The Pulse | Security | South Asia

What Pakistan Will and Won’t Do in Yemen

Operationally, it would make little sense for Pakistan to send in large conventional ground forces to Yemen simply to put the brakes on Houthi advances.

Turkish President Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohamed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hold copies of the Mecca Agreement after its signing on August 7, 2026.

On October 5, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan moved ahead to activate their defense commitments and provide military capabilities agreed under the Mecca Defense Alliance. The decision came after weeks of Houthi drone and missile strikes against Saudi Arabia, even as the Houthis were ramping up their ground operations along the Red Sea coast.

Regardless of how the crisis plays out, the Houthi conflict has turned out to be the first major test of the Mecca Pact. The alliance must strike a balance. It has to demonstrate that its commitments have real military value without crossing the line into becoming an interventionist force or getting bogged down in a prolonged war of attrition.

For Pakistan, the Houthi crisis is a particularly difficult strategic problem.

There is broad agreement within Pakistan’s strategic community that the Mecca Pact is defensive rather than offensive. However, Pakistan cannot simply sit on the sidelines as the regional security environment goes downhill and its own defensive commitments come under strain. If the alliance cannot show up when one of its members faces a serious security challenge, its deterrent value could quickly erode.

At the same time, Pakistan is alive to the costs of direct intervention. Deploying large numbers of troops into Yemen would pile on additional pressure on an already stretched military, which is grappling with counterterrorism challenges at home and the threat from India. It could also put a strain on its relations with Iran and, perhaps most importantly, lock Islamabad into a commitment from which it would find it difficult to pull out without paying a heavy strategic price.

Diplomatically, Islamabad is trying to persuade Iran into restraining the Houthis. Nonetheless, there are limits to what Tehran can or is willing to do. Iranian influence over Houthi decision-making is significant but is not unlimited. The Houthis have an axe to grind when it comes to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Tehran has little obvious incentive to do away with a source of pressure on Saudi Arabia while it is itself preparing for another round with the United States. Therefore, diplomacy is unlikely to resolve the crisis on its own.

Pakistan must demonstrate that the Mecca Pact has real teeth and practical military value. To understand what that support might look like, it is necessary to understand the alliance’s objectives and the means available to achieve them.

Pakistan understands that wiping out the Houthis altogether is neither realistic nor desirable. Even if such an objective were militarily achievable, the costs would be high. Sustained Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure, combined with the consequences of further stoking Yemen’s civil war, could make the price of total military victory prohibitively high.

The more realistic objective, therefore, is to constrain the Houthis’ ability to dominate the Bab al-Mandeb and tip the military balance sufficiently to open up space for a political settlement.

Any military support that Pakistan or Türkiye provides to Saudi Arabia or Saudi-backed forces in Yemen should be understood in this light.

Operationally, it would make little sense for Pakistan to send in large conventional ground forces to Yemen simply to put the brakes on Houthi advances. The decisive fighting is taking place in southwestern Yemen, particularly around Taiz and Mocha. These areas are far from the Saudi border. Operating a large Pakistani expeditionary force there would be logistically difficult and risky.

What is needed instead is a capable and better-organized anti-Houthi force in southwestern Yemen. This is where Pakistan and Türkiye can add value. Both........

© The Diplomat