concern to us because that complicates a military
response to what Pakistan has been doing. So you have
to see what Muni has been doing in the last months,
a few months since Absindur I painted that extreme picture.
(21:48):
A couple of months back, we were talking about it
that he would go for a nuclear test right to
reassert Pakistan's nuclear deterrent. He's done, let's say, in the
last couple of months, he's done everything short of a
nuclear test, but he is. He's even gone in You
know that the Saudi Park deal does have a nuclear
component to that. It's never been mentioned. It's always there.
(22:08):
It's like the elephant in the room. But what Munin
has been doing has been to re establish all the
old linkages that Pakistan has with its traditional security partners China,
for instance, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Is. They
are using whatever leverage they have with all of these countries.
(22:30):
If the United States wants rare earths and critical resources
and oil and gas and gold, Pakistan army, the Pakistan
Army will provide so what it has done is the
Pakistan Army, you know, has captured all the strategic assets
of the state. The two big ones are of course
nuclear weapons and non states so called non state actors
(22:50):
or terrorists. Here, they've also captured their minerals, their rare earths,
and they have started selling them to the United States.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
There's a lot of debate on in Pakistan right now.
It's unprecedented. I mean, this happens in Banana dictatorships, where
you have you know, countries literally selling out their resources.
The way the park military is doing that, There's been
no debate in parliament nothing. A Frontier Works Organization, which
is a Pakistan military arm of the Pakistani state, the
(23:20):
way our Border Roads Organization is strikes a five hundred
million dollar deal with a private US company for prospecting
minerals and they've already started shipping those rare.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Earths out of Pakistan. That's what the Pakistan Army is doing.
So he is trying to be of use to all
of their neighbors around it, not just leveraging Pakistan's geopolitical location.
It's a very very strategic location between Central Asia and
West Asia, and of course a direct coastal access to
(23:49):
Central Asia. It's one of the fastest routes of Central
Asia by passing Iran. All of that is being leveraged
in the last couple of months, and that explains this
speed with which move Me and Shavas have been moving
around and talking to whether it's Saudist or the Americans
or even the Chinese.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah right, we'll talk more about this and especially the
nuclear component that's been that's led to quite some chatter.
But after a pic take.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
The first two or three years, is vital that you
take it to an authorized service center.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Because it's not free. By the way, Helloa, new car owner,
I'm telling you it's not free. I'll tell you what
is free. Also, what you need.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
To understand is that if you do not take your
car to the first three services at least, if not.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
More, they avoid your warranty.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
So if your car is not serviced, is not stamped,
doesn't have a service history.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And the plus point here is.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
That you can take it to any service center across
the country except today. If I buy a car like
said today, example, I VI I are an Alto in
Calcutta and I drive down immediately to Delhi. My first
service should be somewhere around Kanpur. Yeah, I can take
it to Kanpur and get it service there, no problem.
So the computerized service history is written. So then when
(25:16):
I reach Delhi, it will be due for it's second service.
So you come and service it in Delhi.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Welcome back. Suddenly, before the break, we talked about India.
We talked about how India should look at this, and
you've talked about how India should be concerned to an extent. Uh,
Now we'll talk about the nuclear aspect to this entire
pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Very interestingly, by the way,
there is no text by the of this agreement. There's
(25:49):
no full text out there for anyone to read to
sort of understand key exactly. Hogaka. There was just an
announcement that we've seen excerpts except for that report quoted
quadja as If as saying the Defense Minister as saying,
or rather he told writers that nuclear weapons were not
on the radar well. Talking in the context of this agreement, however,
(26:12):
a Saudi as official again told Reuters that this agreement
encompasses all military means. The same report by Reuters also
has an analysis that Pakistan's longest range missile, the Shahin three,
potentially can reach Israel because it Pakistan has designed its
nuclear weapons to be able to reach all parts of India,
so if you look the other side, it can potentially
(26:34):
reach is itral though, you made a very good point
about how this is more about Iran than Israel, but
I think we'll circle back to that just in a bit.
Like I said previously as well, Pakistan is the only
Islamic country in the world to have nuclear weapons. However,
there is ambiguity. Do you think that's on purpose and
this nuclear is nuclear weapons a part of this? I
(26:56):
would think they are a part of this agreement they've
of course, we don't know what's in it yet. But
the fact is that the Southeist will not put serious
money down on an agreement unless there was something big
that the Pakistanis had offered him.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
That explains the speed with which Donald Trump entered the
Fray and he got the Israeli Prime minister to apologize
and all that because he had allowed this, you know, what,
can you call it? This opportunity to open up for
(27:32):
Pakistan to enter and grab the Saudis, and they acted
slow on this, so they just moved up very quickly
to patch up this thing. But I think by then
the Southist had already tied up with the Pakistanis, and
there have been several investigations like I mentioned in the past.
The BBC did one story in twenty thirteen where they
(27:53):
spoke of this agreement for four to six nuclear weapons
and how these do clear weapons be delivered. Well, it
turns out that a couple of decades ago, the Chinese
had sold irbm's intermediate range ballistic missiles of the Dongfeng
series to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has those in storage.
(28:15):
It's never been it's been seen in public a couple
of times once or twice. But these weapons are meant
to be mateed to the Pakistani nuclear warheads. That is
one line of thinking, and it's quite possible that Mamaed
bin Salman, who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia,
wanted some serious guarantees that, look, if there is a
(28:37):
crisis Iran going, you know, for the nuclear weapons, then
we need our own. And the shortest truthe to that
is the Pakistani bomb on Chinese missiles operated by Saudi Arabia.
It's a very happy, uh you know, trifecta of nuclear weapons,
and it will be kept deliberately ambiguous in the way
(28:58):
that the Israeli nuclear weapons program is ambiguous. They never
claim to have nuclear weapons. The world knows that they
have a nuclear weapon. They have several nuclear weapons, both
the air and undersea launched variants, but they never confirm it. Similarly,
the Saudist will and the Pakistanis will keep this ambiguous,
though it's not so directed at the Israelis. It is
(29:20):
directed at the Iranians, but Iran and Saudi Arabia. The
Iran and Israel are the two biggest threats to Saudi Arabias, right,
so that is something that they've always been worried about
since the Islamic Revolution of Rola Comeni nineteen seventy nine.
And this is just renewing the insurance policy in twenty
(29:43):
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right, It'll come to Iran in just a bit. Because
I think this is actually a fresh perspective for me
as well, because the reading that I've been doing so
far has been mostly about israel I think because everyone
is linking into the Qatari strike. But before that, a
tangent on the nuclear point the US, how is that
country going to look at the nuclear Anglo? Yeah, because
the US likes to be the nuclear police of the
(30:04):
of the world deciding. The US has some sort of
overset over Pakistan's nukes, not as much in terms of
command and control, but like you've described previously, that more
in terms of contingency plans about potentially seizing them, potentially
taking them away from where they are in case of
a world crisis. In case of crisis like that. So
(30:25):
would US right now be brushing up its old plans
about what to do with Pakistan's nukes if the US
field is going to be a threat to it or
one of its allies.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Well, yeah, so they've that those plans were drawn up
in the early two thousands, particularly after nine eleven, where
there was this fear of insurgents al Kaeda getting hold
of Pakistani yukes and uh, these contingencies were rehearsed and
there have been several uh uh you know, plans that
(30:54):
were drawn up. There were even some exercises that were
carried out. And this is they're available in the rights
of sam or her. She's written extensively about this. So
it's not any Hollywood script. In fact, I would think
that a lot of the Hollywood scripts that we saw
in movies like The Peacemaker were inspired by actual contingencies
that played out there, you know. But that said, it's
(31:16):
going to be very difficult for the Pakistani to actually
outright transfer four or six Newkes while the United States
is there.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
That's going to happen only in a very extreme kind
of a crisis, and it is possibly a time when
they are foreseeing a time when the United States is
completely out of West Asia. They're no longer involved in
West Asia, They've pulled out completely. They are so preoccupied
in their own struggles or possibly a war in Europe.
