BEIRUT — For decades, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. has centered on an often-mentioned but rarely tested supposition: If the kingdom were attacked, America would come to its rescue. But recent events have shown that much-vaunted security umbrella to be a leaky one. Last month, Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels blitzed through Yemen’s coast and threatened to shut down Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea lifeline.
But the Trump administration, reluctant to open a new front in its war with Iran, rebuffed Riyadh’s calls to come to its rescue. That has left the kingdom searching for friends beyond Washington, for allies ready to put rockets where the rhetoric is and assist in a fight Saudi Arabia considers existential. Over the last few months, as Persian Gulf nations contended with the fallout from the Israel-U.S. war on Iran, Saudi Arabia has supercharged its military-focused diplomacy.
In July, it announced a 15-nation maritime alliance to safeguard shipping through the Red Sea, the Bab al Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden. Soon after came the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a NATO-inspired security pact where any attack on Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan would be regarded as an attack against all three. And this week, Saudi Arabia’s race to rally allies spurred a detente of sorts with its frenemy the United Arab Emirates, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the country’s de facto ruler — and defense minister brother receiving the Emirates’ vice president for the first high-level meeting since the two sides fell out over Yemen late last year.
There have even been reports of possible cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel against the Houthis, a notable development — if true — for two countries with no formal diplomatic relations. The Saudi overtures come at a sensitive time for the kingdom. The standoff between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz has largely cut off Saudi Arabia’s main export channel, and attacks on its energy infrastructure are lowering its oil output.
As a result, the kingdom saw a 25% contraction in “oil activities,” according to official economic data, triggering an almost 5% decrease in the country’s gross domestic product between April and June, compared with the first quarter of the year. That reduction forced painful cuts to Vision 2030, the prince’s signature policy aimed at remaking Saudi Arabia. So-called giga-projects, such as the Line and Trojena, have revised their ambitions downward amid the financial realities of a Saudi Arabia under fire.
And all that was before the Houthis got involved. The Houthis had been fighting the Saudis since 2015 in Yemen’s civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people before settling into a stalemate and an uneasy ceasefire in 2022. But in July, Saudi Arabia attacked the airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, to prevent the landing of an Iranian plane carrying high-ranking Houthi officials.
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