A shield, not a sword: what the Makkah pact’s first test reveals

On Wednesday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave the Makkah alliance its clearest public definition yet. Opening the new session of the Shura Council, he said the alliance was created to strengthen regional stability and shield the region from the repercussions of tensions and conflicts. In the same address he said the kingdom was making every possible effort to de-escalate while promising to respond firmly to any attack.

That is the language of a shield, and it was delivered under fire. On 24 September Saudi Arabia said it intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis at Taif and the Yanbu area. The Houthis went further, claiming missile and drone strikes on Riyadh and Aramco facilities in Yanbu. Riyadh has not confirmed those claims or reported damage. Five days earlier, smoke rose near Riyadh’s main airport after an overnight alert. The attacks come as Saudi Arabia has faced sustained fire from Iran and Iran-aligned groups since the Iran war began in late February.

This is the first serious test of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed on 7 August. Its central clause treats an armed attack on one signatory as an attack on all. The response was fast. The three foreign ministers met in New York to discuss activating the agreement. Hours later, on 25 September, their military chiefs met in Riyadh and discussed intelligence sharing, military coordination and capability integration. They condemned attacks that they said targeted the holy city of Makkah and civilian and economic infrastructure, an accusation the Houthis have protested against. Pakistan’s military said the three would move quickly to turn their commitments into practical cooperation.

Nothing in these statements announces a Turkish or Pakistani air campaign over Yemen or an expeditionary force. The early pattern looks defensive: integrate, harden, deter. I read that as a strategy of calibration, though none of the three governments has declared it as one.

From text to machinery

The pact is acquiring institutions quickly. At the first meeting of its Strategic Political and Defence Committee in Istanbul on 31 August, the three governments agreed to a secretariat in Saudi Arabia led initially by a Pakistani secretary-general for three years. Islamabad has since named retired Lt Gen Nauman Mahmood to the post.

The same statement did two things at once. The three governments pledged to keep supporting de-escalation and restraint as a route to peaceful resolution of crises. They also committed to deepen the cohesion of their armed forces through defence-industry cooperation and joint technology development and production. Integration and restraint are not in tension here. They are two halves of the same strategy.

The structure is still thin. The text of the agreement has not been published, and according to Arab Center Washington DC it establishes no joint command, standing force or specified trigger mechanism. Analysts at the Middle East Council add that the pact has not yet been ratified by the Turkish or Pakistani parliaments, which leaves political room for either capital to slow down.

READ: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan discuss activating Mecca agreement against Houthi attacks

Complementary strengths, and a real shortage

Saudi Arabia supplies territory, money and an existing air-defence network. Türkiye offers drones, electronic warfare and radar technology, and Riyadh is already a major buyer of Turkish drones. Pakistan contributes decades of training and planning experience, and it has deployed about 8,000 troops, JF-17 fighters and an HQ-9 air-defence system to the kingdom, financed by Riyadh.

Saudi air defence is already a patchwork. A Greek Patriot battery stationed near Yanbu has intercepted Houthi missiles, and British Sky Sabre units have operated in the kingdom since spring. The Makkah pact adds another layer, and one that may matter more for coordination than for firepower.

The need is acute. Regional officials told the AP that Saudi Arabia is running low on interceptors and has sought help from Pakistan, Egypt, France and Britain. The threat is also evolving: the Yemeni government alleges the Houthis have turned Iranian air-defence weapons into loitering cruise missiles, a claim analysts say cannot be ruled out but is not conclusively proven. Either way, the direction is clear. Sensors, counter-drone systems and shared intelligence matter more than headline deployments.

No umbrella is impenetrable. The realistic aim is layered defence: earlier warning, fused intelligence, electronic countermeasures, smarter use of costly interceptors, and faster links between national command centres. The goal is to make each attack harder, costlier and less reliable.

The stakes extend well beyond Saudi Arabia. Yanbu is the main alternative route for Saudi crude when Hormuz shipping is disrupted, and the East-West pipeline that feeds it is only just restarting after a drone attack this month. The Houthis have pursued a naval blockade against Riyadh since July, so the defence of one port is tied to global energy security.

Defending Saudi Arabia is not entering Yemen

Saudi Arabia is not a bystander in Yemen. The Houthis say Saudi aircraft have carried out dozens of air strikes across several provinces, and the fighting has spilled across the border. The open question is whether Ankara and Islamabad join that war, and the pact’s design suggests they would rather not.

Pakistan has drawn this line before. In 2015, when Riyadh asked for troops, ships and aircraft, Pakistan’s parliament chose neutrality in Yemen while pledging to defend Saudi territory. The Makkah pact is, in effect, a formal and institutionalised version of that distinction.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s remarks in Rome on 29 September fit the pattern, but only partly. He said Pakistan would make whatever means are available to Saudi Arabia if the Houthi attacks continue. He did not say whether Pakistani forces had joined strikes, or whether Riyadh had asked for help. He also said that any enemy of Saudi Arabia is an enemy of Pakistan, and the AP described the remarks as one of Islamabad’s clearest signals that it could become directly involved. He had already warned three weeks earlier that continued attacks could trigger the pact. Ambiguity helps deterrence, but the rhetoric is hardening, and ambiguity also leaves room for escalation.

Türkiye faces the same choice. It said on 19 September that it was prepared to meet Saudi Arabia’s military needs under the pact. Yet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said the agreement names no common adversary and is not aimed at Iran. Sensors, electronic warfare, intelligence and advisers sit in a very different escalatory category from aircraft over Yemeni targets.

Islamabad’s position is shaped by its ties to Tehran. Pakistan has served as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, a role that is hard to reconcile with open belligerency. That is a strong reason to keep any Yemen involvement defensive.

READ: Saudi crown prince says ‘Mecca Defense Alliance’ with Turkiye, Pakistan aims to bolster regional stability

The Red Sea raises the stakes

Containment within Saudi airspace may not last. The Houthis have taken Yemen’s Red Sea coast, the city of Mocha and Mayyun Island at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, putting the Bab al-Mandeb strait within reach of their weapons.

The crown prince’s speech pointed to a response. He said a multinational defensive maritime coalition had been set up to protect shared interests in international waterways. Reports of the speech did not name its members, and Turkish media describe it as separate from the Makkah alliance. That distinction matters. A coalition built around escorts, surveillance and maritime-domain awareness could give Ankara and Islamabad a defensive Red Sea role under a different banner. If it drifts toward interdiction, it could erase the line the pact is trying to hold.

What to watch

The boundary between defence and offence is easy to state in a communiqué and hard to hold in a war. Intelligence support can drift into targeting support, air-defence deployments into combat air patrols, and maritime protection into interdiction. Five signals will show which way the pact is moving:

• whether the secretariat becomes a real joint-planning body;
• whether Turkish or Pakistani air-defence units deploy inside the kingdom;
• who joins the maritime coalition, and what its rules of engagement allow;
• whether Riyadh formally asks for offensive support under the agreement;
• whether the ratification debates in Ankara and Islamabad reopen the question of Yemen.

For years, regional security has swung between reliance on outside powers and coalitions improvised after a crisis. The Makkah pact tries something different: deterrence built in advance from complementary capabilities. Its credibility will depend on protecting Saudi Arabia without becoming another way of widening the Yemen war.

Build the shield. Strengthen the deterrent. But do not inherit the war.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.