BLUF: Houthis Attack

On Saturday, a missile struck the international airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, tragically killing 12 civilians, including an American. A day later, another projectile hit the airport, killing one and injuring dozens more. The attacks, conducted and claimed by the Houthis, the Yemeni arm of Iran’s proxy terror network, add another layer of complexity to the already complex dynamics in the years of conflict faced in the region. 

The Houthis have mostly stayed on the sidelines since their attempt in 2025 to run much of the same playbook in the Bab al-Mandab Strait that the IRGC is currently conducting in the Strait of Hormuz right now. But with oil flowing through Hormuz - surprisingly, nearing pre-war levels - and the Iranian economy teetering on the edge, the Houthis have apparently decided that now is the moment  to play their hand in once again trying to end Saudi Arabia’s support for the Yemeni government and to ease or end the American blockade of Iran.

According to reports in the  Wall Street Journal, the group is attempting to build advanced medium-range ballistic missiles, using Chinese-supplied parts, which would equip them with weapons capable of striking as far as Israel. This, coupled with troubling findings published by Anthropic detailing how the Houthis have used the company’s AI models in an attempt to develop location-guidance software for weapons, highlights how quickly our adversaries are trying to innovate and deploy advanced capabilities using widely available AI tools.

This is a terrifying prospect, and sadly, one that will be hard to avoid. It’s inevitable that our adversaries will continue to develop, iterate, and deploy new technology at scale, faster and more effectively than ever. Outside of a full scale assault on an entire region (which no one is advocating), it seems the only path is  to iterate, scale, and deploy technologies and capabilities faster. There is simply no other option if we are going to successfully deter and defeat these threats before they materialize and more Americans and civilians get caught in the crossfire.

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