When Mecca Comes to Asim: Munir is seeking to build a military supply arc from Turkiye to China

What will Asim Munir do if Saudi Arabia asks for active military presence after Sunday's Houthi attack on a Saudi refinery killing 7 people? A decade back, when Riyadh asked for military assistance following a similar Houthi attack, it sparked off a controversial debate in Pakistan resulting in a parliamentary resolution underlining its neutrality in the Yemen war.

Munir has, over the past few months, overturned this Pakistani position - first through the military pact with Saudi Arabia, and now the tripartite 'Mecca declaration' that includes Turkiye. The 2015 resolution was forged by political consensus across parties. In fact, this is one Pakistani foreign policy tenet with which the military had not interfered with either, letting its foreign policy establishment handle the nuances. Until Munir.

The neutrality rationale was driven by the fact that Pakistan has a 10-20% Shia population. While it has tried to play a mediator's role in the US war on Iran, the fact is the 'Mecca alliance' is built on a 'counter-Shia' security logic after Tehran attacked Gulf countries and hurt their economic interests by blocking Hormuz. Pakistan has, effectively, taken sides, and that too with not all Gulf countries yet on board with the plan.


This policy flip is Munir's big gambit aligning his religious (he's the first Pakistan army chief to be a 'Hafiz-e-Quran'), military and political profile through a new frame that cloaks domestic fissures, which have only deepened since his rise to power.

For all the tall talk around the 'Mecca pact' following an 'attack on one is an attack on all' principle, this alliance is, at best, a deterrence mechanism with potential to augment military capabilities. Pakistan couldn't do much when Iran recently attacked Saudi targets, even with a Pakistani-Saudi defence pact in play. Again, it's being challenged through Houthi attacks. While Pakistan may not want to get actively involved, expectations of alliance partners would grow.

Is it possible that Pakistan gets drawn militarily into West Asia? That's going to be a tough call for Munir. Any such mid-to-long-term commitment could exert pressure on its deployments against India and Afghanistan. Plus, it will have to take into account security implications on its border with Iran and the possible rebuilding of a Tehran-Kabul axis in the future.

That said, India will have to be very watchful. While Washington's silence is being taken as tacit approval in West Asia, this alliance sits well with Beijing, too. At some point, the US will have to take into consideration the kind of military exposure it can afford for Turkiye, a Nato member, to have with China's all-weather ally Pakistan.

While for Turkiye, the 'Mecca alliance' is a show of strength against Israel, for Saudi Arabia against Iran - serving a Sunni leadership purpose - and its growing profile, the gain Pakistan will look for, besides Munir's profile, is access to military technology and security-linked economic resources.

From Turkiye's own potent military ecosystem plus Nato weapon systems to China's armaments universe and tech resources, Pakistan will want to use this alliance as an opportunity to modernise its armed forces. Munir will count on Riyadh to chip in financially to fund the training and modernisation effort, considering Pakistan's desperate financial state.

For India, this means redoubling efforts on improving its defence preparedness on a fresh calculus that Pakistan's supply chains will now run longer. Rawalpindi's objective, in due course, will be to ride out pressure from West Asia, and prepare itself to fight a longer campaign against India, one that it failed to extend during Op Sindoor.

But Munir's big plan comes with an even bigger complication: domestic backlash in the forms of unrest in the northwest and the Taliban challenge, increasing violence in Balochistan, clampdown in POK, and political strife over Imran Khan's continued imprisonment. Add to this Shia anger, and problems will only multiply.

Pakistan Army sees this impending challenge, and has started to craft a narrative against the government with a dangerous agenda to geographically reorganise Pakistan. This was articulated by Pakistani interior minister Mohsin Naqvi, Rawalpindi's civilian face in the government, when he called for increasing the number of provinces that included dividing Sindh and Punjab.

This thought, ostensibly to improve governance, was officially endorsed by the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), raising doubts over what Munir had in mind for the Sharif and Bhutto clans controlling Punjab and Sindh, respectively.

Hazy as the picture now appears, one bit is clear: having appropriated constitutional authority and protection, Munir is now rolling out his own political agenda - of a military leader endorsed and celebrated by the Islamic seat of Mecca. This is a break from the past, carrying with it the risk of internal turmoil that the Pakistan Army would leave for the civilian government to sink or swim with.

Either way, a strengthened Rawalpindi's purpose will always be to pivot back on India. Worse, even an internally challenged Rawalpindi will seek it to divert public attention. That's why concern is not so much the diplomatic fallout in West Asia, which can be countered, but implications on India's long-term defence calculus and, thus, preparedness.

Munir is seeking to build a military supply arc from Turkiye to China, an ambitious gambit with several pitfalls. But for India, it's enough to call for a strategic remeasurement of its own base.