The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey was unexpected but hardly surprising.Some have framed it as a Sunni alliance, with the role of the House of Saud as custodians of the two holy cities (Mecca and Medina), Pakistan as a nuclear-armed South Asian Islamic Republic, and Turkey’s Europe-adjacent muscular strand of political Islam. However, this agreement has little to do with religious sectarianism.  The Mecca partners have far-reaching industrial, military, and diplomatic ties. The agreement, or the sum of already functioning bilateral partnerships, is not an alliance with a single command structure. The Mecca Joint Defence...