General Sir Patrick Sanders

speaker

1,311 appearances 12 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 2 Sep

General Sir Patrick Sanders’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 12 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.

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The General & The Journalist · The new Middle East: Can a ‘NATO of the East’ work? · 2 Sep 2026 podcast

I just want to dwell for a second on the nuclear dimension, because clearly Pakistan is a nuclear power.

What I've been able to read into the Mecca Pact, there isn't a nuclear component to this.

But do you think that there is an implicit understanding that Pakistan is providing a form of extended deterrence for the other two players?

So each of them brings a set of assets to the table, if you like, but they all have some liabilities as well.

I mean, what do you think the liabilities are?

But Simon, I just want to draw you out on that because...

We were talking about liabilities.

One of the potential cancers at the heart of this alliance is surely Turkey's support for political Islam, because you've got this very, very strong philosophical disagreement between, on the one hand, Turkey and their fellow travelers when it comes to supporting political Islam in Qatar,

and Saudi, who see this as a direct threat to the stability of the monarchies in the Gulf.

How do they overcome that tension?

So, Simon, lots of commentary has inevitably drawn a parallel with NATO.

And the language is strikingly similar.

I mean, they've almost taken Article 5 verbatim, an attack on one is an attack on all.

I mean, I know this is very early days, but are people right to try to make comparisons to NATO?

And what similarities do you see?

Yeah.

I think it's too soon to tell.

And actually, I think the NATO comparisons are probably wrong.

My problems with the comparisons with NATO are...

First of all, NATO benefits from having an absolutely clear consensus on what the threat is.

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