What IOS-02 proposes
Research purpose. IOS-02 addresses the decision process between recognising a security problem and assembling a collective response. It proposes a method for consultation priority, attribution treatment, assistance requests, national positions, collective response options and institutional review.
A useful consultation process separates the seriousness of an event from the confidence attached to attribution so that urgent protective action does not have to wait for every responsibility question to be resolved.
The affected founder should define the security effect it requires, while each supporting founder retains national authority over the contribution it is prepared to authorise.
A common political position can coexist with different national contributions when the collective record, protected national annex and review point are kept distinct.
Boundary of the proposal. Official records establish consultation, request-oriented assistance, a developing Secretariat and military coordination. The Consultation Priority Map, consultation classes, Attribution Gate, Collective Response Envelope, Common Position Record, restricted annex, assistance-request fields and Review Point remain Makkah Alliance analytical proposals.
Consultation under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement has already moved beyond a theoretical question. On 25 September, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye met under the Agreement, reviewed progress on the General Secretariat, committees and working groups, and discussed an urgent meeting of the three chiefs of staff to explore ways to assist Saudi Arabia. The subsequent Riyadh military meeting examined intelligence cooperation, military coordination and capability integration, with the participants stating their intention to translate the Agreement into effective military cooperation.56
The public record now shows political consultation, military consultation and a request-oriented approach to assistance. Earlier official Turkish remarks had already described support as dependent on a member asking for help and identifying the kind of assistance required, ranging from intelligence and logistics to ammunition and, at a more advanced stage, military units.2 What remains outside the public record is the decision process connecting an event to a consultation class, the evidentiary treatment of attribution, the form of an assistance request, the recording of national caveats and the point at which a common political position becomes an executable collective response.
The developing institution requires a consultation process that converts shared concern into decision-ready options while preserving national authority.
A useful three-state consultation process would distinguish the seriousness of the event from the confidence attached to attribution, allow the affected founder to define the security effect it requires, preserve national decisions over contributions, and record both the common position and any national restrictions. This approach would allow the Makkah Alliance to act collectively without assuming that every founder must contribute in the same form.
Ten parts from consultation basis to documentary record
Consultation has become an operational question.
The Agreement has already produced a ministerial forum, a developing General Secretariat and direct consultation among the military chiefs. The next institutional issue concerns what a consultation is expected to decide. A meeting can confirm solidarity while leaving the practical questions unresolved. A durable consultation process requires a defined set of questions that can be answered consistently across different crises.
Before collective action, the institution needs five decision-ready answers
The founders require a common factual account of the event, its effects, geographic scope and continuing risk before wider political conclusions are drawn.
The confidence attached to responsibility should be recorded separately from the verified effects of the event, particularly in proxy, cyber and long-range attack cases.
Consultation becomes materially useful when the affected state defines the security effect it needs rather than leaving partners to infer the requirement.
Political support, intelligence sharing, material assistance, readiness measures and direct military participation carry different national approval requirements.
Every collective position requires a review point because threat conditions, attribution confidence and national capacity can change during the same event.
The five questions are drawn directly from the paper's proposed consultation method. They are designed to structure decision preparation rather than prescribe a substantive response.
The priority of consultation depends on urgency and collective consequence
The priority of consultation depends on two separate considerations: how quickly a decision may be required and how far the consequences extend beyond the affected founder. The Makkah Alliance Consultation Priority Map treats these as separate axes so that a highly consequential event with uncertain attribution can still receive urgent collective attention while the attribution question remains under review. The scenarios below are analytical examples rather than reported Alliance classifications.
Analytical examples only. The map does not represent published Alliance classifications or treaty thresholds.
Three consultation classes can distinguish routine review from crisis decision-making.
The public record does not publish fixed consultation deadlines or voting rules. A practical classification can therefore be based on the decision requirement rather than arbitrary hours. The classes below describe increasing institutional urgency while leaving the precise timing to the facts of the event and the authorities of the founders.
One process, three levels of institutional urgency
Routine security review
Used when the issue may affect the founders collectively but does not yet require an immediate national decision.
- Typical trigger
- Strategic warning, regional deterioration, developing maritime or cyber concern.
- Primary venue
- General Secretariat and designated national representatives, with escalation when needed.
- Expected output
- Shared assessment, watch requirements and a defined review point.
Decision preparation
Used when a founder may require assistance or when national authorities need prepared response options within the developing event.
- Typical trigger
- Serious infrastructure disruption, major cyber effects, maritime security deterioration or a developing request for assistance.
- Primary venue
- Political, military or combined consultation depending on the issue under review.
- Expected output
- Agreed facts, response options, national questions and assistance requirements.
Immediate collective consideration
Used when an armed attack or severe continuing threat requires direct decisions by the founders on support, posture or collective defence.
- Typical trigger
- Direct armed attack, severe continuing strike campaign or a formal urgent request for assistance.
- Primary venue
- Senior political and military authorities supported by the General Secretariat and relevant working bodies.
- Expected output
- Common political position, national decisions, approved contributions and a near-term review point.
The Makkah Alliance Attribution Gate.
