Afghanistan-Pakistan

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    • The Mecca Joint Défense Agreement: A New Geometry of Middle Eastern Power?
  • Analysis

    • The Mecca Joint Défense Agreement: A New Geometry of Middle Eastern Power?

    On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Défense Agreement, a collective-defense pact widely compared to NATO’s Article 5. This essay argues that the comparison is misleading. Mecca borrows NATO’s language of solidarity without yet possessing NATO’s institutional machinery, and the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia in September 2026 provided an early and revealing test of what the agreement actually means in practice. Neither Pakistan nor Turkey automatically entered the fight on Saudi Arabia’s behalf, and Washington, despite an initial reluctance to strike directly, remained indispensable through intelligence support and a major proposed F-35 sale. Drawing on realist alliance theory — Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, Stephen Walt, Glenn Snyder, and Steven David — and on the precedent of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the essay contends that the Middle East is not dividing into rival blocs but moving from hierarchy toward a looser, overlapping geometry of hedged partnerships, in which American exclusivity is eroding considerably faster than American primacy.

    The Mecca Alliance Meets the Red Sea – Saudi Arabia’s New Defense Pact Faces Its First Major Test
  • Commentary

    • The Mecca Alliance Meets the Red Sea – Saudi Arabia’s New Defense Pact Faces Its First Major Test

    When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to a mutual defense pact in August, it was principally seen as a political commitment. The “Mecca alliance,” as it was dubbed, stipulated that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all three, accompanied by deeper military cooperation.

    The Case for a Middle Course in Afghanistan
  • Commentary

    • The Case for a Middle Course in Afghanistan

    I was a teenage Afghan refugee in Pakistan’s tribal areas when the Twin Towers fell. Almost nobody around us understood the politics of what had happened, but we knew that something had changed for good. Afghanistan, which until then had been our private tragedy and our first exile from Taliban rule, had suddenly become the world’s concern, with the United States leading the response.

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    Pakistan’s interim government: A challenging road ahead
    BANARAS KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Pakistan’s interim government: A challenging road ahead

    After the conclusion of the 16-month rule of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the appointment of a new caretaker government has created uncertainty. This raises doubts about whether Pakistan will smoothly transition to another democratic government or if the caretaker setup will exceed its constitutional mandate.

    August 29, 2023

    Naade Ali

    Making sense of the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances
    (Photo by Mohammad Noori/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Making sense of the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances

    Two years on from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Afghanistan’s neighbors are increasingly concerned that their return to power has emboldened terrorist groups and networks, which are using the hospitable environment to regroup, rearm, and recruit substantially. The main question now for Afghanistan’s neighbors in the region, and the international community more broadly, is just how reliable the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances to other states really are.

    August 18, 2023

    Nishank Motwani

    July 4 from abroad: The many ages of America in the Arab world
    Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • July 4 from abroad: The many ages of America in the Arab world

    From the past century until today, the U.S. has cast a long shadow in the Middle East region and relations have gone through many highs and lows. It is important to be aware of this trajectory to better understand the relationship today; and perhaps there are lessons to inform the future of the relationship in the coming century.

    July 7, 2023

    Paul Salem

    Middle East futures will pivot on women
    Photo by Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage
  • Analysis

    • Middle East futures will pivot on women

    Gender parity in the Middle East is still many decades away, but it will largely determine the future of economic, social, cultural, and political development in the region.

    June 28, 2023

    Paul Salem

    The Taliban’s unsustainable war on drugs
  • Commentary

    • The Taliban’s unsustainable war on drugs

    According to multiple media reports, Taliban anti-narcotics units have managed to effect a drastic reduction in opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Assisted by armed Taliban soldiers, stick-wielding personnel are hopping from one opium-growing field to another, destroying standing crops in a large number of provinces. Overseen by international media, such operations may have resulted in an almost 80 percent reduction in opium cultivation this year in the country, which not long ago accounted for 85 percent of the world’s opium.

    June 27, 2023

    Shanthie Mariet D'Souza

    Disease, destruction, flooded fields, and hunger: The far-reaching consequence of the Kakhovka dam collapse in Ukraine
    Photo by Roman Pilipey/Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Disease, destruction, flooded fields, and hunger: The far-reaching consequence of the Kakhovka dam collapse in Ukraine

    Last week’s collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Ukraine is one of the largest environmental disaster the Black Sea region and Europe has faced in decades. Its far-reaching environmental, economic, and humanitarian consequences will affect not just Ukraine and the Black Sea region, but also the Middle East and Africa.

    Defense Rapid Reaction: Proposed reforms to the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process
    Photo by Markus Matzel/ullstein bild via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Defense Rapid Reaction: Proposed reforms to the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process

    In the latest installment of the Defense Rapid Reaction series, experts from MEI’s Defense & Security Program provide their views on what reforms to the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process could or should accomplish and how an improved approach to approving foreign arms sales can strengthen U.S. relations with international partners and allies.

    June 16, 2023

    Bilal Y. Saab, Melissa Horvath…

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