Did the Pakistanis just put nukes in Saudi Arabia?

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a mutual defense treaty. It is billed as a reciprocal accord. It is really transactional. The Saudis give the Pakistanis billions of dollars to prop up their collapsing economy. The Pakistanis pledge to provide a “nuclear umbrella” to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan has roughly 200 operational nuclear warheads. Those weapons can be delivered by Pakistani F-16’s obtained from the United States. There are now Pakistani F-16s on the ground in Saudi Arabia. They were accompanied by multiple support aircraft and support personnel.

“The F-16 combat aircraft, along with some Mirage III and V aircraft, are believed to be dual-capable (capable of both conventional and nuclear strikes) and constitute the air component of Pakistan’s nuclear force. Pakistan has approximately 36 warheads for the nuclear air branch.”

Arms Control Center

The F-16’s currently deployed to Saudi Arabia are believed to be from No. 5 Squadron. This squadron is one of the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) most elite and historic fighter squadrons. It is the second-oldest fighter squadron in the PAF, having been raised on 15 August 1947 shortly after Pakistan’s independence. The squadron is equipped with F-16C/D Block 52+ Fighting Falcons, the most advanced F-16 variant in PAF service. These aircraft have advanced avionics and radars. They are Pakistan’s most capable strike aircraft.

These aircraft and these personnel may be in Saudi Arabia only for training purposes, as is publicly claimed, although it seems unlikely the Pakistanis would risk losing their top planes in a war zone just for an exercise. It is also possible that the Saudis, watching the escalating nature of the conflict with Iran, are preparing to take matters into their own hands.

Iran has closed the Straits of Hormuz. Negotiations in Islamabad have failed. Saudi Arabia is staying alive by pumping oil through a pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea and loading it on tankers there. It is keeping the Red Sea route open by bribing the Houthis.

For the moment, this arrangement is working. It may not work much longer. The Iranians have already hit the pipeline to Yanbu once. They retain the ability to do it again. They have threatened to hit the port of Yanbu itself. The Houthis may any day decide they can live without Saudi money and enter the war. The Red Sea may close. Riyadh may find itself shut off and without income.

“Step onto Iranian soil, and $150 becomes the floor for oil,” Iranian Vice President Esmael Saghab Esfahani said recently. “Destruction of Fujairah and Yanbu are just our entry tickets.”

There is also the threat to desalination plants in the Gulf. The Iranians have made clear they will hit them if the United States makes good on its threat to hit infrastructure targets in Iran. Sixty percent of the drinking water in Saudi Arabia comes from desalination plants. That means roughly 40 million people depend on these plants for survival. If the plants go, all those people die.

“Iran has threatened “irreversible destruction” of water infrastructure across Gulf countries, if the US follows through on Donald Trump’s threat to attack Iran’s electricity grid.

In a desert region heavily dependent on desalination for drinking water, it has raised fear of mass disruption to water supplies which are a civilian and economic lifeline in the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

Iran has already followed through on such a threat earlier in the war, when it targeted a desalination plant in Bahrain after one of its own plants was hit.

Desalination plants are considered to be among the most sensitive civilian infrastructure in the Gulf. They perform a simple but critical role: they turn seawater into drinking water by removing the salt and other minerals. Today that mostly done through a process called reverse osmosis.”

The Guardian

All of which suggests that this war is rapidly becoming an existential one for the Saudis. We may have the luxury of contemplating leaving the region in chaos and walking away. They do not. They may see increasingly that they are going to have to go it alone and that it is time to make use of that Pakistani nuclear umbrella.

We don’t know exactly what those Pakistani F-16’s are doing in Saudi Arabia. We might want to at least consider the possibility that they are not really there for a training exercise. There may be Pakistani nuclear weapons on Saudi soil right now. They may be used sometime very soon.