Pakistan has significantly expanded its global geopolitical influence over the past year by spearheading new Sunni-majority military alliances, including the Badr Memorandum of Understanding and the Mecca Pact. These strategic pacts, which unite nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Indonesia, create a powerful combined military bloc capable of altering regional dynamics. Furthermore, enhanced defense cooperation between Pakistan and the Maldives, alongside supportive OIC resolutions regarding Kashmir, present complex security challenges and strategic implications for India.

Pakistan has significantly expanded its global geopolitical influence over the past year by spearheading new Sunni-majority military alliances, including the Badr Memorandum of Understanding and the Mecca Pact. These strategic pacts, which unite nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Indonesia, create a powerful combined military bloc capable of altering regional dynamics. Furthermore, enhanced defense cooperation between Pakistan and the Maldives, alongside supportive OIC resolutions regarding Kashmir, present complex security challenges and strategic implications for India.

Pakistan has significantly expanded its global geopolitical influence over the past year by spearheading new Sunni-majority military alliances, including the Badr Memorandum of Understanding and the Mecca Pact. These strategic pacts, which unite nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Indonesia, create a powerful combined military bloc capable of altering regional dynamics. Furthermore, enhanced defense cooperation between Pakistan and the Maldives, alongside supportive OIC resolutions regarding Kashmir, present complex security challenges and strategic implications for India.

Perhaps at no time in Pakistan’s modern history has it managed to figure in the global geopolitical space as much as it has in the last 12 months, that too with long-term implications. But to give the Devil his due, the country has leveraged the apprehension about Shia-majority Iran in the Islamic world and in West Asia, alongside its Sunni ideology, to the hilt.

On October 21, Pakistan, along with Turkey, Qatar, and Indonesia, signed up for the Badr Memorandum of Understanding in Doha—a collaborative effort to ramp up and deepen military cooperation among the four overwhelmingly Sunni-majority nations.

While Pakistan has nuclear weapons capability—the only Muslim country in the world to possess it —Turkey is easily the military powerhouse in conventional military technology and the maker of the medium-altitude long-endurance Bayraktar TB2 drone, which has altered military fortunes in Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Qatar can provide the funds and cater to training needs, while Indonesia can help with cheap labour.

The Badr MoU was preceded by the Mecca Pact, which was activated on October 5 with its signatories Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan agreeing to a NATO-style clause stipulating that an armed attack on one is an attack on all three.

According to the 2026 Global Firepower Index, Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia can together cobble up a force of about 14 lakh active troops, about 3,400 military aircraft, 6,000 tanks, and more than 340 naval warships, making it a very significant military bloc.

The significant fact is that a whole slew of countries have expressed keenness to join either of these two alliances, including Egypt, the UAE, Bangladesh, and Azerbaijan. But the most interesting point is that all these are Sunni-majority countries.

Of these, India has close bilateral relations—military and otherwise—with several, including Qatar and Indonesia.

To add another layer, again on October 21, Pakistan inked about 20 MoUs to enhance cooperation with the Maldives. The MoUs signed by Pakistan’s military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, who is on a three-day visit to Pakistan, included defence, cyber security, and maritime security.

Located very strategically in the Indian Ocean, the island nation of the Maldives is often seen as a very important geography for India’s security architecture.

What is of additional concern is the resolution adopted by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers that met in Baghdad on October 17–18, 2026, where references were made to Kashmir’s right to self-determination and 'Islamophobia in India'.

While these new alliances may indicate the formulation of an anti-Iran strategy and an intention to cut back on dependency on China, taken as a whole, they definitely spell bad news for India.

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