Attribution can become the main source of delay in proxy warfare, cyber incidents and long-range attacks. The defensive requirement and the responsibility question do not always mature at the same speed. The Makkah Alliance Attribution Gate separates measures aimed at protecting the affected founder from measures whose legitimacy or political cost depends on identifying the responsible actor with greater confidence.
Protective action and attribution-dependent action can move on separate tracks
Protective measures can proceed from verified effects and immediate risk.
A founder may require air defence support, warning information, cyber containment, logistics, site protection or other defensive assistance before the three governments reach the same conclusion on the identity or sponsorship of the attacker. The purpose of this track is to avoid treating incomplete attribution as a reason to delay measures directed at protection and resilience.
- Verified effect or immediate threat is sufficient to define the protective need.
- Assistance remains limited to the approved defensive purpose and national authorities.
- The attribution record continues in parallel and can change the later political response.
The gate separates the evidentiary burden for immediate protection from the stronger basis required for measures directed at a named responsible actor.
Six response families can be placed before national authorities
Consultation requires a defined range of response families that can be placed before national authorities. The Collective Response Envelope groups those families by institutional purpose and decision burden. It does not assign automatic responses to particular events; it establishes a common menu from which the founders can assemble an agreed response while recording the contribution and restrictions of each state.
Political & diplomatic coordination
This family covers the common political position surrounding the event, coordinated diplomatic engagement, legal framing, de-escalation activity and communication with external partners. It can begin early and continue alongside other forms of assistance.
A common position can coexist with different national contributions.
The three founders may agree on the seriousness of an event and the objective of the collective response while making different national contributions. The Makkah Alliance can preserve this distinction by separating the common political record from the protected operational detail. This approach is especially relevant to a compact three-state institution in which national capabilities, external relationships and legal authorities are different.
Collective unity in one record, national difference in another
Makkah Alliance Common Position Record
The joint record contains the propositions and measures that all three founders are prepared to own collectively.
National Contributions and Reservations Annex
The protected annex records the differences that matter operationally without forcing every national position into the public statement.
Factual divergence
National authorities may possess different information or different confidence in the same report.
Attribution divergence
The founders may agree that an attack occurred while differing on who directed, sponsored or enabled it.
Proportionality divergence
National authorities may accept the same facts while preferring different levels of response.
Capacity divergence
A founder may support a collective measure politically while lacking the capability or readiness to contribute in the same form.
The affected founder should be able to convert a request for assistance into a defined requirement.
Official Turkish remarks on 8 August described assistance under the Agreement as beginning with a member asking for help and identifying the kind of support required.2 The 25 September foreign-minister meeting then discussed an urgent chiefs-of-staff meeting to explore ways to assist Saudi Arabia under the Agreement.5 These records point toward a request-driven model in which the affected founder defines the requirement and the supporting founders decide what they can authorise.
A decision-ready request requires more than the name of a capability. It needs enough information for another government to determine whether it can contribute, under what authority and for what period.
Six fields turn a political request into a decision-ready requirement
The outcome the affected founder is seeking, such as additional defensive capacity, warning, sustainment, mobility or protection.
The point by which assistance becomes materially useful and whether the requirement is immediate, sustained or contingent.
The broad type of support required without presuming which founder will provide it or which national asset will be released.
The territory, maritime area, facility or other geographic condition within which the requested assistance is intended to operate.
Host-state restrictions, access conditions, legal considerations and information-handling requirements relevant to the requested support.
The date, event or threshold at which the requirement is reassessed because assistance needs can change during the same crisis.
Consultation requires a defined institutional outcome.
A consultation process acquires institutional value when the result can be carried into national decision-making, follow-up and later review. The Makkah Alliance Consultation Outcome Record below is a proposed minimum record. It is deliberately concise so that it can support standing review, accelerated consultation and crisis consultation without requiring a different documentary process for each class.
Six decision fields preserve what was agreed, authorised and due for review
| Decision field | Purpose | Required content | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event status | Establish the shared factual basis. | Verified effects, geographic scope, continuing threat and unresolved factual questions. | Separates what is agreed from what remains under assessment. |
| Attribution status | Record the confidence attached to responsibility. | Common confidence, national differences and any restrictions on supporting information. | Prevents protective measures from being confused with decisions directed at an alleged responsible actor. |
| Affected-founder requirement | Define what assistance is being sought. | Required security effect, capability category, timing, geographic limits and expected duration. | Allows supporting founders to consider a concrete requirement rather than a general political request. |
| Collective response envelope | Record the response families placed before national authorities. | Political, technical, defensive, sustainment, readiness or direct collective-defence options as relevant. | Preserves a common menu while national governments retain the decision over contribution. |
| National decisions | Record what each founder has authorised. | Contribution, caveat, classification restriction, geographic limit and responsible national authority. | Creates clarity over what the collective response actually contains. |
| Review point | Prevent an open-ended decision from outlasting its factual basis. | Review time, expiry condition or event that requires reconsideration. | Keeps collective decisions connected to changing threat conditions and attribution confidence. |
Review points can keep collective decisions bounded as the crisis changes.
