Christian Smith
speaker
662 appearances
8 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 13 Aug
Christian Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 4.
Appearances
Hello and welcome to this special extended edition podcast from Geopolitical Futures.
Last week, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact that could prove a watershed moment for the Middle East and the wider world.
They're calling the agreement the Islamic NATO because, amongst other things, it includes a NATO Article V style clause, promising in effect that an attack on one is an attack on all.
If it holds, the alliance could form a long-term defense structure for the region, and its ripples will be felt much further from India to China, to the US and the world at large, a world that is very much in realignment.
And to do so, we are joined by Geopolitical Futures Chairman and Founder George Friedman, and by Cameron Bukhari, a GPF contributor and senior director of the Eurasian Security and Prosperity portfolio at the New Lines Institute in Washington.
Welcome to you both.
I want to start with a high-level question, really, which is: how big a deal is this, both for the region or for the world?
Well look, let's break that down a little bit, Cameron.
I mean, you wrote an article last week for geopolitical futures, actually, just a few days before this announcement came out, pointing out the need for something like this.
Uh uh We've actually spoken a few times on this podcast before about the uh the growing um uh uh friendship, for want of a better word, between Turkey and Saudi Arabia as sort of uh balancing forces in the Middle East.
A decade ago, something like that would have seemed
seemed fanciful where they were more like rivals.
Uh what made you think that this would be happening, that this would happen when you wrote that piece last week?
We wanna come in a minute to sort of the the viability of the pact.
Uh but but while we're just talking about the the founding members, I suppose, Pakistan, you mentioned earlier they're in there, that's interesting.
I mean, uh one of the immediate reactions from many people have been to point out Pakistan's recent role uh as a sort of mediator between the US and Iran.
Pakistan although has not been a obvious ha has not even been close to an ally of Iran or anything like that, it has been targeted itself by Iran in the past.
What's its role there?
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