Saudi Arabia has the weapons. What about a strategy?

A Houthi ballistic missile targeted Riyadh on Saturday. The Saudi-led coalition said its defenses intercepted it. Later, a plume of smoke rose near the capital’s airport. It was the first strike on the city since the fighting escalated this summer.

The attack exposed a hard truth. Saudi Arabia owns one of the world’s costliest arsenals. Yet the movement it went to war against in March 2015 now holds Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast, according to AFP. It has seized Mokha and claims Perim Island, in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Military power has not produced political control.

The war has a long history. Saudi Arabia launched its air campaign on March 26, 2015, to stop the Houthi advance on Aden. A truce in 2022 eased the fighting. Then, on July 20 of this year, the Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi ports and ships. The Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project traced that step to a Saudi attempt to block Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers from landing in Sanaa.

Washington has chosen a limited role. Axios reported, citing two American officials, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called President Trump twice on Sept. 10 and urged him to order strikes. Trump refused, the report said. Reuters, citing sources, reported a similar request. Neither the White House nor the Saudi embassy immediately commented, and the details remain unverified.

Trump then said the Houthis had reached out. “The Houthis called us, and they don’t want to fight with us,” he told reporters in Dublin on Sept. 12. He added that they were letting most ships through, with “one country they’re not too happy with,” CNN reported that he meant Saudi Arabia. Barbara Leaf, a former American diplomat, called his remarks “shocking.”

American help is real but limited. Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads US Central Command, met the crown prince in Jeddah on Monday, Saudi state media reported. A US defense official confirmed the meeting but gave no details. Axios reported that the administration offers intelligence and targeting data. The State Department also approved, on Sept. 17, a possible $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 fighters, pending congressional review. Reuters reported last November that Saudi jets would lack some features of Israel’s.

More weapons will not solve the central problem. Saudi Arabia already has advanced aircraft and air defenses. Its failure to defeat the Houthis was never due to a shortage of hardware. It turned on the lack of an achievable political goal.

Yasmeen al-Eryani of the Sana’a Center told Al Jazeera that the Houthis appear to be “the ones in control” of escalation. For now, she said, Riyadh’s better course is to contain the group, not defeat it.

Riyadh is turning to partners. In August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a joint defense pact. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told NTV that Riyadh may have technical military needs. “We would have no issues in meeting these,” he said. Pakistan says no military response has been discussed under the pact. Ismail Numan Telci of Ibn Haldun University told Al Jazeera that limits keep Turkey from a direct combat role.

READ: Yemen’s Houthis claim missile, drone attacks on Saudi capital

Egypt has its own stake. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in May that attacks near Bab al-Mandeb had cost Egypt about $10 billion in Suez Canal revenue since 2023. Ships that avoid the Red Sea bypass the canal entirely. Cairo cannot treat the strait as a distant Yemeni problem.

Iran’s role is harder to gauge. Hossein Mohebbi, a Revolutionary Guard spokesman, praised the Houthis’ gains on Yemen’s western coast as “a divine triumph.” Tehran clearly gains leverage from an ally that can threaten a second chokepoint. The Houthis say only Saudi vessels face their blockade. Trump says most ships pass. 

The Houthis have limits too. Their missile stocks are finite, and Washington will likely try to choke off Iranian resupply. That effort may not succeed. Smuggling networks adapt, and local production has grown. Slowing the flow of parts is possible. Ending it is not.

Trump’s timing may reflect domestic politics. A new war before the November midterms could bring American casualties, higher shipping costs, and fresh inflation. He may be waiting, not renouncing force. A senior administration official told Axios that Washington wants to protect navigation and let regional partners lead.

Expect more escalation. Saudi Arabia is rearming, and the Houthis can still strike its cities and its shipping. Nawaf Obaid of King’s College London says a coalition is forming and a “massive” response is coming. The war will likely widen through airstrikes, missile strikes, arms transfers, proxy forces, not large troop deployments. The Seoul Economic Daily reported that Riyadh has asked allies for interceptor missiles and found few takers.

For Riyadh, the lesson is stark. The kingdom has spent enormous sums on Western weapons. A far poorer foe still targets its capital with missiles and drones. Its partners will sell arms and share intelligence. They have shown little appetite to inherit its war.

That leaves a contradiction at the heart of Saudi security policy. Firepower can punish an adversary. It cannot always defeat one. Riyadh learned that in 2015, and it is learning it again. Unless the kingdom and its allies pair their expanding arsenals with a political strategy, they are preparing for another long chapter, not for victory.

The perplexing question observers are asking is whether the current fight may outlast the standoff between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz. Bab al-Mandeb could become the center of a prolonged contest over Saudi security, Iranian influence, Yemeni sovereignty and global trade.

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