(31:44):
You know, you have to understand that what we are
living through today, in twenty twenty five, it is one
of the biggest watersheds in history. We don't know it
yet because we're living through it right now.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's exactly like when I was in college. The Cold
War just ended, and I was sitting there and watching
Duru Dashian. I couldn't believe it. The Berlin Wall was falling,
East and West Germany were being reunited, and I grew
up in a world I grew up in the Cold War,
and for me, that moment was coming to an end. Similarly,
I think in twenty twenty the early twenty twenties, I
(32:18):
think it ended roughly when Putin invaded Ukraine twenty twenty two.
But in twenty twenty five, the arrival of Trump, you're
seeing an acceleration of that. That old world order, the
post Cold War world has ended. We are now in
the post post Cold War world, if we can call
it that. And what the biggest contest today is that
(32:40):
China is gaining on the United States, and the US
is trying its best to retard the Chinese development and
you know, slow them down because they don't want them
to catch up in all the high technology areas. The
Chinese have invested very wisely in the last ten years.
They are an engineering state, whereas America is a loyally state.
(33:00):
There's a brilliant book out there which you should read
by Dan Wang called Breakneck, which is about China's rise
as an engineering state. The US is trying to retard
China's growth, and at the same time, Russia has been
waging this war in Europe without a break. They've been
(33:20):
on for it's going to approach the fourth year, four
years of NonStop fighting, a war of attrition. When wars
are short, conflicts are short, like the kinds that we like.
In fact, everyone likes a short war. You know, no
one wants a long war. But when long wars play
out wars of attrition, they completely rewrite the rules of
(33:42):
the game. The long war in Ukraine has completely changed Europe,
the dynamics of Europe. The long war that Israel has
been fighting in Gaza and against Iran, and for the
last two years now that is completely redrawing the map
of West Asia. Like you know, literally, regimes are collapsing
in Syria and all of that. And for the first time,
(34:04):
we're seeing nuclear weapons being talked about more openly than
any other time in the past. Literally, not a day
goes by when someone isn't talking about the nuclear weapons.
It's either Iran's nuclear options being curtailed by the United States,
the British going for air dropped nuclear weapons, India warning
(34:26):
you know with the Ugly five, and of course the
Agny Prime rail launched thing. The Pakistani is reiterating their
nuclear weapons. North Korean's talking about that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You know, when you're.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Living in an age of extreme fear geopolitical churn. People
start reaching for the nukes, say is my ultimate weapon?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Is it safe? Safe?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know? Do I need to get some more? Guys
who have it are reasserting their nuclear weapons. Guys who
don't have it, they want to say that Listen, I
hope my agreement that I had in my father's time
or my grandfather's time that still exists, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So that is a kind of.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Scenario that you're seeing playing out right now, because I mean,
I can't recall any other time in the past twenty
thirty years where nukes have been talked about, putin talks
about you know, you know, if you do that, then
we're going to go and use nukes. There's you know,
talk about a European nuclear deterrent because they can't rely
(35:24):
on Trump or the US, so all kinds of and
it's all nuclear stuff. And this happens when you're looking
at a massive geopolitical change of the kind that we're
seeing in twenty twenty five and everything else. What Pakistan
is doing, it's how the Arabia, what Israel is doing
with Iran, or what Iran is trying to do, is
a subset of this major geopolitical change that's you know.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Unfolding, fantastic point. Actually, I've never thought of it that way,
but now that you say it, it's just so bloody obvious,
because Yeah, when I grew up and I learned in
school about the existence of nuclear weapons, and it was
always written in the textbooks. Yeah, don't worry. They is
like made and kept by everybody but political weapon.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
But let's not forget those all those agreements. I mean,
fortunately they've the Russian Federation extended it by year, starts
strategic arms treaty. They've you know, the Americans walked out
of it. They said, we don't believe it can't start
because we have such an overwhelming advantage. And now, and
this is a this is a very very interesting scenario
that you're looking at there. It is the first time
(36:29):
in United States history that it is facing two new
peer adversaries armed with nuclear weapons that can reach the
continental United States. That's, of course the Russian Federation and
now China with that massive parade, and also North Korea.
So if you're looking at this new so called axis
of evil with the four countries, Iran is the only
(36:49):
country in this axis that doesn't have nuclear weapons, yet
all the other three countries have it. So the United
States itself is going through a big churn whether the
strategic community is, you know, questioning its weapons. Do we
need new weapons, do we need bigger weapons, do we
need mega tonage, do we need several more delivery devices, platforms, missiles?
(37:13):
What do we need to do? So there's a new
arm strace that's going on in the world, and it's
purely a product of these kind of.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Fears, right. In fact, it's not just the talk. You
also are at a time when you have countries launching
intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are supposed to be used, not
supposed to be, but they were always thought to be
used only with nuclear bombs. They've been launched with conventional
conventional yeah, of course, conventional warheads. And like you've said
(37:41):
once previously that at the time of launch, it's impossible
for a country to know whether that ballistic missile has
a nuclear water on it or not. So if you
live in a fear like this where everyone's talking about it,
and let's say you have North Quare launching a ballistic missile,
the conventional water the US thing is a nuclear water.
You don't know what happened. That's right, that's it.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It's a very dangerous situation that we are, dangerous times
that we're living through.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, right right. Some people end the episode on Iran
because I think again, like I said before, that it's
a fresh perspective that I haven't gotten so far in
my reading that you are saying this is not much
about Israel, even though it happened just a few days
after so it may have sort of accelerated the process
of Guessingai Saudiraba must have been like, hello, us, is
(38:26):
not that to you know, sort of protect us? So
that deal you were gonna thinking of signing with Pakistan
might as well go outd and do it. Maybe that's
how it happened. But us saying this is all about Iran,
that's why you say that.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Iran well, because Iranian nuclear capability has not been destroyed completely.
It's still there, it is, It has those highly enriched uranium.
The four Door site was hit but not destroyed completely,
and there's reason to believe that Iran might have removed
some of that ITCHU from those sites before the bombing.
(38:58):
Everyone knew the bombing was coming, and it's a matter
of time and Iran could restart its nuclear weapons program
at some point, and that is a big fear that
the Saudis have that if they do that, they could possibly,
you know, fashion what is called a RDD, a radioactive
dispersal device, which is a dirty bomb as they call it.
(39:19):
They could even use it for that, you know, mix
the istu that they have to create these kinds of things.
