The Makkah Agreement and the Future of Collective Defence

The Makkah Agreement has opened a new debate on how regional actors can share the burden of their own defence. In this second session of the “Visions from Regional Capitals” web panel series, held under SETA’s Middle East: Order from Within research agenda, the panel will discuss whether the agreement can grow from a declaration of political solidarity into a credible collective defence mechanism.

The panel will first address the strategic logic behind the agreement. In this context, it will assess why its signatories are turning to one another at a time when external security guarantees are becoming less predictable, and how the agreement relates to existing alliances, defence partnerships and the security needs of the Gulf. The extent to which defence-industrial cooperation, joint planning and deterrence can give the agreement real substance will also be discussed.

The discussion will then turn to the limits and prospects of collective defence in the region. Taking into account differing threat perceptions, political priorities and institutional capacities, the panel will discuss whether the agreement can become a building block of a regional security architecture built from within, or remain a symbolic expression of solidarity.