- Athens’ outreach to New Delhi reflects deepening fears that Turkey’s military convergence with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia could reshape regional power balances across energy, maritime and defence domains.
Greece’s ambitious push to create a “Mediterranean Quad” alliance integrating Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and India marks a significant escalation in the evolving contest for influence across the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and Indo-Pacific regions. Athens increasingly views the initiative as a strategic necessity amid Turkey’s accelerating effort to construct a parallel security architecture with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia—an alignment some regional defence planners have begun describing as an embryonic “Islamic NATO.”
The Med Quad concept gained decisive momentum after Greece formally invited India to join the existing Greece–Cyprus–Israel trilateral framework under an expanded “3+1” format. Senior Greek officials believe the inclusion of India would transform the grouping from a regional alignment into a trans-regional strategic bloc capable of counterbalancing Ankara’s widening military partnerships and ideological outreach.
Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis articulated this vision during recent talks with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, describing Greece as “India’s gateway into Europe.” The statement reflected more than diplomatic symbolism; it underscored Athens’ ambition to anchor India’s westward strategic expansion within the Eastern Mediterranean’s security, energy, and economic ecosystem.
The urgency behind the Med Quad initiative is directly shaped by Turkey’s growing defence synchronisation with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The convergence of Islamabad’s nuclear capabilities, Riyadh’s financial clout, and Ankara’s conventional and expeditionary military power has unsettled Greece and its partners, who see the emerging axis as a multidimensional challenge across military, ideological, maritime, and energy domains.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has increasingly positioned Ankara as a political and ideological nucleus of a broader Sunni security bloc, a move that coincides with Turkey’s assertive “Blue Homeland” maritime doctrine and persistent challenges to Greek and Cypriot sovereign rights. For Athens, these trends represent a convergence of ideological ambition and hard power projection that could reshape the strategic balance across the Mediterranean and beyond.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently confirmed exploratory discussions on Ankara’s potential involvement in the Saudi–Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, remarking that “any pact in the region should be more inclusive.” Greek officials interpreted the statement as a signal of Turkey’s intent to reshape regional security frameworks outside traditional NATO constraints.
Saudi officials later clarified that the defence pact remains bilateral and that Turkey’s inclusion is not imminent. However, Greek analysts view this as a tactical pause rather than a strategic reversal, pointing to Ankara’s pattern of advancing geopolitical objectives incrementally while maintaining strategic ambiguity.
For India, participation in the Med Quad would represent an unprecedented opportunity to project strategic influence into the Mediterranean basin while countering Pakistan’s expanding military and diplomatic footprint. Islamabad’s deepening ties with Turkey, particularly in defence technology, naval cooperation, and ideological coordination, have raised concerns in New Delhi about the potential convergence of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent with Turkey’s conventional power projection.
A senior Indian defence analyst noted that India’s inclusion in the Med Quad would “add significant strategic weight against Turkish ambitions,” reflecting New Delhi’s recognition that Ankara’s alignment with Islamabad carries direct implications for India’s broader security environment.
India’s growing naval reach into the Mediterranean—facilitated by port access agreements, joint exercises with Greece, and defence cooperation with Israel—has already expanded its strategic footprint beyond the Indo-Pacific. The Med Quad would formalise this presence, linking India’s Indo-Pacific doctrine with Mediterranean security dynamics.
The foundations of the Med Quad lie in the early 2010s, when Greece, Cyprus, and Israel began recalibrating their regional partnerships amid deteriorating relations with Turkey. Ideological divergence, maritime disputes, and Ankara’s increasingly unilateral use of military power pushed the three countries toward deeper cooperation.
The discovery of major offshore natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean—particularly Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar fields—served as a strategic catalyst. These discoveries transformed energy security into a central pillar of trilateral cooperation and elevated maritime sovereignty from a bilateral issue into a multilateral security imperative.
Collectively valued at tens of billions of dollars, with estimates exceeding US$200 billion, these energy assets fundamentally altered the regional balance. Protecting offshore infrastructure became a shared priority, leading to the institutionalisation of defence cooperation among Greece, Cyprus, and Israel.
Since 2016, successive trilateral summits have formalised this alignment through joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, energy corridor protection, and diplomatic coordination within European and transatlantic institutions. The United States has intermittently participated as the “+1,” reinforcing the grouping’s alignment with Western security objectives while encouraging regional partners to assume greater responsibility for their own deterrence architectures.
Turkey’s response to the trilateral alignment has been anchored in its “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which asserts expansive maritime claims across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Ankara has conducted unauthorised drilling operations within Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone, carried out sustained airspace violations over Greek islands, and deployed naval assets to challenge exploration activities.
Athens and Nicosia interpret these actions as deliberate tests of deterrence thresholds designed to normalise Turkish presence and reshape maritime norms. Israel, meanwhile, has grown increasingly wary of Ankara’s political support for Hamas and confrontational posture toward Israeli security interests, pushing Jerusalem toward deeper defence integration with Greece and Cyprus.
This convergence of threat perceptions underscores that the Med Quad is not an ad hoc reaction to recent developments but the culmination of a decade-long strategic realignment driven by Turkey’s departure from cooperative regional norms and its pursuit of autonomous power projection.