And let's not forget that the Saudi you know, until
nineteen seventeen nine, the Saudis and the Iranians were the
best of friends. It's unimaginable. You had the Shao of
Iran who was best palace with the Saudi king. Seventy
nine was a rupture in those ties, and you startenly
(39:41):
started looking at Ashia Iran against a Sunni Saudi Arabia
and this very bizarre situation of the number one global
concern in the Islamic world, which is the cause of Palestine,
which is being picked up, which is a Sunni Arab cause,
which is being picked up by a country that is
(40:02):
neither Sunni nor Arab, which is Iran and Iran. Even now,
if you look at it, Iran's street credit is enormous
on the Arab Street. The kind of respect that the
Iranian regime has is far greater than those enjoyed by
the Southeast or the Yuai or something, because you know,
Iran has been seen as the guy who stood up
(40:23):
for the Palestinians. They literally burnt their entire axis of
resistance so called access of resistance fighting the Israelis. They
took direct bombardment, all of that for a cause. That's
a Sunni Arab cause. They's fought for the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
They may not have played a role in Hamas's initial
planning of that horrific September seventh, October seventh massacre, but
they definitely supported them after that. Right. So, this is Iran,
which is a force in being, is a threat to
the Saudi establishment. They know that there. What are you
(41:00):
not so much Israel? They can handle Israel to an extent.
The Americans are always there for the Southeast. Iran is
the outlier. And Iran that's allied with China and with
the Russian Federation that poses some concern to the Southeast. So,
and it's a massive country, let's not forget that.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, it is actually a massive country. The map actually
and it has also attacked Saudi Arabia in the past. Well,
it's the attack on the Saudia Aramco refineries that was
Iranian proxy attack using the Hothis. So I'm guessing this
is actually the fear is not as much about Israel
(41:39):
as it is that if US can not end up
giving a dam that Israel ended up hitting one of
its friends, what if it does not give a damn
one of its enemies hitting us? About that? Basically, so
the nuclear protection that we thought we had from the
US is perhaps not available. So let's look to Pakistan.
Perhaps maybe that's where the fantastic point again once again,
(42:01):
And I wish trite about this actually really because it's
right of missing in the discourse because I can I
guessing people are still sort of you know, waking up
to it, still reacting. It will eventually come because now
that you explain it so so vividly, it seems like
the most obvious thing in the world, like it should
strike everyone. No, and for those of you here in
India watching this and to think that this is far
(42:23):
removed from us and we have no skin in the game,
we do. Everything that happens in.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
West Asia affects us, not just because of the huge
diaspora that we have working there. But you know, things
like who would have thought that the Houthis would shut
the Red Sea, And we saw massive hikes in our
shipping costs, thirty to forty fifty percent hikes in the
cost of shipping. And of course the government just last
(42:50):
months rolled out this massive shipbuilding program seventy thousand plus
to build ships in India when they realize that we
don't have shipping of our own and in a crisis
like this, the West Asia crisis, it could imperil our
you know sea leians of communication. So we have started
to build our own ships. So everything that happens in
our neighborhood has a cascading effect on India.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right. So then one final quick point, because you mentioned
that for Saudi Arabia they may have had to rush
into this deal because of what happened with this really
strike on Qatar. Do you think they've too they've they've
they've war gamed. How will they balance Pakistan and India
or are they going to be just like sort of
playing it along and seeing how to do in the future,
(43:32):
Because like you said at the beginning right at the top,
that Saudi and India relations have I think reached a
point from which there is no turning back. They may
sort of, you know, cool down a bit because of
this development, but there's a term turning back because it's
been mutually beneficial. That is the point where where we've reached.
So how is Saudi going to balance the two is?
Does it have a plan in mind right now or
(43:53):
is it going to just pay along and.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Wall I would know if they have a planet it
might but I'm sure they do because you're looking at
Mama bin Salman there right, he's a shrewd guy and
he is the only leader in the world today who
is going to be if you look at his family history,
he's going to be around for a half century, yes,
right till the year twenty seventy five, fifty more years.
(44:19):
His father is about what in his mid eighties or something,
eighty five eighty six. All of the House of South
they've been very long ruled. They've all gone into their
eighties and nineties and all that. And Mama is just
about in his forties now and he's locked up a
thirties and that. Yeah, So there, he's a despot. There's
no two ways about it. But he's a very bright guy,
and he's a someone that who's got a vision for
(44:41):
Saudi Arabia in a way that possibly neither of his
uncles or his father didn't have. And he's not content
with letting things be the way they are. He wants
to get Saudi Arabia away from this dependence on oil
economy and you know stuff like that. That is where India
comes in, right, So I'm sure he's made his calculations
and for him, balancing India and Pakistan would not be
(45:05):
a very major task. And I'm sure we know that
as well. India and Saudi Arabia. The partnership is a
long term one Pakistan Saudi Arabia, it's a short term,
transactional partnership.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Like Pakistan's all relationships.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Pakistan, all of its relationships, whether it's with the United
States or with China or with Saudi Arabia, they're all
short term because they don't really have a big long
term vision to offer. All they have is utility for
the time being to solve a particular problem, and then
they're discarded once they're used. You know, whether it's nineteenth
(45:40):
look at it seventy one. The India the China outreach
by Nixon and Kissinger. They are discarded after that, seventy
nine to nineteen eighty eight, the first Afghan war, Zia discarded,
after that, two thousand and one War on Terror, discarded
after to that. So and now twenty twenty five is
(46:02):
a fourth crisis, and very soon they're going to be discarded.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
I think if Trump's Kaza plan works out, that might
happen very in the upcoming months. If ye happens, now
that's a that's a that's a topic for another discussion.
Trump Gaza Plan, possibly with Pakistani security, is a tiger
of the kind that money is going to find very
hard to write. Yeah right, uh so maybe we'll discuss
(46:28):
that in an upcoming episode. But let's see how that
goes on the ground, because I think that Kaza plan
is not really like you know, it was very weird
how sort of the country's sort of backed it and
then sort of faced a lot of blowback from the
Islamic world. You know, what the hell are you guys doing?
Have you not even read so Trump he was saying, yo,
Pakistan backs like, hello, we had nothing to do with it.
(46:51):
So weird. But anyway, we'll talk about that in a
future episode, but thanks on thee fantastic discussion as always,
and uh thanks. Having middies is always complex and it's
a topic and t read honestly talking about because one
worried about getting things wrong. But second, I really enjoy
talking it with someone like you because then you have
those insights and perspectives in which I'm guessing our listeners
(47:14):
and VI also like, thanks so much for you, and
thanks is always to our listeners and viewers. That's it
for this week's defense goes for more tune in next week.
Till then, stay safe and do not toss any boundaries
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Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
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(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in our Defense.
Welcome to Another Defense. One of the world's most complex
regions may have just gotten a bit more complex. The
Middle East, or rather, should I say the West Asia
when you look at it from the Indian point of
(00:48):
view of the world map and not the American In
the last thirty days or so, we've seen a strike
being carried out against a USLI by Israel, surprisingly and
the signing of a defense agreement defense packed between Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia. The agreement is known as the Strategic
(01:10):
Mutual Defense Agreement, and it has sort of maybe surprised
some people and not really surprised some people because it
is being also seen as the formalization of something that
anyway was happening for several decades. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
have been close friends for several several years now. Some
have referred to it as the potential start of an
(01:32):
Islamic NATO, coming together of all Islamic countries that would
sort of function as the NATO, where they say that
an attack against one of them is an attack against
all of them. Remember that Pakistan is the only Islamic
country in the world to have nuclear weapons, and that's
something that has been talked about as well in the
aftermath of this pact. And very interestingly, the pack comes
just days after his struck Qatar while it was hosting
(01:56):
talks for ceasefire in Gaza. What's going on over yere?
