The new Houthi escalation in Yemen is confronting Saudi Arabia with an uncomfortable strategic reality: Riyadh’s multidirectional foreign policy broadened its options, but it did not create a reliable security mechanism capable of replacing the American military umbrella.
The Houthi capture of Mocha, Perim Island and areas around Bab el-Mandeb, combined with missile and drone attacks against Saudi cities and energy installations, has created one of the gravest threats to the Kingdom in recent years. The attacks caused dozens of injuries, while the oil and shipping dimension of the crisis has now acquired international significance following the closure of the East-West Pipeline, which was intended to bypass the Strait of Hormuz by carrying oil to the Red Sea.
Mohammed bin Salman turned once again to Washington. According to Reuters, the Saudi crown prince requested military assistance and U.S. strikes against the Houthis from Donald Trump as their advance directly threatened access to Bab el-Mandeb. The U.S. president did not accept the request for a direct military attack, although the United States is providing intelligence and target-selection assistance.
The cost of Saudi “multi-alignment”
There is so far no official evidence proving that Trump’s refusal constitutes direct “punishment” of Riyadh for its rapprochement with China.
Nevertheless, the crisis exposes in striking fashion the central problem in Riyadh’s balancing strategy. In recent years, Saudi Arabia systematically invested in deepening relations with Beijing, presenting China as a strategic partner in energy, investment, finance, technology and artificial intelligence. As recently as June 2026, Wang Yi and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan spoke of upgrading the two countries’ “comprehensive strategic partnership.”
Yet when the crisis moved from economics to hard security, Beijing did not appear as an equivalent strategic guarantor.
Instead, Chinese policy remains oriented toward maintaining relations simultaneously with Riyadh, Tehran and other regional players. China primarily seeks to protect its energy flows, while reports indicated that Chinese contacts with the Houthis concerned the safe passage of Chinese tankers, even as Beijing publicly maintained a neutral position.
At the same time, the economic relationship between China and Iran remains deep.
The picture is therefore revealing. China can be extremely useful to Saudi Arabia as a commercial, investment and diplomatic partner. It has not demonstrated, however, that it is prepared to bear the cost of a military confrontation to protect Saudi infrastructure or intercept Tehran’s allies.
And that is perhaps Riyadh’s greatest strategic error: the assumption that economic multipolarity can almost automatically be transformed into security multipolarity.
The Mecca Agreement faces its first real test
Even greater pressure is falling on the heavily promoted Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan on August 7, 2026.
The agreement provides that an armed attack against one of the three states is considered an attack against them all, language that politically recalls the logic of NATO’s Article 5.
Only weeks later, Saudi Arabia is being hit by missiles and drones. Yet so far, there has been no sign of a genuine trilateral military response.
Turkey unequivocally condemned the Houthi attacks and reiterated its support for Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pakistan has moved more actively, warning that continued attacks could activate the agreement. At the same time, however, Islamabad is trying to act as a mediator with Tehran, avoiding a direct confrontation with Iran and its allies.
This is precisely the problem with the Mecca Agreement. It cannot yet be described as dead or useless, but its first genuine wartime test is revealing the gap between a declaration of collective defence and the political will to implement it.
Deterrence is not created by a signature. It is created when the adversary knows that an attack will trigger an automatic, predictable and disproportionately costly response.
So far, the Houthis do not appear convinced that Mecca created such a mechanism.
For Riyadh, the message is harsh. The United States remains the only external actor with the military capabilities to alter the balance against the Houthis quickly, but it no longer appears willing to act automatically at Saudi request. China offers money, trade and diplomacy, but so far no equivalent security guarantee. And Mecca’s new regional architecture is proving far more complicated when the moment comes to move from declarations to the reality of war.
Saudi Arabia sought more strategic partners and greater autonomy from Washington, in some ways even at Greece’s expense—despite Greece being present with a Patriot battery in practice, not merely in words. Riyadh largely achieved that objective at the diplomatic and economic levels. The Houthi attack, however, is a reminder that strategic autonomy without credible military deterrence can prove far more expensive than Saudi Arabia calculated.
