The Mecca Pact: A New Treaty Organization, Just Like the Old One
MJDA is much like the Cold War’s CENTO and is likely to be just as impactful.
By Michael Coffey
September 11, 2026
Much has been made of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (MJDA) – a collective security agreement signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye in early August – in news and analysis recently. Some have likened this to the Russia-dominated
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Others have called this a signal of the
end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the birth of a new regional order. Though, perhaps reports of NATO’s death are
greatly exaggerated.
And with the benefit of a longer historical lens, we can see how prognostications that MJDA will
remake the region’s security are fairly off the mark. More than anything, MJDA resembles the failed and somewhat forgotten Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) of the Cold War. And, we can expect that, like CENTO, the member states themselves, and those around them, will continue their defense and security planning much as they have before. MJDA is unlikely to solve the problems it purports to confront and will accomplish little more than the Cold War’s CENTO. For a closer modern analogue, perhaps look to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) structure, a forum for
warm promises and suppressed disgruntlement.
But for a moment, let’s turn back the clock. CENTO was launched as the Baghdad Pact in 1955, a defensive agreement between Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkiye (then spelled Turkey), and the United Kingdom, with the United States initially serving as an observer. This was a reaction to the
failing World War II global alliance system and the emergence of new security challenges – specifically, the split between capitalism and communism.
Regionally, secular powers in and around the Middle East feared that a reemergent Soviet Union would follow the path of tsarist Russia. They anticipated that a desire for warm-water ports and hydrocarbons (mainly oil at the time) would
drive Moscow’s perceived designs on the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and even the Indian Ocean. So, by encouraging this alliance, Washington could extend First World containment well beyond the borders of NATO. This merged policy to theory that was expressed in the “Long Telegram,” providing “
strong resistance” at a possible point where Soviets might probe.
Yet, almost as soon as the ink was dry on the treaty agreement, membership fractured. A military coup overthrew the Iraqi monarch and the country withdrew from the pact in 1958. A Ba’athist revolution shortly thereafter would sever any possible reconciliation with the U.S.-aligned group. And so the group (minus Baghdad) renamed itself CENTO. The alliance didn’t rate very highly years later. In 1963 a
cement factory dedication took priority for the Pakistani president, during a summit held in Karachi.
CENTO did have other goals
beyond defense. It was supposed to advance economic cooperation and trade, communications, and transportation links between the member states. This included the establishment of a joint nuclear research center in Tehran, supported by London. New communication links were designed with Washington funding construction to better connect Ankara, Tehran, and Karachi; Iran’s Chabahar was envisioned as providing a vital pivot for commerce and movement across the entire region.
Yet, the central aim of CENTO was mutual defense against Soviet aggression. What did the pact provide for? In short, very little. The defense articles urged mutual cooperation, non-interference in internal affairs, and respect for pre-existing obligations, while leaving open the possibility of accession by other Arab League members. Spoiler: none joined. Only in bilateral deals did the treaty have teeth. Ultimately, the United States took on responsibility to resist outside aggression and provide military or economic assistance necessary to preserve member states’ independence.
That didn’t really pan out as members looked to their own defense policies. Ultimately, the Soviets didn’t need to force their way through Iran. Moscow established
links with
Ba’athist governments in CENTO’s “rear,” for example, and built ties in
Ethiopia and (then North)
Yemen that exploited anti-colonial sentiment. Meanwhile, the United States sanctioned CENTO ally Turkiye in 1974 over the invasion of Cyprus. And in Pakistan’s wars with India, Turkiye and Iran were absent. Indeed, many of the security problems of the 1960s and ’70s that enmeshed CENTO states are still salient today.
All this elides the fact that Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev had no intention of driving to the sea. The deployment of Soviet forces, regardless of ebbs and flows to U.S.-USSR bilateral relations, was focused on the NATO threat to the west and southwest. Recall, Soviet forces withdrew from Iran shortly after the war ended, and lost their oil concessions as well. The December 1979
invasion of Afghanistan was never predicated on a further push to the Indian Ocean. In sum, the actual security threats facing member states and the political aims of CENTO were misaligned.
So, how about the MJDA today? The current global context does share some superficial similarities to global politics in the 1950s. As then, today the global order is rapidly transforming. A comfortable modus vivendi between the U.S., Europe, Russia, and China has not yet emerged. And proxy wars at these great powers’ frontiers are challenging the old order that had lasted through most of the Cold War and several decades after.
Yet, as with CENTO, the new MJDA is a treaty without teeth, between states with diverse security problems and little impetus to work together on those challenges. First off, Pakistan, as during CENTO and afterward, remains mired in low-grade conflict with India. India remains the primary threat to Pakistan and the reason that the latter has long sought strategic “depth” in Afghanistan.
Second, Turkiye, despite trending to strongman governance and
fickle defense policies that saw it purchase, then resell, S-400s from Russia, remains the largest ground force in NATO (on the continent). Indeed, Riyadh has little to offer Ankara in terms of conventional capabilities. And fighting around the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb or Hormuz has little impact on Turkiye’s energy revenues. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline’s
exports are healthy amid two ongoing wars in the Persian Gulf and eastern Europe.
Third, Saudi Arabia’s regional adventurism is not something that Pakistan or Turkiye are likely to back. Riyadh has the mistaken impression that expensive kit equals a capable military. But repeated aerial bombing of Houthi rebels has done little to
turn the tide of that conflict. Pan-Arabism was watery mortar for CENTO and pan-Islamism is likely to prove just as undependable for MJDA.
Another key point: Pakistan and Turkiye already enjoy their own nuclear umbrellas. Pakistan’s survival is guaranteed by its nuclear force of some couple hundred nuclear warheads. Turkiye’s survival is guaranteed by NATO’s nuclear umbrella. Saudi Arabia is the odd partner out here – at least until it develops its own domestic program, something the current U.S. administration has promised to help with.
Finally, what does the treaty itself commit the partners to? The MJDA, at this point, is a series of
statements. Those statements claim that the treaty will consider an armed attack against one an attack against all signatories, and further defense cooperation between the signatories will be encouraged. The latter is so much diplomatese and nothing in previous bilateral agreements impeded such cooperation.
The former commitment lacks credibility. Importantly, who is the enemy here? Iran? India? Israel? Al-Qaida? Islamic State affiliates? None of the participating states will commit their nuclear forces to a poorly defined enemy that the members don’t even share. As for conventional forces, certainly the member states can share what they are learning about air defenses and drone warfare. But will Ankara or Islamabad commit to defending Riyadh’s airspace?
This commitment is likely to be tested sooner rather than later with the ongoing Iran-U.S. War. And the most likely outcome is stern statements, arms sales, and perhaps joint training events.
CENTO disappeared because the supposed threat it was designed to confront – Soviet incursion toward southern ports – had to be contained, even though it was illusory and only faintly hinted at by George Kennan. MJDA, if indeed aimed against Iranian “hegemony,” is trying to similarly commit states to a defense that they don’t share and misplaced security perceptions.
Much like CENTO, MJDA members just don’t share the same security threats nor do they have the will to commit to mutual defense. Today, there’s not even a foreign policy push from a great or super power behind this alliance. Twenty years from now we will probably talk about MJDA just as much Cold Warriors thought about CENTO a generation after it was formed:
not much.
MJDA is much like the Cold War’s CENTO and is likely to be just as impactful.
thediplomat.com