You're going to go that? And for that I have
with me. How are you good to be back? The
great as always, great as always to have you something,
you know. I kind of feel for Qatar at times
because in this during the course of a conflict between
Israel and Iran, a conflict it's sort of tried to
(02:18):
negotiate peace in it's been hit by both of them,
uh Iran once and then now very recently Israel uh
in a strike that Israel says was carried out to
target Hamas operatives, and many people see those people being
there to actually you know, sort of get ceasefire going
on in Gaza. So complex situation, as always in the
(02:41):
Middle East.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Complex situation. But you know, this reminds me of Dave
of that street fight when someone gets into separate two
guys and both those guys land one blow each trying
to separate the fight.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I mean, I mean, this is actually this is a
serious business, serious business.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Lives are lost. It's very unfortunate what happened, but you know,
those are the pitfalls of trying to play mediator, you know,
in a very complex region, as you mentioned, and the
fact that you have Hamas on your territory, you also
have the Taliban on your territory, so I think you know,
a couple of years back, it is a country that
punches way above its its size, and a couple of
(03:22):
years back they decided that this is where they wanted
to go, and they wanted to become like the Switzerland
of West Asia, and they accordingly made those kind of investments.
They are a very rich country. It's one of the
richest countries per capita in the world because of their
massive gas reserves and they've kind of used it to
(03:43):
build influences, cultivate political alliances, getting the Taliban their hamas there.
So they have a stake in literally every conflict in
the region. So, and you know conflicts like you mentioned,
West Asia is an extremely complicated least. There's fights that
have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years, right,
(04:04):
and you have a Qatar. They're kind of a Switzerland
where everyone can come there and talk to, you know,
each other, and without fear of being targeted, which up
until down until now is the Israelis have put a
question mark on that. But you know that is the
that is West Asia for you. There's something going on
(04:25):
all the time in every single country there.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And the reason I mentioned what happened in Qatar is
because many people have linked the signing of the Pact
between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to that, even though the
two countries have said that this has been under negotiation
for several years now, but people have linked it to
that because now people see that perhaps that US security
umbrella that was presumed to be there previously may not
(04:49):
be there anymore, or just that Israel is behaving too
much of an errand sort of a nation that it
will not even listen to its own friend US.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So very you know, interesting state of play there with
the Israeli strike on Kata and I think that was
of course one reason that the Saudis went into that
defense agreement mutual defense back with Pakistan, but there are
other reasons as well. The traditional fear that they have
(05:19):
of unnuclear armed Iran. That is the biggest worry, and
they have said so in the past very openly in
media interviews where Prince Mahmat bin Salman has said, if
Iran goes nuclear, that's a red line for us. We
will have to go nuclear immediately. And they have contingencies
for this. There have been lots of stories in the
(05:40):
past BBC, Bruce Riddel and all of that. They've come
out with stories which suggests that between four and six
Pakistani nuclear warheads have been set aside for the Southeast
in case of a contingency, and that has been the
case from the nineteen eighties and the nineties because it
is widely believed that the Pakistani nuclear weapons program it
was crowdfunded from the GCC countries. By the GCC countries,
(06:05):
a lot of the other Muslim countries as well contributed,
but Saudi was one of the main benefactors of Pakistan,
the Pakistani military as they developed these nuclear weapons, they
bought those missiles. And the understanding, the unwritten understanding. We
don't know if there is a written agreement, but the
understanding seems to be that Saudi Arabia will dial Islamabile
(06:27):
in case it needs assistance if there is a crisis
like nuclear Iran. And that also kind of explains the
rapidity with which Donald Trump entered the arena and he
got benjaminetan Yah that call. You remember that PHO photograph
of him holding the telephone receiver and BB making that
(06:48):
call apologizing to the Kataries for that strike. So it's
the US, you know, telling everyone who the boss is
in the Middle East. And you know, let's forget that.
Whoever says that the US is in retreat and decline
does not understand that the US has tremendous interests in
(07:08):
past Asia. It's got huge investments, not only in the
oil extracting economies, but also basis permanent bases. There are
tens of thousands of US soldiers, sailors, airmen based there.
They have permanent basis the fifth Fleet is based there.
They have carriers, strike groups, they have fighter jets all
across West Asia, and that's been the case for decades.
(07:29):
And I don't see the United States pulling out of
West Asia anytime soon, right.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I wanted to talk about some of the background over
because you know, like I said, some people were quite
surprised by this announcement of this fact, some not so much,
but everybody did note that the history of the Saudi
and Pakistani relationship goes back decades and they've been very
very close friends. And in fact, during my research, I
(07:57):
found out that Pakistan in fact actually has in South
Area and has been giving some sort of training to
their officers and such. So tell us about this history,
tell us about the coming together of southi Arabia and Pakistan.
When did it happen, why did it happen? And when
it comes to West Asia, we've never really thought of
(08:17):
Pakistan as being a key player. This makes it seem
as though it's going to be a key player. So
tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, So, you know, interesting question. They've and you know,
the Saudi Pakistan relationship dates pat several decades it but
it accelerated after the nineteen seventy one war with India,
when Pakistan was cut in half. Literally they lost their
eastern province East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. And when Zulfikar
(08:45):
Alibutu took over the country, what he did was too
you know, they had a severe identity crisis. They were
in a state of shock and they didn't understand what
had gone wrong. We lost half our country. And what
they started to do to realign themselves to the Muslim world,
they wanted to become more Islamic. Zulfikaralibuto started the process. Zia,
(09:09):
who dethroned him, executed him in a judicial execution they
call it. He accelerated the process and they took Pakistan.
They said, Pakistan is actually in Islamic country. We need
to be more Islamic and otherwise there's no difference between
us and India.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Zia said that first. Muni actually what you heard him
say in April was exactly what Zia had been saying
for several years that he was in office, but never
so overtly as Muni made that one speech of his
sixteenth of April, just about a week before the Pulwama massacre.
The process actually began in the seventies and Pakistan said, hey, listen,
(09:52):
we may not have oil, we don't have resources, but
we have a military. We are very good at this.
And what Pakistan has been doing has been literally renting
out its military to these saudiast to the Jordanians. Where
As you know, there was that very infamous Black September
Massacre of nineteen seventy where Brigadier Ziaoul huck oversaw the
(10:15):
massacre of thousands of Palestinians because the Jordanians felt that
the Palestinians were trying to overthrow the Jordanian rule, and
king who sent turned to the Pakistanis, and the Pakistanis
sent the Pakistan Army a few thousand soldiers led by
General Zia and they massacred the Palestinians, and of course
(10:36):
in return, the Jordanians gave them fighter aircraft one zero
Fource F eighty six is also i believe during the
nineteen seventy one war. But in the aftermath of the
seventy one war, Pakistan became more useful to the GCC country,
especially to Saudi Arabia, and there were there was a
(10:57):
contingent of more than three thousand brigade size that was
more or less permanently positioned for the safety of the
Maka and Madina sites, particularly after the nineteen seventy nine
violent insurrection where you know, one of the siege of Makka,
that very famous incident in nineteen seventeen nine where a
(11:17):
bunch of Saudi insurgents tried to take over the mosque.
