Four states sign Badr defence pact in Doha

Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar and Indonesia signed a defence agreement in Doha on Wednesday, committing to joint work on military production, technical training and research and development. The Badr Memorandum of Understanding, the announcing ministry said, is meant to bind the four countries' defence industries together, promote security and carry 'substantial economic importance' — eventually supplying 'allied and friendly nations' from their combined capacity.

The industrial weight behind the pact is Turkish. Turkey fields NATO's second-largest army and runs a defence industry that already sustains a military base in Qatar and has been helping Gulf states shore up their defences amid the Iran war. Haluk Gorgun, chairman of Turkey's Defence Industry Presidency, called the accord the foundation of a 'strategic cooperation' in joint production and technology — partnerships, in his words, 'that go beyond off-the-shelf procurement models, that foster the development of a nation's own human capital and industrial infrastructure'. The aim, he said, is to turn the four countries' 'complementary capabilities' into concrete projects.

The Doha signing extends an existing pattern. In August, Turkey concluded a mutual defence pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia under which an attack on one party counts as an attack on all — binding a NATO member to nuclear-armed Pakistan and the Gulf's principal monarchy. Ankara has separately built close defence-industry ties with Indonesia. Wednesday's memorandum is narrower than the August treaty, covering industrial cooperation rather than collective defence, but the direction of travel is consistent: states accustomed to buying their security as finished goods are pooling capacity to build it themselves.

Off-the-shelf procurement is precisely what the arrangement is built to move past. A buyer dependent on a single supplier inherits its export licences, its delivery schedules and its politics — and a war in the Gulf that has Qatar and its neighbours rearming concentrates attention on the difference. The ministry's stated method is to leverage 'the unique military production capabilities' of each signatory.

The memorandum takes its name from the Battle of Badr, where an outnumbered force won Islam's first victory. No specific projects were announced at the signing.