Turkey’s pursuit of what analysts describe as an “Islamic NATO” is anchored in its deepening ties with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The September 2025 Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement between Riyadh and Islamabad, which treats aggression against one as an attack on both, marked a decisive shift in Middle Eastern security dynamics by formalising a collective defence principle outside Western-led alliances.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif openly advocated the expansion of this framework, suggesting that other Muslim-majority states could join an alliance similar to NATO. The remarks reverberated across Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific defence circles, where policymakers saw the potential emergence of a parallel security architecture with ideological and military dimensions.
Analysts warn that such an axis could integrate Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent, Saudi Arabia’s defence expenditure—estimated at over US$75 billion annually—and Turkey’s battle-tested expeditionary forces. The result would be a multi-theatre security challenge stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Despite internal contradictions within the bloc—such as differing threat perceptions toward Iran, the Kurdish question, and relations with Israel—Greek analysts believe these frictions are manageable within a shared framework aimed at constraining Western and Israeli influence.
From Athens’ perspective, Turkey’s manoeuvring represents a deliberate attempt to construct an alternative security order capable of marginalising Greek, Cypriot, and Israeli interests across multiple domains.
India’s inclusion would elevate the Med Quad from a regional alignment into a trans-continental deterrence network. New Delhi’s defence relationship with Israel, anchored in joint development programmes such as the Barak-8 missile system, provides a foundation for interoperability and intelligence sharing.
India’s growing military engagement with Greece through joint exercises and port access agreements further enhances its ability to project naval power into the Eastern Mediterranean. These developments align with India’s broader strategy of securing sea lines of communication critical to energy imports and trade flows.
The Med Quad also dovetails with the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a US-backed initiative designed to link Indian manufacturing hubs to European markets through a network spanning Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Greece. With projected infrastructure investments exceeding US$100 billion, IMEC positions ports such as Haifa and Piraeus as strategic nodes whose security is inseparable from regional military stability.
By embedding itself within this framework, India gains economic leverage and strategic depth, enabling it to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative while constraining Pakistan–Turkey collaboration along critical maritime corridors.
For Greece, India’s inclusion would reinforce its role as a strategic bridge between Europe and the Indo-Pacific, enhancing its geopolitical relevance far beyond the Eastern Mediterranean.
The December 2025 trilateral military cooperation agreement signed in Nicosia by Greece, Cyprus, and Israel represents a critical operational foundation for the Med Quad. The agreement focuses on joint air and naval exercises, unmanned systems training, electronic warfare, and intelligence fusion.
Israeli Defence Forces officials described the agreement as a decisive step toward deeper military integration, with Greece’s planned participation in the Noble Dina naval exercise in spring 2026 signalling enhanced interoperability in complex maritime environments.
These exercises are designed for high-end warfighting scenarios, including anti-submarine warfare, air defence, and the protection of offshore energy infrastructure against state and non-state threats. Energy security remains central, as the disruption of Eastern Mediterranean gas fields would have cascading economic and political consequences across Europe and beyond.
The Med Quad’s deterrence logic integrates military readiness with economic resilience and diplomatic signalling, aiming to impose costs on Turkish escalation without triggering uncontrolled conflict.
Speculation regarding the eventual inclusion of the United Arab Emirates reflects the alliance’s potential scalability, although Greek officials emphasise that the core objective remains countering Turkey’s assertiveness rather than constructing an overtly anti-Islamic bloc.
An Israeli official characterised the cooperation as “a strategic message to Turkey,” encapsulating the alliance’s intent to restore balance through collective capability rather than unilateral confrontation.
Critics question the alliance’s long-term cohesion, citing historical precedents of fragile coalitions and divergent national interests. However, proponents argue that shared threat perceptions, converging economic interests, and institutionalised military cooperation provide a stronger foundation than past arrangements.
The emergence of the Med Quad reflects a broader shift toward flexible, issue-specific coalitions that transcend traditional geographic boundaries. It links Mediterranean security directly to Indo-Pacific stability, signalling that regional conflicts and alliances are increasingly interconnected.
Turkey’s pursuit of an alternative security bloc anchored in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also raises questions about NATO’s cohesion. Ankara’s frustration with Western constraints and its hedging strategy highlight the challenges facing traditional alliances in an era of multipolar competition.
For the United States and European partners, the Med Quad could serve as both a stabilising force and a test case for burden-sharing in regional security architectures.
The Med Quad represents both a defensive hedge and a proactive assertion of agency by states unwilling to remain spectators of their own security. It underscores the reality that alliances increasingly evolve from converging interests under pressure rather than ideological affinity alone.
Whether the Med Quad ultimately stabilises or further polarises the region will depend on its ability to integrate military power with diplomatic restraint. Its success will hinge on institutional cohesion, political will, and the ability to manage escalation dynamics with Turkey and its partners.
What is certain is that Greece’s initiative has introduced a new axis into an already crowded strategic landscape. As global power distribution continues to shift, the Med Quad could become a cornerstone of a Mediterranean–Indo-Pacific security continuum—or another flashpoint in the evolving contest for influence across Eurasia.