They took it over, they held it for a couple
of days. One of them declared himself to be the Mahdi,
and you know all of that. So Saudi was deeply
insecure at that time, and they turned to the Pakistanis
and again the Pakistani sent this contingent of three thousand
plus soldiers who've been there ever since, from the late
(11:39):
nineteen seventies. And now, you know, the thing is that
the break actually came in twenty fifteen when this great
Saudi park relationship that had been going on for several
decades hit a roadblock when the Saudis wanted to go
and invade Yemen in twenty fifteen, a decade ago, they
turned to the Pakistanis and said, listen, we need you
(11:59):
to say some soldiers. That's when the chief at that
time it was was it Rahil Sharif or is it Bajui?
I remember, I forget which one of the two it was.
But he turned around and said that no can do
because this is this doesn't you know, cover the mutual
agreement that we have. We don't see that as a
threat to us. Very wisely stayed away from that horrible
(12:23):
war that's been going on for now for a decade now,
and that actually was a rupture between the Saudi Pak
relationship because the Saudist how dare you guys say no
to us? We've funded you guys, We've you know, help
you build up your military machine. We've given you so
much of aid for the last several decades and you
say no to us. So you know, from then on
(12:46):
twenty fifteen, you actually saw the Modi government coming in
here and you saw excellent ties between India, Saudi Abs
and the uas right for a decade. Now you've seen
probably the best leader to leader ties between India and
Saudi Arabia and the UE then we have at any
point in the past. You know, they've given the Prime
(13:09):
Minister mod the their highest state honors. Now they're literally
a phone call away. So now cut to twenty twenty five.
A decade later, you have Field Marshal Field Marshal Money
taking over and he's playing this you know, T twenty
match of geopolitics, trying to you know, go to Washington,
multiple meetings with Trump, he goes in, they meet the Southeast,
(13:34):
and of course they pull off this very very Uh.
It's a historic agreement if you ask, There's no two
ways about that. And I think we may have been
taken by surprise here. The Southeast did mention that they
had kept India informed about this, but the agreement as
it's played out is a bit of a surprise to us,
(13:56):
and it is something that we, you know, possibly didn't
see coming because we were so let's say, complacent about
our relationship with the Saudi Arabians, and of course the
ue that this would have taken us by surprise. But
that's what Pakistan has been doing. Literally in the last
(14:18):
couple of months, they've been.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Moving to the US to an extent.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, even the US see they're playing tactic. They're very
good at tactics, right, They move very quickly, they make
themselves useful, that's their playbook, right, Whereas we play the
long game, you know, it's it's like an elephant's gate.
I would say India's foreign policy is like an elephant
that's walking very slowly and steadily, and surely it's moving ahead. Right.
(14:44):
You won't see an elephant, you know, running helter skelter. Well,
they do, but those are rogue elephants. We are not
a rogue elephant. We move straight. We move on a path,
a pre distant path, a pre decided path, and it
might look very slow, ungainly and all, but that's how
we've been moving for the last couple of years. And
(15:05):
all the provocations that you've seen, whether it comes from
Islamabad or JHQ rawal Pindi or even from Washington as
we've been seeing off late, haven't thrown us off course.
You know, we've still persisted down that straight line of advance,
which is what we've been doing here. So while these
may be temporary hiccups, I think the long run, the
Southeast realize that India is going to be the third
(15:28):
largest economy whichever you look at it. India is going
to be the third largest economy, and we are going
to need oil and gas, and a lot of that
is going to come from Saudi Arabia. Right, They're one
of our biggest customers for suppliers of oil and natural gas,
oil particularly, and we're not moving away from that. We
(15:50):
will consume much much more than what you know, Pakistan does,
and we offer much more to the Southeast and the
UA than Pakistan ever. Yeah, so I think it's I
don't blame the Southeast also for what they did. You're
in a situation where a country that's a strategic partner
(16:10):
of the United States gets knocked by a ballistic missile attack,
several ballistic missiles. The US doesn't say and do anything,
and they say, hey, listen, what happened to this fabled
US umbrella security umbrella that all of us were supposed
to have been provided.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
With, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And I think that was, you know, a kind of
reminder to the US, like, if you don't protect us,
we've got to make our own choices.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Man, That's what happened. Yeah, right, good point about how
Pakistan has been going around, as in money particularly has
been going around, because that actually is I think that
reminds me of you know, how we keep saying that
Pakistani military chiefs usually are more CEOs than their actually
military officers.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, some some Pakistani army chiefs, not all of that,
some of them, and you know the dictator variety, like
you have four of them in the past, and you
have Muni, who's a course, I call him a quasi dictator.
And we've talked about this in the past. It's a
hybrid system that he's worked out because it suits him. Right,
he takes all the bookcase and that poor guy is
(17:12):
standing next to him, Shabaz gets all the brick backs, right,
anything that happens, that's the prime minister. I'm just the
army chief. He's the prime minister, you know, you know,
tell him that he's the elected guy. I'm just the
army chief. Blame him exactly. I mean, can you imagine
how catastrophic it would be for Muni if you were
actually running the country right now, Pakistan as it is
today with a dead crisis and the civil war that's
(17:35):
on there and people being massacred, the military being targeted,
not just in Baluchistan but in Khyber paktoon Koi, and
you know, trains are being blown up by insurgents and
multiple state for Express Expresses is an insurgent magnet.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
They hit it every few months.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But it's a terrible situation for this CEO to take charge,
so he lets someone else run the show for him.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah. Right. I wanted to talk about how India should
be looking at this, or how India will look at it,
because what I've read online is what I've seen a
sharp divide in how experts see this vis India. First,
let's look let's look at how India has reacted to it.
The NEA, in its statement has more or less said
(18:21):
that we've noted the development. Uh, we were aware that
this was coming, and this formalizes a long standing arrangement
between the two countries. With two countries, we will now
study the implications this development or this development has on
national security and we remain committed to protecting India's national interests.
So it's a pretty measured, pretty boilerplate foreign miaity statement
(18:44):
saying nothing, essentially basically saying they can't not well SKA.
But when it comes to the experts, when it comes
to the debate that's been going, there are two camps.
One camp says key, this will cause some alarm. Not
not about or not as much about Saudi being potentially
involved in a conflict in the future, but more about
(19:06):
the finances, more about the Saudi money flowing to Pakistan
and then some of it ending up with the army
and then that being used to again for men terrorism
against against India, which has been the case with a
lot of funds that Pakistan gets from many countries in
the world. The other camp says that again it's just
something that was all in existence. This is more formalization
(19:28):
of it. It's just been put down on paper. There's
much not much for INTA to worry. Like you said,
India is a major buyer of Saudi oil. It is
Saudi's second largest trade partner after China, very close with Japan,
and like you said, once again, in the last decade,
ties between Riyad and New Delhi have become very very
very warm. So Saudi will not want to risk that.
(19:50):
So it will obviously keep India in mind. Where do
you stand personally first, and then where do you think
the MEA would be on this?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
On this issue, well, I think you know the first
option that you outlined there is something that should cause
us great concern. I mean, of course we don't know
if there is actual evidence of a lot of Saudi
money actually going in there, but we've seen in the past. Right,
Pakistan will not be allowed to fail. It will be
allowed to fail, but not to fail. And a lot
(20:20):
of that comes from Saudi Is, one of the biggest
contributors to Pakistan a couple of billion dollars. They can
always pull out a few billion dollars to help the Pakistanis.
If I recall correctly, the numbers are something like almost
a third of the Pakistani debt is Saudi. Wow. Saudi
and Pakistan China are two of the biggest creditors to Pakistan.
