On Aug. 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, a mutual-defense pact declaring that an attack on any one signatory will be treated as an attack on all three. Two days later, Iran-aligned Houthi forces attacked Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen anyway — an early test of what the new arrangement actually means.

Some analysts have already dubbed it a “Sunni NATO.” That’s the wrong read. The real story is simpler, and it matters for how Washington should respond: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan are each pursuing strategic autonomy, hedging against overreliance on any single outside power. That is not the same thing as abandoning the United States. The U.S.-Saudi relationship, specifically, will come out of this agreement essentially untouched — and American policymakers should stop treating every regional hedge as a defection.