In 1991, U.S. forces launched Operation Desert Storm from Saudi territory. Saudi Gen. Khalid bin Sultan, commander of the Joint Arab Forces, became famous in the Arab world. After Kuwait’s liberation, pundits inside and outside the Saudi kingdom even spoke about Khalid, a grandson of King Abdulaziz, as a future defense minister if not future king.
That fell apart in 2009, when Khalid led a Saudi intervention in Yemen. Operation Scorched Earth was the first time the Saudi army fought since Kuwait’s liberation. Riyadh aimed to roll back the Houthis, who were pushing across the border into Saudi Arabia. It was a boondoggle. Saudi forces used American and European fighter jets, fired rockets into Yemen, and finally sent in troops. By the time the Saudis accepted a truce two months later, they admitted to losing more than 130 soldiers, with six soldiers missing in action. The real figure was likely higher. The Houthis, meanwhile, remained undeterred. Saudi pundits may claim success no matter how implausible, but Khalid’s fall from grace belied the fiction of Saudi competence.
The Houthis conquered the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in September 2014. In April 2015, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and a half dozen other Arab states launched Operation Decisive Storm. Saudi airstrikes terrorized Yemenis not because of their ferocity but because of their inaccuracy. Yemenis could avoid Houthi checkpoints, but Saudi bombing was a lethal lottery. Progressives piled onto Saudi Arabia, demanding that the United States cut off aerial refueling and intelligence sharing. They accused Riyadh of war crimes but remained silent on the Houthis.
The Houthi threat was real, though. They fired hundreds of missiles and drones into both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Riyadh sent troops in and asked the UAE to do the same. They bifurcated missions and zones of operations: The Saudis moved to combat the Houthis in the north, while the Emiratis focused on al Qaeda in the south. The UAE succeeded; the Saudis did not. Southern Yemen became stable and relatively secure. The Emiratis trained Yemeni forces and successfully engaged tribal leadership. They invested while the Saudis bribed.
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman stewed. In December 2025, after UAE-trained Southern Forces expanded their control through the Hadramawt and Mahra provinces, Saudi planes bombed the Emirati-trained Yemeni forces that were the finger in the dyke and demanded they withdraw. They did. So did the few dozen remaining Emirati advisers. Maybe Salman thought Saudi forces would fill the vacuum, but he neither realized how difficult that task would be nor how poor his forces and intelligence were. Al Qaeda filled the vacuum, and while Saudis argued that the Emiratis encouraged separatism, the tribal allies Salman cultivated in the Hadramawt turned around and demanded autonomy. As Saudi coffers ran dry, Riyadh discovered it had neither the ability nor the funds to stabilize any part of Yemen.
Salman’s jealousy of the UAE blinds him to two facts: The first is the damage he does to Saudi Arabia. His chief allies in Yemen, for example, are the same Muslim Brotherhood whom he has outlawed in Riyadh. Blowback is inevitable. The second is just how bad the Saudi military is. The Saudi Arabian Armed Forces have fumbled every mission since 1991 and, in hindsight, only succeeded then because they had U.S. backing.
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Salman’s ignorance of his army and capabilities mirrors the problems the U.S. Army faced after Vietnam. Leaders demanded “zero defects,” and so rather than address shortcomings, subordinates told superiors what they wanted to hear. Good leaders understood that dynamic, but most, such as Salman today, believed staff reports that were more fiction than fact.
The Yemen debacle suggests that Salman has not corrected the dynamics that led to the death of Muslim Brotherhood activist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. No one among the crown prince’s entire inner circle dared warn him about the risks of failure. The difference then was that only one Saudi died. By failing to understand how incompetent his military is today, Salman has guaranteed the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, more Saudis.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.