(20:43):
So the big worry is that the Pakistani state is
re arming, as we all know, they were doing that
before Absindur and they are continuing to do that. The latest,
of course is the Amram, the new advanced versions of
the am Ram being sold to Pakistan by the Unit
United States. Saudi money is going to fund a lot
of this military expansion and that is what should worry us,
(21:07):
because it's not just the money coming in. The Pakistanis
could pull the Saudis into joint development of programs, for instance,
defense programs, and if you see, for instance, Saudi pilots
training in Pakistan, or Saudi troops not just Pakistani troops
(21:27):
in Saudi Areba. But if you start seeing Saudi soldiers
in Pakistan, Saudi aircraft in Pakistan, all of that would
cause great concern to us because that complicates a military
response to what Pakistan has been doing. So you have
to see what Muni has been doing in the last months,
a few months since Absindur I painted that extreme picture.
(21:48):
A couple of months back, we were talking about it
that he would go for a nuclear test right to
reassert Pakistan's nuclear deterrent. He's done, let's say, in the
last couple of months, he's done everything short of a
nuclear test, but he is. He's even gone in You
know that the Saudi Park deal does have a nuclear
component to that. It's never been mentioned. It's always there.
(22:08):
It's like the elephant in the room. But what Munin
has been doing has been to re establish all the
old linkages that Pakistan has with its traditional security partners China,
for instance, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Is. They
are using whatever leverage they have with all of these countries.
(22:30):
If the United States wants rare earths and critical resources
and oil and gas and gold, Pakistan army, the Pakistan
Army will provide so what it has done is the
Pakistan Army, you know, has captured all the strategic assets
of the state. The two big ones are of course
nuclear weapons and non states so called non state actors
(22:50):
or terrorists. Here, they've also captured their minerals, their rare earths,
and they have started selling them to the United States.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
There's a lot of debate on in Pakistan right now.
It's unprecedented. I mean, this happens in Banana dictatorships, where
you have you know, countries literally selling out their resources.
The way the park military is doing that, There's been
no debate in parliament nothing. A Frontier Works Organization, which
is a Pakistan military arm of the Pakistani state, the
(23:20):
way our Border Roads Organization is strikes a five hundred
million dollar deal with a private US company for prospecting
minerals and they've already started shipping those rare.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Earths out of Pakistan. That's what the Pakistan Army is doing.
So he is trying to be of use to all
of their neighbors around it, not just leveraging Pakistan's geopolitical location.
It's a very very strategic location between Central Asia and
West Asia, and of course a direct coastal access to
(23:49):
Central Asia. It's one of the fastest routes of Central
Asia by passing Iran. All of that is being leveraged
in the last couple of months, and that explains this
speed with which move Me and Shavas have been moving
around and talking to whether it's Saudist or the Americans
or even the Chinese.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah right, we'll talk more about this and especially the
nuclear component that's been that's led to quite some chatter.
But after a pic take.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
The first two or three years, is vital that you
take it to an authorized service center.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Because it's not free. By the way, Helloa, new car owner,
I'm telling you it's not free. I'll tell you what
is free. Also, what you need.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
To understand is that if you do not take your
car to the first three services at least, if not.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
More, they avoid your warranty.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
So if your car is not serviced, is not stamped,
doesn't have a service history.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And the plus point here is.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
That you can take it to any service center across
the country except today. If I buy a car like
said today, example, I VI I are an Alto in
Calcutta and I drive down immediately to Delhi. My first
service should be somewhere around Kanpur. Yeah, I can take
it to Kanpur and get it service there, no problem.
So the computerized service history is written. So then when
(25:16):
I reach Delhi, it will be due for it's second service.
So you come and service it in Delhi.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Welcome back. Suddenly, before the break, we talked about India.
We talked about how India should look at this, and
you've talked about how India should be concerned to an extent. Uh,
Now we'll talk about the nuclear aspect to this entire
pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Very interestingly, by the way,
there is no text by the of this agreement. There's
(25:49):
no full text out there for anyone to read to
sort of understand key exactly. Hogaka. There was just an
announcement that we've seen excerpts except for that report quoted
quadja as If as saying the Defense Minister as saying,
or rather he told writers that nuclear weapons were not
on the radar well. Talking in the context of this agreement, however,
(26:12):
a Saudi as official again told Reuters that this agreement
encompasses all military means. The same report by Reuters also
has an analysis that Pakistan's longest range missile, the Shahin three,
potentially can reach Israel because it Pakistan has designed its
nuclear weapons to be able to reach all parts of India,
so if you look the other side, it can potentially
(26:34):
reach is itral though, you made a very good point
about how this is more about Iran than Israel, but
I think we'll circle back to that just in a bit.
Like I said previously as well, Pakistan is the only
Islamic country in the world to have nuclear weapons. However,
there is ambiguity. Do you think that's on purpose and
this nuclear is nuclear weapons a part of this? I
(26:56):
would think they are a part of this agreement they've
of course, we don't know what's in it yet. But
the fact is that the Southeist will not put serious
money down on an agreement unless there was something big
that the Pakistanis had offered him.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
That explains the speed with which Donald Trump entered the
Fray and he got the Israeli Prime minister to apologize
and all that because he had allowed this, you know, what,
can you call it? This opportunity to open up for
(27:32):
Pakistan to enter and grab the Saudis, and they acted
slow on this, so they just moved up very quickly
to patch up this thing. But I think by then
the Southist had already tied up with the Pakistanis, and
there have been several investigations like I mentioned in the past.
The BBC did one story in twenty thirteen where they
(27:53):
spoke of this agreement for four to six nuclear weapons
and how these do clear weapons be delivered. Well, it
turns out that a couple of decades ago, the Chinese
had sold irbm's intermediate range ballistic missiles of the Dongfeng
series to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has those in storage.
(28:15):
It's never been it's been seen in public a couple
of times once or twice. But these weapons are meant
to be mateed to the Pakistani nuclear warheads. That is
one line of thinking, and it's quite possible that Mamaed
bin Salman, who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia,
wanted some serious guarantees that, look, if there is a
(28:37):
crisis Iran going, you know, for the nuclear weapons, then
we need our own. And the shortest truthe to that
is the Pakistani bomb on Chinese missiles operated by Saudi Arabia.
It's a very happy, uh you know, trifecta of nuclear weapons,
and it will be kept deliberately ambiguous in the way
(28:58):
that the Israeli nuclear weapons program is ambiguous. They never
claim to have nuclear weapons. The world knows that they
have a nuclear weapon. They have several nuclear weapons, both
the air and undersea launched variants, but they never confirm it. Similarly,
the Saudist will and the Pakistanis will keep this ambiguous,
though it's not so directed at the Israelis. It is
(29:20):
directed at the Iranians, but Iran and Saudi Arabia. The
Iran and Israel are the two biggest threats to Saudi Arabias, right,
so that is something that they've always been worried about
since the Islamic Revolution of Rola Comeni nineteen seventy nine.
