Missiles can damage airports, disrupt oil facilities and frighten civilians. They cannot, by themselves, bring a resilient nation to its knees. Yet much of the commentary surrounding the latest Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia seems to confuse the Kingdom’s vulnerability to asymmetric warfare with a fundamental weakness of the Saudi state. These are two very different things.
Saudi Arabia is facing a serious security challenge. The Houthi movement has demonstrated an alarming capacity to launch missiles and drones against civilian and economic infrastructure. Its attacks have caused tragic loss of life, exposed weaknesses in Saudi air defenses and disrupted commercial activity. None of this should be minimized. But neither should it obscure a larger reality: Saudi Arabia has weathered formidable challenges over the past century and emerged stronger from them all.
In the 1960s, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, at the height of its regional power and popularity, sought to destroy the Saudi monarchy, deploying tens of thousands of troops to neighboring Yemen and promoting revolutionary movements across the Arabian Peninsula. The Kingdom survived. In 1979, it confronted both the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the revolutionary ambitions of the new Iranian regime. It survived those challenges too. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait brought an enormous Iraqi army to its doorstep in 1990. A decade later, Al-Qaeda launched a damaging terrorist campaign inside the Kingdom, targeting civilians, foreigners and the Saudi state itself. Saudi Arabia crushed that campaign.
These were not minor disturbances. Each represented a serious challenge to Saudi security or stability. Yet the Kingdom endured because it possessed something that is frequently underestimated by outside observers: institutional continuity, substantial resources, political cohesion and a remarkable capacity to adapt when circumstances demand it.
The current confrontation with the Houthis must be understood in that historical context.
Saudi Arabia has weathered formidable challenges over the past century and emerged stronger from them all
Ali Shihabi
The Houthis are formidable practitioners of asymmetric warfare. They have developed sophisticated capabilities, supported by Iranian technology and expertise, that allow them to inflict disproportionate damage at relatively low cost. Defending an enormous country with widely dispersed infrastructure against mobile missile launchers and inexpensive drones is exceptionally difficult.
The US itself struggled for years against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan despite overwhelming military superiority. Israel, with the most comprehensive missile defense infrastructure on Earth and a tiny geographic size compared to the Kingdom, still needed extensive help from the US to defend against Iranian missile attacks and yet some still got through, causing considerable damage.
Saudi Arabia’s armed forces are adapting conventional military capabilities to these unconventional threats. The Kingdom has demonstrated an ability to achieve world-class performance in managing Saudi Aramco, despite the many disruptions to its production and distribution, and organizing the enormous logistical undertaking of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Bringing similar standards of operational excellence and innovation to its armed forces are an urgent priority.
But operational limitations are not evidence of national fragility. Nor does the ability to penetrate an air defense system demonstrate the capacity to defeat the country it protects.
The ability to penetrate an air defense system does not demonstrate the capacity to defeat the country it protects
Ali Shihabi
Saudi Arabia also possesses enormous economic advantages that are too easily overlooked. It remains one of the world’s largest energy producers, with immense financial resources and strong and well-established global commercial relationships. Its oil infrastructure includes pipelines and export facilities designed to provide alternatives when traditional routes are threatened. The International Monetary Fund acknowledged the resilience of the Saudi economy earlier this year, even while recognizing the damaging effects of the regional war.
Vision 2030 will inevitably face delays and adjustments as security conditions change. Tourism and foreign investment are particularly sensitive to instability. But Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation is not a fragile experiment that collapses when a project is postponed or an investor becomes cautious. Its foundations include a growing non-oil economy, an expanding private sector, a better-educated population and the rapid incorporation of women into the workforce. These fundamental structural changes will not simply disappear because of a military crisis.
Nor should the Kingdom’s search for international military cooperation be misread. Saudi Arabia has spent decades cultivating an extensive network of partnerships, beginning with the US but extending across Europe, Asia and the wider Muslim world. Seeking assistance from allies, particularly in air defense across this vast country with its thousands of targets, is precisely what alliances are for. The world’s most powerful countries routinely rely on coalitions when confronting difficult security threats.
The Houthis, by contrast, possess a much narrower economic base and far fewer international relationships. They can inflict enormous pain but sustaining a modern economy, providing opportunities for millions of people and achieving long-term prosperity present challenges that missiles cannot solve. Observers note their capacity to absorb pain and willingness to allow their population to suffer, but even that cannot be limitless. Ultimately, they need energy and resources to feed and care for tens of millions of people, plus their military machine, and that capacity is now under considerable strain.
There is also a tendency to frame the conflict as a choice between the complete military destruction of the Houthis and an unacceptable Saudi defeat. This is a false choice.
Saudi Arabia does not need to conquer every mountain in northern Yemen or occupy Sanaa to protect its essential interests. Its overriding objective will be to ensure that Yemen cannot remain a permanent platform for attacks on Saudi territory and regional commerce. That requires military pressure, improved defenses and a willingness to explore political arrangements when the conditions make them credible.
The Kingdom has the resources, alliances and institutional endurance to pursue this objective over time. Its opponents should not mistake a preference for peace and economic development for an inability to sustain a prolonged confrontation.
None of this means Saudi Arabia can afford complacency. Every successful attack demands an examination of what failed and what must improve. Protecting civilians, restoring confidence and strengthening military effectiveness are urgent responsibilities. Resilience is not an excuse for avoiding difficult decisions. It is what gives a nation the capacity to make them.
The Houthis have demonstrated that they can hurt Saudi Arabia — but they cannot break it. They are deeply reviled across the Kingdom and among a sizable segment of Yemen’s population. Their ability to inflict damage should not be mistaken for political appeal: they have no domestic constituency in Saudi Arabia.
For more than a century, predictions of Saudi vulnerability have repeatedly underestimated the Kingdom’s capacity to endure, adjust and emerge from adversity. The present crisis is another serious test but there is little reason to assume that it will weaken the foundations of a state that has survived so many others.
Saudi Arabia’s greatest strategic advantage is not its aircraft, missiles or financial reserves. It is its staying power.
Ali Shihabi is an author and commentator on the politics and economics of Saudi Arabia.
X: @aliShihabi