Ahead of the 24 October EU–GCC summit in Riyadh, the article contrasts Saudi Arabia’s recent deadly Houthi airport strikes with the UAE’s far lower casualty toll despite absorbing more than 2,800 Iranian missiles and drones, attributing the difference to Abu Dhabi’s investment in indigenous layered air defence rather than Riyadh’s reliance on external pacts.

It argues that the Mecca pact with Pakistan and Turkey, plus appeals to Washington, have delivered only partial or delayed support, illustrating that allies reinforce partners who already fight with their own means but hesitate to substitute for those who expect others to wage the war.

The piece concludes that Gulf security cannot be subcontracted and that Europe, facing similar questions over Ukraine, should pair solidarity with a clear message that no external ally will fight as effectively as the state itself.

Europe’s leaders arrive in Riyadh on 24 October bearing messages of solidarity. But what Saudi Arabia and the UAE have lived through this year carries a lesson Europeans know from their own experience: alliances multiply strength; they do not create it.

In twelve days, the planes of 27 European leaders are due to land in Riyadh for the second EU–GCC summit. The airport meant to receive them was hit by a Houthi missile last Saturday, killing at least twelve people and wounding 309, the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in more than a decade. It was the third strike on the airport in a week, and a fourth followed the next day. The American, German, Spanish and Canadian embassies told their citizens to stay away, and schools in the capital moved online for the second time in less than a month. Kaja Kallas called it an “appalling act of terror”.

Europe’s leaders will bring genuine solidarity to Riyadh, and the kingdom deserves it. But a true friend also brings a frank reading. And the frankest thing that can be said today emerges from a comparison few in the region care to make: how did the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s neighbour and former partner, come through a harsher war at a far lower cost?

The numbers are striking. Since 28 February, Iran has fired more than 2,800 missiles and drones at the UAE, according to the Wall Street Journal. That is more than it fired at any other country, Israel included. Dubai’s airport was hit, the Ruwais refinery was shut down, the Al Taweelah aluminium smelter was damaged badly enough to need up to a year of repairs, and oil output fell by roughly a third in March. Yet the death toll for the entire war stands at thirteen, two of them servicemen killed when a helicopter crashed because of a technical fault. Even allowing for legitimate caution about figures from a state that tightly policed footage of the strikes, the gap is stark: a single strike on Riyadh has claimed as many lives as the UAE lost in an entire war. Nor did Dubai’s airports ever stop working. Six million........

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