The multi-faceted cooperation and interaction between Pakistan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, in which much revolves around the country’s ties with Saudi Arabia, is not merely geopolitical and formal-economic, but has also a strong grassroots dimension through labor migration and pilgrimage. The close alliances that exist, at the same time, between part of the Pakistani and especially the GCC’s establishments with the US as the neo-imperial core, are all but uncontested both inside their respective societies and elites. The outcome of this long-latent and increasingly open conflict will determine whether the ‘axis of complementarity‘ between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia could emerge as a center in the multi-polar world order.

Pakistan; Gulf Cooperation Council; South-South cooperation; Arab investment; non-OECD aid; labor migration; pilgrimage economy; military cooperation.

Bruno De Cordier