And this is just renewing the insurance policy in twenty
(29:43):
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right, It'll come to Iran in just a bit. Because
I think this is actually a fresh perspective for me
as well, because the reading that I've been doing so
far has been mostly about israel I think because everyone
is linking into the Qatari strike. But before that, a
tangent on the nuclear point the US, how is that
country going to look at the nuclear Anglo? Yeah, because
the US likes to be the nuclear police of the
(30:04):
of the world deciding. The US has some sort of
overset over Pakistan's nukes, not as much in terms of
command and control, but like you've described previously, that more
in terms of contingency plans about potentially seizing them, potentially
taking them away from where they are in case of
a world crisis. In case of crisis like that. So
(30:25):
would US right now be brushing up its old plans
about what to do with Pakistan's nukes if the US
field is going to be a threat to it or
one of its allies.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Well, yeah, so they've that those plans were drawn up
in the early two thousands, particularly after nine eleven, where
there was this fear of insurgents al Kaeda getting hold
of Pakistani yukes and uh, these contingencies were rehearsed and
there have been several uh uh you know, plans that
(30:54):
were drawn up. There were even some exercises that were
carried out. And this is they're available in the rights
of sam or her. She's written extensively about this. So
it's not any Hollywood script. In fact, I would think
that a lot of the Hollywood scripts that we saw
in movies like The Peacemaker were inspired by actual contingencies
that played out there, you know. But that said, it's
(31:16):
going to be very difficult for the Pakistani to actually
outright transfer four or six Newkes while the United States
is there.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
That's going to happen only in a very extreme kind
of a crisis, and it is possibly a time when
they are foreseeing a time when the United States is
completely out of West Asia. They're no longer involved in
West Asia, They've pulled out completely. They are so preoccupied
in their own struggles or possibly a war in Europe.
(31:44):
You know, you have to understand that what we are
living through today, in twenty twenty five, it is one
of the biggest watersheds in history. We don't know it
yet because we're living through it right now.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's exactly like when I was in college. The Cold
War just ended, and I was sitting there and watching
Duru Dashian. I couldn't believe it. The Berlin Wall was falling,
East and West Germany were being reunited, and I grew
up in a world I grew up in the Cold War,
and for me, that moment was coming to an end. Similarly,
I think in twenty twenty the early twenty twenties, I
(32:18):
think it ended roughly when Putin invaded Ukraine twenty twenty two.
But in twenty twenty five, the arrival of Trump, you're
seeing an acceleration of that. That old world order, the
post Cold War world has ended. We are now in
the post post Cold War world, if we can call
it that. And what the biggest contest today is that
(32:40):
China is gaining on the United States, and the US
is trying its best to retard the Chinese development and
you know, slow them down because they don't want them
to catch up in all the high technology areas. The
Chinese have invested very wisely in the last ten years.
They are an engineering state, whereas America is a loyally state.
(33:00):
There's a brilliant book out there which you should read
by Dan Wang called Breakneck, which is about China's rise
as an engineering state. The US is trying to retard
China's growth, and at the same time, Russia has been
waging this war in Europe without a break. They've been
(33:20):
on for it's going to approach the fourth year, four
years of NonStop fighting, a war of attrition. When wars
are short, conflicts are short, like the kinds that we like.
In fact, everyone likes a short war. You know, no
one wants a long war. But when long wars play
out wars of attrition, they completely rewrite the rules of
(33:42):
the game. The long war in Ukraine has completely changed Europe,
the dynamics of Europe. The long war that Israel has
been fighting in Gaza and against Iran, and for the
last two years now that is completely redrawing the map
of West Asia. Like you know, literally, regimes are collapsing
in Syria and all of that. And for the first time,
(34:04):
we're seeing nuclear weapons being talked about more openly than
any other time in the past. Literally, not a day
goes by when someone isn't talking about the nuclear weapons.
It's either Iran's nuclear options being curtailed by the United States,
the British going for air dropped nuclear weapons, India warning
(34:26):
you know with the Ugly five, and of course the
Agny Prime rail launched thing. The Pakistani is reiterating their
nuclear weapons. North Korean's talking about that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You know, when you're.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Living in an age of extreme fear geopolitical churn. People
start reaching for the nukes, say is my ultimate weapon?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Is it safe? Safe?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know? Do I need to get some more? Guys
who have it are reasserting their nuclear weapons. Guys who
don't have it, they want to say that Listen, I
hope my agreement that I had in my father's time
or my grandfather's time that still exists, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So that is a kind of.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Scenario that you're seeing playing out right now, because I mean,
I can't recall any other time in the past twenty
thirty years where nukes have been talked about, putin talks
about you know, you know, if you do that, then
we're going to go and use nukes. There's you know,
talk about a European nuclear deterrent because they can't rely
(35:24):
on Trump or the US, so all kinds of and
it's all nuclear stuff. And this happens when you're looking
at a massive geopolitical change of the kind that we're
seeing in twenty twenty five and everything else. What Pakistan
is doing, it's how the Arabia, what Israel is doing
with Iran, or what Iran is trying to do, is
a subset of this major geopolitical change that's you know.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Unfolding, fantastic point. Actually, I've never thought of it that way,
but now that you say it, it's just so bloody obvious,
because Yeah, when I grew up and I learned in
school about the existence of nuclear weapons, and it was
always written in the textbooks. Yeah, don't worry. They is
like made and kept by everybody but political weapon.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
But let's not forget those all those agreements. I mean,
fortunately they've the Russian Federation extended it by year, starts
strategic arms treaty. They've you know, the Americans walked out
of it. They said, we don't believe it can't start
because we have such an overwhelming advantage. And now, and
this is a this is a very very interesting scenario
that you're looking at there. It is the first time
(36:29):
in United States history that it is facing two new
peer adversaries armed with nuclear weapons that can reach the
continental United States. That's, of course the Russian Federation and
now China with that massive parade, and also North Korea.
So if you're looking at this new so called axis
of evil with the four countries, Iran is the only
(36:49):
country in this axis that doesn't have nuclear weapons, yet
all the other three countries have it. So the United
States itself is going through a big churn whether the
strategic community is, you know, questioning its weapons. Do we
need new weapons, do we need bigger weapons, do we
need mega tonage, do we need several more delivery devices, platforms, missiles?
(37:13):
What do we need to do? So there's a new
arm strace that's going on in the world, and it's
purely a product of these kind of.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Fears, right. In fact, it's not just the talk. You
also are at a time when you have countries launching
intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are supposed to be used, not
supposed to be, but they were always thought to be
used only with nuclear bombs. They've been launched with conventional
conventional yeah, of course, conventional warheads. And like you've said
(37:41):
once previously that at the time of launch, it's impossible
for a country to know whether that ballistic missile has
a nuclear water on it or not. So if you
live in a fear like this where everyone's talking about it,
and let's say you have North Quare launching a ballistic missile,
the conventional water the US thing is a nuclear water.
You don't know what happened. That's right, that's it.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It's a very dangerous situation that we are, dangerous times
that we're living through.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, right right. Some people end the episode on Iran
because I think again, like I said before, that it's
a fresh perspective that I haven't gotten so far in
my reading that you are saying this is not much
about Israel, even though it happened just a few days
after so it may have sort of accelerated the process
of Guessingai Saudiraba must have been like, hello, us, is
(38:26):
not that to you know, sort of protect us? So
that deal you were gonna thinking of signing with Pakistan
might as well go outd and do it. Maybe that's
how it happened. But us saying this is all about Iran,
that's why you say that.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Iran well, because Iranian nuclear capability has not been destroyed completely.
It's still there, it is, It has those highly enriched uranium.
The four Door site was hit but not destroyed completely,
and there's reason to believe that Iran might have removed
some of that ITCHU from those sites before the bombing.
(38:58):
Everyone knew the bombing was coming, and it's a matter
of time and Iran could restart its nuclear weapons program
at some point, and that is a big fear that
the Saudis have that if they do that, they could possibly,
you know, fashion what is called a RDD, a radioactive
dispersal device, which is a dirty bomb as they call it.