Consultation can lose value when an early decision becomes detached from the facts that originally supported it. A Makkah Alliance Review Point would place a reconsideration condition inside every significant consultation outcome. The trigger can be a date, a material change in the threat, a change in attribution confidence, completion of the requested assistance, or a new national decision.
Three routes return the issue to consultation
Time-based review
A defined time is used when the situation is expected to evolve and the founders require a scheduled reconsideration even without a new event.
Event-based review
A material escalation, de-escalation, verified attribution change or completion of a requested support task automatically returns the issue to consultation.
National-decision review
A founder changing, extending or withdrawing an authorised contribution requires the collective record to be updated so the remaining response remains accurately understood.
Three publications answer three different institutional questions
IOS-02 addresses the decision process between recognising a security problem and assembling a collective response. It can operate independently while remaining compatible with the earlier Makkah Alliance work on response intensity and institutional operation. The three publications address different questions and therefore do not require the same event to be described in the same way.
The five-level ladder classifies the observable degree of collective action from national containment through direct collective intervention.
The Makkah Alliance Operating Model follows an issue from monitoring and assessment through national authorisation, coordinated support and review.
The consultation model determines priority, attribution treatment, assistance requirements, response options, national positions and review conditions.
Institutional assessment.
The 25 September ministerial and military meetings provide the clearest public evidence so far that consultation under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is beginning to connect political commitment with practical military consideration. Ministers reviewed the developing institutions and moved an assistance question to the chiefs of staff; the military chiefs then examined intelligence cooperation, military coordination and capability integration.56
The most consequential institutional gap now concerns the method used inside the consultation forum. The public record establishes that consultation is occurring, while the internal decision method remains unpublished. Attribution can remain uncertain while defensive needs become urgent. The affected founder may require a particular security effect while the supporting founders possess different capabilities and legal authorities. A common political position may exist even when the national contributions are unequal. These conditions make consultation a discipline of classification, recording and decision preparation rather than a single act of political agreement.
The Makkah Alliance Consultation and Collective Response Model addresses those conditions through a priority map, consultation classes, an Attribution Gate, a Collective Response Envelope, a two-record method for common positions and national reservations, a defined assistance request and a mandatory review point. The three-founder format can support this approach because it is compact enough for direct political and military consultation while still drawing on three distinct national capability bases and diplomatic relationships. Whether that potential becomes durable institutional practice will depend on the procedures the founders adopt as the General Secretariat, committees and working groups begin their work.
Method, limits and editorial status
Public-source institutional design using official Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish records. The paper separates published consultation activity and request-oriented assistance language from proposed decision tools and records.
Methods & Sources →The signed Agreement has not been published in full. The paper does not infer undisclosed voting rules, classified intelligence arrangements, national rules of engagement or internal decision authorities.
Official records establish collective defence, the Strategic Political and Defence Committee, the developing Secretariat, committees and working groups, request-oriented assistance language and 25 September consultations. The Priority Map, classes, Attribution Gate, Response Envelope, records and review mechanisms are Makkah Alliance proposals.
Makkah Alliance is an independent, non-governmental research initiative and the institutional author of IOS-02. Faizan Imam retains editorial responsibility as Founder & Publisher. No paper-specific external funding or conflict has been declared in this publication record.
Funding & Independence →Sources and published record.
The factual propositions in this assessment are grounded in official records from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye. The Consultation Priority Map, consultation classes, Attribution Gate, Collective Response Envelope, Common Position Record, restricted national annex, assistance-request fields and Review Point are Makkah Alliance analytical proposals. They are not presented as published treaty provisions or announced government procedures.
The signed Agreement has not been published in full. Official records establish the collective-defence commitment, the Strategic Political and Defence Committee, the developing General Secretariat, the first Secretary-General, committees and working groups under preparation, request-oriented assistance language and the 25 September ministerial and military consultations. The publication does not infer undisclosed voting rules, classified intelligence arrangements, national rules of engagement or internal decision authorities.
Citation and permanent record
Makkah Alliance. The Makkah Alliance Consultation and Collective Response Model. Institutional Operational Series IOS-02, 29 September 2026. https://makkahalliance.com/articles/makkah-alliance-consultation-collective-response.html.
The Makkah Alliance Institutional Operational Series
The Makkah Alliance Institutional Operational Series is a six-paper institutional programme covering operating method, consultation and response, collective capability, defence-industrial cooperation, strategic warning and future accession. Each paper is designed to stand independently while remaining directly connected to the other five.
A proposed operating doctrine for consultation, sovereign decision-making and collective action.
IOS-02 · RESPONDConsultation and Collective ResponseDecision thresholds, consultation routes, readiness states and collective-response packages.
IOS-03 · BUILDThe Makkah Alliance Capability FrameworkA common method for mapping contributions, interoperability requirements and collective capability gaps.
IOS-04 · PRODUCEDefence-Industrial CooperationJoint requirements, co-development, production and supply resilience across the founding states.
IOS-05 · ANTICIPATEStrategic Warning and Joint AssessmentCommon assessment, warning thresholds and information-sharing while preserving national ownership.
IOS-06 · EXPANDThe Makkah Alliance Accession DoctrineA proposed method for assessing future membership against commitment, capability and institutional readiness.