On 5 October, Saudi Arabia put the Makkah defence pact into effect, a move that drew attention to the security challenges the country was navigating at the time. At a gathering convened in Riyadh on the same date, three nations bound themselves to honouring their shared defence commitments and to moving agreed forces and capabilities into Saudi Arabia without delay. Under the terms of that accord, which the parties signed on 7 August of this year, a hostile act directed at any one member nation carries the same weight as a hostile act directed at all of them.
Putting the measure into effect lent concrete weight to what had been a stated commitment. The Houthis present a documented set of operational capabilities — including the capacity to strike urban areas, put energy infrastructure at risk, and contest passage through the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia's stated position is that ongoing strikes risk drawing both the Houthi movement and its Iranian allies into a wider, multilateral military response.
The agreement's entry into force does not extend to committing Turkish and Pakistani ground troops to direct participation in Houthi combat operations. Pakistan's defence minister characterised the country's involvement at that point as one of backing rather than direct action. Ratification by Turkey's parliament remains outstanding, meaning any announcement of deployment would also need to clear that domestic legislative threshold before taking effect.
Those caveats narrow the ground on which the announcement can produce immediate results. Whatever political weight the pact has taken on, the practical framework governing how it will actually function remains unresolved.
The form that military assistance takes determines why the distinction carries weight. Aerial surveillance data, training programmes, and missile-defence systems could all be extended to reinforce Saudi territory without requiring allied ground forces to enter Yemen. Protective arrangements on the ground can open up additional avenues for Saudi forces by releasing personnel to take on tasks elsewhere. One concern with such arrangements is that a mission's boundaries can quietly widen over time, while Saudi Arabia has its own reasons to make clear that others stand alongside it.
A pattern of Houthi missile and drone strikes has drawn attention to the boundaries of what the territory's defences can reliably absorb. Even a successful intercept places a measurable drain on finite munitions reserves while holding air-defence networks at heightened readiness across the country's entire territory. Reports of interceptor stockpiles running thin on one side of the equation underscore how formidable the underlying supply problem has become.
The asymmetry between the two sides is considerable: Saudi Arabia maintains readiness across a wide-ranging set of targets — airports, cities, military installations, energy facilities, and sea lanes — whereas Houthi forces need only achieve occasional, localised breaches to create meaningful disruption. That outcome persisted even with advanced American weaponry procured at considerable expense and close ties maintained with influential partners across the West.
Houthi forces have carried out repeated attacks on airport facilities and oil infrastructure in the Riyadh area. Capacity constraints at its airports and across its energy networks pose measurable obstacles to the country's broader development goals. The degree to which Saudi Arabia's economic diversification effort gains traction may hinge, at least partly, on how investors and visitors assess the country's political climate under Mohammed bin Salman. Persistent cross-border fire, maintained at a level no interception rate can fully neutralise, puts that assurance under ongoing strain.
The pattern holds far outside Saudi borders. Passage through the Strait of Hormuz has been reduced by the conflict involving Iran, pushing the kingdom's westward export corridors via Bab al-Mandab into a more prominent role in its trade network. Transporting oil westward across the peninsula to Red Sea terminals offers one bypass route, though the infrastructure serving that corridor — pipelines, loading facilities, and the vessels themselves — carries its own set of exposure points. Control over the Bab al-Mandab strait gives the Houthis a position from which they can influence the flow of international shipping, with consequences that extend well beyond the Arabian Peninsula.
Ground-level advances by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces into areas under Houthi control have drawn attention to a tension that military observers describe as unresolved: the operational goal of recapturing disputed terrain pulls in a different direction from the defensive priority of protecting Saudi civilian populations, and the two do not sit easily alongside each other. The Makkah agreement leaves unanswered the question of who would take administrative control of territories once they are reclaimed.
Open questions remain over how Yemen's rival factions might divide governing authority and what form of settlement the country's communities would find acceptable. Without those answers in hand, territorial advances may introduce new divisions and deepen grievances that could complicate the path toward any durable peace.
Tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia trace back partly to the kingdom's long-standing role in shaping Yemen's political arrangements and religious landscape. While Iranian support for the Houthis is a matter of record, the movement's entrenched local roots and distinct political agenda within Yemen suggest an organisation whose decision-making runs well beyond what a straightforward patron-client relationship would imply. Whether broadening its coalition of partners would alter the outcome remains an open question, given that Saudi Arabia's military involvement in Yemen since 2015 has yet to establish a stable, broadly accepted government there.
Drawing Turkey and Pakistan into the response alongside the third government may reinforce a sense of security for one party, yet the involvement of all three raises the prospect of a conflict expanding beyond any of their capacities to contain. Grounds for keeping out of any direct role in the matter have long been viewed as especially compelling where Pakistan is concerned.
Pakistan's position involves navigating ties on two fronts — financial backing and defence arrangements with Saudi Arabia pull in one direction, while a shared border with Iran and an interest in playing a mediating role in the broader conflict pull in another. Armed clashes involving the Houthis could place noticeable strain on ties between the relevant parties and Tehran. Three factors — communal divisions at home, pre-existing demands on security resources, and a mounting tide of dissent within the political establishment — weigh against any straightforward resolution of the question. Joining such an alliance could raise Pakistan's standing in international affairs while simultaneously narrowing the diplomatic space available to avoid a costly commitment abroad.
A parallel set of considerations weighs on Turkey as well. Ankara's ties to Saudi defence have the potential to expand its footprint in Gulf diplomacy and open pathways toward joint military arrangements. Entering the Yemen conflict would expose the party to retaliatory strikes and the risk of becoming drawn into another open-ended military engagement.
Alliance membership under NATO's collective framework carries no provision that shields every military action a member state chooses to pursue independently. Possession of nuclear weapons by a state does not, on its own, translate into a protective nuclear deterrent extended to another country. When the perceived strength of those ties outpaces what the actual obligations can support, the door opens to risks that would otherwise remain unwarranted.
Opponents of the agreement have pointed to the possibility that it could draw together separate conflicts already under way across the region. Military operations conducted by the United States and Israel against Iran in February 2026 set off a conflict whose effects have since spread across both shores of the Arabian Peninsula. Battlefield losses involving Turkish or Pakistani forces would likely face domestic scrutiny and calls for a military response. Any move toward reprisal carries the risk of drawing fresh hostilities against personnel and assets in the field. Under certain circumstances, alliance members could find themselves drawn into deeper military involvement than the arrangement was ever meant to authorise, potentially working against the very restraint the pact was designed to uphold.
The development has drawn attention from Indian policymakers. A full accounting of Pakistan's foreign security ties now demands attention to partnerships well beyond the one it holds with China. The Makkah agreement has drawn both Saudi Arabia and Turkey into the strategic calculus that could bear on any future military decisions involving India and Pakistan.
Whether a response would be triggered hinges on how an attack unfolded, how the treaty is read, and what each nation ultimately decides on its own. Any punitive steps taken by New Delhi carry the risk of drawing in parties beyond the immediate bilateral relationship. Diplomatic recognition, shared intelligence, and a flow of arms represent tools that outside powers can deploy to reshape a conflict while keeping their own forces off the ground.