(39:19):
They could even use it for that, you know, mix
the istu that they have to create these kinds of things.
And let's not forget that the Saudi you know, until
nineteen seventeen nine, the Saudis and the Iranians were the
best of friends. It's unimaginable. You had the Shao of
Iran who was best palace with the Saudi king. Seventy
nine was a rupture in those ties, and you startenly
(39:41):
started looking at Ashia Iran against a Sunni Saudi Arabia
and this very bizarre situation of the number one global
concern in the Islamic world, which is the cause of Palestine,
which is being picked up, which is a Sunni Arab cause,
which is being picked up by a country that is
(40:02):
neither Sunni nor Arab, which is Iran and Iran. Even now,
if you look at it, Iran's street credit is enormous
on the Arab Street. The kind of respect that the
Iranian regime has is far greater than those enjoyed by
the Southeast or the Yuai or something, because you know,
Iran has been seen as the guy who stood up
(40:23):
for the Palestinians. They literally burnt their entire axis of
resistance so called access of resistance fighting the Israelis. They
took direct bombardment, all of that for a cause. That's
a Sunni Arab cause. They's fought for the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
They may not have played a role in Hamas's initial
planning of that horrific September seventh, October seventh massacre, but
they definitely supported them after that. Right. So, this is Iran,
which is a force in being, is a threat to
the Saudi establishment. They know that there. What are you
(41:00):
not so much Israel? They can handle Israel to an extent.
The Americans are always there for the Southeast. Iran is
the outlier. And Iran that's allied with China and with
the Russian Federation that poses some concern to the Southeast. So,
and it's a massive country, let's not forget that.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, it is actually a massive country. The map actually
and it has also attacked Saudi Arabia in the past. Well,
it's the attack on the Saudia Aramco refineries that was
Iranian proxy attack using the Hothis. So I'm guessing this
is actually the fear is not as much about Israel
(41:39):
as it is that if US can not end up
giving a dam that Israel ended up hitting one of
its friends, what if it does not give a damn
one of its enemies hitting us? About that? Basically, so
the nuclear protection that we thought we had from the
US is perhaps not available. So let's look to Pakistan.
Perhaps maybe that's where the fantastic point again once again,
(42:01):
And I wish trite about this actually really because it's
right of missing in the discourse because I can I
guessing people are still sort of you know, waking up
to it, still reacting. It will eventually come because now
that you explain it so so vividly, it seems like
the most obvious thing in the world, like it should
strike everyone. No, and for those of you here in
India watching this and to think that this is far
(42:23):
removed from us and we have no skin in the game,
we do. Everything that happens in.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
West Asia affects us, not just because of the huge
diaspora that we have working there. But you know, things
like who would have thought that the Houthis would shut
the Red Sea, And we saw massive hikes in our
shipping costs, thirty to forty fifty percent hikes in the
cost of shipping. And of course the government just last
(42:50):
months rolled out this massive shipbuilding program seventy thousand plus
to build ships in India when they realize that we
don't have shipping of our own and in a crisis
like this, the West Asia crisis, it could imperil our
you know sea leians of communication. So we have started
to build our own ships. So everything that happens in
our neighborhood has a cascading effect on India.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right. So then one final quick point, because you mentioned
that for Saudi Arabia they may have had to rush
into this deal because of what happened with this really
strike on Qatar. Do you think they've too they've they've
they've war gamed. How will they balance Pakistan and India
or are they going to be just like sort of
playing it along and seeing how to do in the future,
(43:32):
Because like you said at the beginning right at the top,
that Saudi and India relations have I think reached a
point from which there is no turning back. They may
sort of, you know, cool down a bit because of
this development, but there's a term turning back because it's
been mutually beneficial. That is the point where where we've reached.
So how is Saudi going to balance the two is?
Does it have a plan in mind right now or
(43:53):
is it going to just pay along and.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Wall I would know if they have a planet it
might but I'm sure they do because you're looking at
Mama bin Salman there right, he's a shrewd guy and
he is the only leader in the world today who
is going to be if you look at his family history,
he's going to be around for a half century, yes,
right till the year twenty seventy five, fifty more years.
(44:19):
His father is about what in his mid eighties or something,
eighty five eighty six. All of the House of South
they've been very long ruled. They've all gone into their
eighties and nineties and all that. And Mama is just
about in his forties now and he's locked up a
thirties and that. Yeah, So there, he's a despot. There's
no two ways about it. But he's a very bright guy,
and he's a someone that who's got a vision for
(44:41):
Saudi Arabia in a way that possibly neither of his
uncles or his father didn't have. And he's not content
with letting things be the way they are. He wants
to get Saudi Arabia away from this dependence on oil
economy and you know stuff like that. That is where India
comes in, right, So I'm sure he's made his calculations
and for him, balancing India and Pakistan would not be
(45:05):
a very major task. And I'm sure we know that
as well. India and Saudi Arabia. The partnership is a
long term one Pakistan Saudi Arabia, it's a short term,
transactional partnership.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Like Pakistan's all relationships.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Pakistan, all of its relationships, whether it's with the United
States or with China or with Saudi Arabia, they're all
short term because they don't really have a big long
term vision to offer. All they have is utility for
the time being to solve a particular problem, and then
they're discarded once they're used. You know, whether it's nineteenth
(45:40):
look at it seventy one. The India the China outreach
by Nixon and Kissinger. They are discarded after that, seventy
nine to nineteen eighty eight, the first Afghan war, Zia discarded,
after that, two thousand and one War on Terror, discarded
after to that. So and now twenty twenty five is
(46:02):
a fourth crisis, and very soon they're going to be discarded.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
I think if Trump's Kaza plan works out, that might
happen very in the upcoming months. If ye happens, now
that's a that's a that's a topic for another discussion.
Trump Gaza Plan, possibly with Pakistani security, is a tiger
of the kind that money is going to find very
hard to write. Yeah right, uh so maybe we'll discuss
(46:28):
that in an upcoming episode. But let's see how that
goes on the ground, because I think that Kaza plan
is not really like you know, it was very weird
how sort of the country's sort of backed it and
then sort of faced a lot of blowback from the
Islamic world. You know, what the hell are you guys doing?
Have you not even read so Trump he was saying, yo,
Pakistan backs like, hello, we had nothing to do with it.
(46:51):
So weird. But anyway, we'll talk about that in a
future episode, but thanks on thee fantastic discussion as always,
and uh thanks. Having middies is always complex and it's
a topic and t read honestly talking about because one
worried about getting things wrong. But second, I really enjoy
talking it with someone like you because then you have
those insights and perspectives in which I'm guessing our listeners
(47:14):
and VI also like, thanks so much for you, and
thanks is always to our listeners and viewers. That's it
for this week's defense goes for more tune in next week.
Till then, stay safe and do not toss any boundaries
for their pastor.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
In a world of contested potters and silent battles. One
voice cut through the noise.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Was Israel able to achieve its aim when Israel bombed Iran?
Do you think that Chinese army is at war with itself?
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Joined veteran war correspondent Core of one of India's most
trusted voices in defense journalism, Namaskar and jahind I'm God.
Speaker 6 (48:06):
A seventh Listen to Chuck review with God of Sava
on India Today Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube music and
your favorite audio utity platform.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Stay alert. The war for truth start here.
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