Alliances are not tested at signing ceremonies, beneath chandeliers, and before a disciplined row of cameras. They are tested when activation costs money, exposes soldiers to danger, and forces a leader to make an inconvenient decision. The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan met that test almost at once. The result has been embarrassing. A pact advertised as an instrument of collective deterrence has so far functioned mainly as an efficient machine for producing statements of concern.
On paper, the formula was grand: an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all. In practice, Houthi forces struck Saudi targets, moved rapidly along the Red Sea coast, and reportedly seized positions and islands around Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow waterway linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Pakistan said that no military response had been discussed under the agreement. Türkiye condemned the assault and offered support. When the hour came to convert prose into power, the mutual-defence clause remained safely inside the conference room.
The spectacle would be comic if the stakes were not so high. Three states with large armies, fighter aircraft, missiles, and defence industries signed a solemn document, only to have its limits exposed by a brutal militia whose fighters wear sandals, chew qat, and carry rifles. Yet dismissing the Houthis as merely primitive would be a dangerous error. Behind the theatrical roughness sit Iranian missiles, unmanned aircraft, intelligence, operational experience, and a steady supply chain. Tribal resolve, inexpensive technology, and geography designed for maritime extortion have made the group a highly useful instrument for Tehran.
Bab el-Mandeb is not an obscure dot on a Middle East map. It is a gate through which energy, food, raw materials, and manufactured goods travel between Asia and Europe. If Iran can apply pressure in the Strait of Hormuz while its Houthi partner threatens the entrance to the Red Sea, the Arabian Peninsula is caught in a maritime pincer. Ships sail around Africa, insurance premiums climb, and delivery schedules lengthen. The bill eventually reaches a factory, a shop, and a household. Saudi Arabia may be the immediate target, but the global economy is presented with the invoice.
The Makkah pact has not stumbled for want of weapons. It has stumbled for want of a common purpose. Riyadh wanted insurance against Iran and against uncertainty in Washington. Islamabad wanted money, prestige, and strategic depth. Ankara wanted to burnish its claim to leadership of the Sunni world, expand its arms market, and gain another lever of regional influence. The three leaders signed the same sheet of paper, but each entered a different alliance. The prospect of confronting an Iranian proxy was enough to reveal the fine print concealed by the family photograph.
Pakistan has little appetite for a quarrel with Iran across an already sensitive border. Türkiye enjoys the vocabulary of regional power, but it knows the difference between a stage on which a president speaks and a battlefield on which Turkish troops may die. Saudi Arabia is now learning that ideological solidarity is among the cheapest commodities in international politics, provided nobody is asked to deliver it.
Only a short while earlier, Riyadh had dragged its feet over the American effort to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords and establish formal relations with Israel. The kingdom had its own political calculations and legitimate concerns about the Palestinian question. Those considerations do not erase the opportunity cost. Normalisation would not have provided a magic shield, but it could have opened direct channels for intelligence, missile and drone defence, cyber security, water technology, agriculture, innovation and investment. More important, it could have strengthened a regional system linking the United States, India, the Gulf and Israel through working interests rather than ceremonial declarations of brotherhood.
Riyadh instead chose an umbrella that looked impressive in the official photograph and failed to open in the rain. Washington is, at least for now, allowing Riyadh to bleed without doing the fighting for it. The United States has not abandoned the kingdom; it is providing intelligence and operational assistance. But it is withholding the full military intervention sought by the Crown Prince. This is more than American coldness. It is also a cold reminder that a government cannot reject a strategic architecture offered to it, select a symbolic substitute and then demand complete American cover when the substitute collapses.
Then comes the most cutting episode. According to regional reports, Saudi Arabia approached Israel indirectly through the United States Central Command for intelligence and assistance against the threat around Bab el-Mandeb. It did not turn first to Türkiye, which commands NATO’s second-largest army. It did not turn to Pakistan, which proudly advertises its nuclear status. It turned to Israel, the country Riyadh still declines to recognise in public. The crisis has supplied a brutally clear division of labour: some partners deliver speeches; another can locate launchers, track drones and disrupt the command networks of Iranian proxies.
If Israel chooses to help, it should do so as a strategic actor, not as an anonymous fire brigade summoned after the palace catches alight. Israeli assistance should advance reciprocity, open cooperation, and a serious diplomatic process. Jerusalem has no reason to absorb risk, provide scarce knowledge, and then wait outside while the political gains are distributed. Normalisation is not a prize that Saudi Arabia would bestow upon Israel. It is a Saudi interest, and the present emergency is offering an exceptionally expensive demonstration of that fact.
India has no reason to indulge in schadenfreude. It needs a stable Saudi Arabia, open sea lanes, and affordable energy. Millions of Indians live and work in the Gulf, while a large share of India’s trade with Europe depends on the Red Sea and Suez route. A missile fired from the Yemeni coast can become a delay at Nhava Sheva, a higher freight charge for an Indian exporter or another nudge to household inflation. Bab el-Mandeb may be far from New Delhi, but it is uncomfortably close to the Indian wallet.
New Delhi was therefore right to watch the Makkah agreement closely. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s blunt question about what the pact had actually done amid the live military situations confronting its signatories goes to the heart of the matter. An alliance is not measured by the number of flags behind a lectern. It is measured by the speed with which its members create a common intelligence picture, coordinate air defence, deploy naval power, and accept political risk. On those measures, the Makkah pact remained in the ballroom even after the crisis reached the gate.
India must also pay attention to the partners Saudi Arabia has chosen. Pakistan imports its rivalry with India into every security arrangement of consequence. Türkiye has repeatedly sided with Islamabad on Kashmir and on questions touching Indian security. The Makkah agreement is not necessarily an anti-India alliance, but it is certainly not a neutral detail. When two states that are rarely sympathetic to Indian concerns acquire a foothold in Saudi security planning, New Delhi is entitled to assess more than their declared intentions. It must also examine the uncomfortable scenarios.
A more practical alternative is already visible. Deeper coordination among India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the United States and Europe could place trade, infrastructure, energy, technology, and maritime security inside one working framework. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, will require regional stability and, if it is to realise its full promise, a functioning Saudi-Israeli link. This is the kind of partnership India understands: measurable interests, physical infrastructure, useful technology, and cooperation that can survive its first emergency.
India should not answer one theatrical bloc by joining another. New Delhi has important interests in Iran and no reason to enlist in an open-ended anti-Iranian crusade. It can, however, deepen maritime domain awareness, naval coordination, and counter-drone work with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, the United States, and European partners while preserving its strategic autonomy. Protecting commercial shipping is not a sectarian project; it is basic economic defence. A network that shares radar tracks, coordinates escorts, and develops defences against cheap unmanned systems would serve India better than another photograph of leaders congratulating one another on an alliance that has yet to leave the hotel.
Saudi Arabia still has a choice. It can retain the Makkah agreement as a political emblem, await the next condemnation from Ankara and accept the next assurance from Islamabad that something may be done when circumstances improve. Or it can concede that security is built with partners that share the threat, possess the required capability, and are willing to pay a price. In the Houthi case, Israel knows the adversary, has acted against Iranian proxies, and sees Tehran’s network as a strategic danger. Few foundations for practical cooperation could be clearer.
The advertised Sunni alliance has failed before it truly began. It did not fail because the Houthis are collectively stronger than Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan. It failed because the Houthis were prepared to act while the signatories were chiefly prepared to pose. The Gate of Tears has now supplied the Makkah pact with its first tear. If Riyadh does not want the next one to cost far more, it should replace ceremonial promises with alliances that can remain standing after the cameras are switched off.