A new RCD has been formed. The original RCD stood for the Regional Cooperation for Development, established in 1964 by Iran (during the Shah’s reign),  Pakistan (under Ayub Khan) and Turkey  (by another iron-fist, Cemal Gürsel).

Its benefit to Pakistan is the 813 km long N-25 highway that connects the southern port of Karachi with the north-western city of Chaman on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The N-25 is known as the ‘killer highway’, for having claimed more than 4,000 lives.

The first RCD was buried by the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The new RCD caps a more recent alliance - a Regional Cooperation for Defence - signed on 7 August at Makkah by two earlier RCD stalwarts - Pakistan and Turkey, with Saudi Arabia replacing Iran. A wreath of withered roses has been converted into a circlet of prickly thorns.

The text of the 2026 Makkah Agreement has not been revealed. The only explicit disclosure is that it is ‘intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any aggression’. It stipulates that ‘any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all’. Like Dumas’ Three Musketeers, they stand ostensibly united: ‘All for one, and one for all’.

What remains opaque is whether the Makkah Agreement replaces the Saudi-Pak Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) signed last September. Or does it augment it? Also unclear is the fate of similar assurances, including the Joint Defence Agreement of 2000 which supposedly binds Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Despite conflicts and mini-wars, It has never been invoked, nor revoked.

How dependable are such paper obligations?  The last time any state attacked another to honour a treaty obligation occurred in 1939, when Great Britain, responding to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, declared war on Germany. Since then, such treaty obligations, like nuclear weapons, have remained at best deterrents.  

A Third World War could be precipitated by anyone. He does not have to be mad.  Hitler and Chamberlain were not lunatics, at least not to begin with. Some might argue that Putin and Zelensky are borderline cases. All it needs is for someone when driven to a point of desperation to react. In such a scenario, who would have the upper hand?

Amongst the latest three RCD allies, Saudi Arabia has the greatest economic clout. Saudi Arabia’s defence budget for 2026 is about $74 billion. It can outspend Iran 10:1.

Pakistan has the manpower and nuclear arsenal to sustain a war (albeit at a prohibitive cost), but it is chronically insolvent and remains dependent on Saudi and Chinese largesse.  

Turkey, under the Ottomans, was dismissed by the West as ‘the sick man of Europe’. Even though it is a member of NATO and therefore an ally, it stands excluded from the EU. Through its own efforts, it has emerged as the muscle man in its region.  Turkey has the manpower, the weaponry and a defence industry large enough for domestic use plus export. Its $27 billion security budget is marginally higher than Iran’s total military expenditure.

Should someone (either deliberately or accidentally) in this combustible region press the wrong button, three Muslim Sunni states would find themselves pitted against a brother Muslim Shia state. Islamic philologists will have to come up with a new definition of the word ‘jihad’.

All this makes Erdogan’s verbal addendum to the Makkah Agreement somewhat ominous. He says that the Agreement does not target any country, but it is open to other regional countries who seek ‘peace, prosperity and stability.’ Does he mean that China could be included? That would expand the present triangle into an unbeatable square, something that would certainly cause countries like India considerable discomfort.

Those who have watched the Saudi Crown Prince’s hop, skip and jump into modernity will have noticed that when the Makkah Agreement was being signed, behind each leader stood not male officials but three female Saudis, swathed in black. Their presence was a far cry from the time when female dignitaries visiting the kingdom had to be shrouded, with their hair hidden from view. Even the late Queen Elizabeth II had to conform. Ivanka Trump, however, accompanied her father to Saudi Arabia and was allowed to flaunt her blonde tresses with impunity.

Diplomacy in this inflammable age involves more than fashion or fragile commitments. These may be signed and sealed but useless, unless delivered upon. History is replete with precedents. Take the Anglo-German Declaration, signed on 30 September 1938, by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain dubbed it as ’peace with honour’; Hitler dismissed it as ‘a piece of paper.’

Sic transit promissum …