Saudi Arabia faces pressure from two fronts. To the east, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the country's main export route through the Persian Gulf. To the west, the Houthi blockade in the Red Sea constrains Riyadh's growing reliance on that vital maritime corridor.
Dual maritime blockade
These disruptions carry significant economic consequences. According to Reuters, up to 670,000 barrels of oil per day were expected to depart by August from the Egyptian port of Sidi Kerir, compared to roughly 4 million barrels daily previously exported to international markets via the port of Yanbu. The Houthis have also targeted vessels tied to Saudi Arabia and claimed responsibility for strikes against Saudi energy infrastructure and the Najran airport. Consequently, Saudi Arabia now confronts a critical national security challenge regarding its maritime access, energy facilities, and overall territorial defense.
Lessons from the war in Yemen
Riyadh must ground its strategic calculations in the lessons of the 2015–2022 period. Saudi Arabia initially had a rational security interest in halting Houthi expansion. However, that intervention evolved into a prolonged conflict involving a broad international coalition, ultimately failing to achieve its primary political objective. Analyst Thomas Juneau describes Saudi Arabia as having become trapped in a costly quagmire. The Houthis not only survived but bolstered their military capabilities and deepened their alignment with Iran. This represents a textbook example of strategic overbalancing, where the military commitment became disproportionate to the initial security objective and triggered further balancing by the Houthis and Iran. Consequently, Riyadh requires a solution that restores regional security without repeating past missteps.
The trap of a ground invasion
A major Saudi ground operation might initially appear more effective for achieving immediate security objectives. However, it would simultaneously alter the fundamental nature of the military challenge. Given the asymmetric nature of the warfare, the Houthis have chosen to strike vulnerable points of the Saudi armed forces rather than compete directly with their conventional power. The Houthis' reliance on missiles, drones, and maritime attacks enables a standoff war, allowing them to impose high costs on a stronger adversary without engaging in traditional battles. Strategic analyst Daniel Sobelman describes this rationale through the concept of the Houthis' deterrence equations.
From conventional warfare to insurgency
In this scenario, understanding guerrilla warfare dynamics becomes vital. Scholars Stefano Pischedda, Mauro Gilli, and Andrea Gilli observe that insurgents typically avoid decisive conventional clashes where a stronger force can leverage its technical superiority. Instead, they rely on hit-and-run tactics to inflict costs while minimizing exposure. Yemen's rugged terrain and local operational environment could allow Houthi forces to layer insurgent operations against advancing troops, supply lines, and fixed positions if Saudi forces enter the country. The experience of the US in Afghanistan illustrates the strategic dilemma: American and allied forces maintained conventional superiority and achieved tactical victories, yet the Taliban's ability to retreat and sustain a protracted insurgency prevented long-term strategic success. Saudi Arabia's own history in Yemen serves as the clearest precedent. The core question is not whether Saudi forces can secure tactical victories in conventional engagements, but whether those gains can endure the shift from military operations to territorial control and counterinsurgency.
The third option: Proxy warfare via Yemeni forces
The most effective intermediate course would be a limited coercive operation led by allied Yemeni forces. Under this approach, Saudi Arabia could directly strike immediate threats to its territory, energy infrastructure, and commercial shipping lanes. Primary emphasis could be placed on neutralizing Houthi missile and drone capabilities, launch sites, and naval assets. Concurrently, Riyadh could focus on funding, equipping, and supporting local Yemeni partner forces to carry out the primary ground campaign against Houthi control. This structure offers two clear advantages. First, it limits direct Saudi military escalation. Riyadh is already deeply exposed to the broader confrontation involving Iran. Deploying massive Saudi ground formations into Yemen could intensify direct clashes, creating additional incentives for Iranian strikes on Saudi soil, energy infrastructure, and military installations. Saudi Arabia could thus respond forcefully to immediate threats without positioning a large Saudi ground footprint as the central target of the conflict. Second, local Yemeni units are better suited for a ground campaign. They possess superior knowledge of the local terrain, community networks, and operational dynamics. This factor is critical against guerrilla tactics, where insurgents leverage local geography to neutralize the technical advantages of an external military power. Yemeni forces could assume the primary burden of land operations, while Saudi Arabia supplies intelligence, funding, air support, precision strikes, and logistical support.
The key lies in weakening Iran
The timing of a broader strategic push should be aligned with the weakening of Iranian influence. Analyst Lina Khatib describes the Iranian proxy model as undergoing a process of structural degradation, reflecting mounting pressure on the military, financial, and organizational foundations of Tehran's regional network. The strategic opportunity for Riyadh is to exploit this degradation rather than committing its primary ground forces before the regional balance of power shifts more favorably. Saudi Arabia remains exposed to the US–Iran confrontation. The objective, therefore, is not to avoid that reality entirely, but to prevent deeper direct involvement through a protracted ground war in Yemen. Such an extension would grant Tehran additional leverage to strike Saudi interests while tying up Saudi military resources and threatening Persian Gulf energy flows.
The Houthis are not merely Iranian proxies
However, the Houthis must be treated as an autonomous actor. Analyst Elai Rettig Heistein describes Sanaa as an independent, confident hub within the broader axis aligned with Iran. While eroding Iranian support does not automatically eliminate the Houthi movement, it significantly curtails their external resources. This reality makes the timing of decisive military action critical.
Riyadh awaits the optimal moment
Saudi Arabia should prepare for the most opportune moment rather than pursuing an immediate, total elimination of Houthi forces. At present, the focus should remain on degrading Houthi territorial hold and military capacity via Yemeni proxy forces while Saudi Arabia suppresses direct threats to its sovereignty. The decisive phase should be initiated when the regime in Tehran reaches a point of maximum regional vulnerability, leaving the Houthis with diminished external support and reduced strategic depth. At that stage, a comprehensive campaign against remaining Houthi military structures would offer a far more favorable cost-benefit ratio. The Turkish military posture following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria offers a useful structural analogy regarding timing. The collapse of the former Syrian order reshaped the regional balance, granting Türkiye expanded scope to pressure armed groups that were previously difficult to confront. While Syria remains volatile, this precedent underscores how weakening the external framework supporting an armed adversary creates significantly more favorable conditions for decisive operations.
Riyadh's strategic calculus
In conclusion, a strategy of pure restraint would preserve Saudi military resources but leave the existing threat intact. A full-scale Saudi ground intervention offers immediate territorial gains but risks dragging forces into an asymmetric quagmire of guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency, and strategic overextension. Exerting pressure through Yemeni-led ground forces allows Saudi Arabia to counter immediate threats while shifting the burden of land warfare to units best equipped for local terrain. This approach reduces the risk of direct, escalated conflict with Iran. Consequently, Saudi Arabia faces a clear calculation: address the immediate threat, leverage Yemeni forces for land operations, avoid unnecessary escalation with Iran, and deliver a decisive blow when neutralizing Houthi military structures becomes achievable at the lowest relative cost.
www.bankingnews.gr
Σχόλια αναγνωστών