Will the Yemen tender fall to Turkey?

The thing we feared has happened; the war in Yemen has escalated.

Let's not beat around the bush: the Houthis' missile and drone attacks on Riyadh, their targeting of energy infrastructure in Yanbu, and their pressure on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have brought the Yemen file back to the center of the international agenda.

Moreover, the Houthis are no longer just threatening the border regions of Saudi Arabia.

Energy and maritime trade routes stretching from the Red Sea to the Bab el-Mandeb, and from there to the Strait of Hormuz, are also under the pressure of this war.

In a report titled "The U.S.-Iran Conflict" dated September 18, the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, assesses that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea are increasing the distance and time required for Saudi oil to reach Asian markets, and that the crisis in these two maritime lines is exacerbating each other.

In other words, if common sense does not prevail, we are talking about a global nightmare scenario for the coming period.

While circumstances are manifesting in such an unfavorable manner, Turkey's name has suddenly come to the fore.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated, "We see that there are very serious attacks on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Saudi Arabia. We have an alliance agreement, and we are true to our word. We are in solidarity on this matter. We are following it closely as the Mecca Alliance. Military needs may arise, especially in certain technical areas. We would have no problem meeting these."

To speak in the language of diplomats, it is a statement with a significant timing.

Because the Joint Defense Agreement signed between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan in Mecca on August 7 stipulated that an armed attack on one of the three countries would be considered an attack on all three.

The agreement has not yet passed through the Turkish Grand National Assembly, but it has placed a critical question before Ankara:

While providing defense support to Saudi Arabia, where will Turkey stand in the Yemen war?

The real risk emerges here.

The "technical support" Fidan mentioned does not, at first glance, mean directly entering the war. Operating air defense systems, supporting radar and early warning capabilities, intelligence sharing, or military technical assistance could be considered within this scope.

However, in a war environment where hot conflicts continue, it may not always be easy to draw the line for these contributions.

Do not say it won't go that far; operating a radar system could turn this system into a part of the opposing side's targeting chain, and intelligence sharing could contribute to military operations, but the use of air defense systems for this purpose could put Turkish personnel directly into a conflict environment.

To put it more simply, we can build the chain like this: first technical support, then operational contribution, and finally, hot conflict...

There are dozens of examples in recent history.

Let us underline once again: the Houthis' attacks on the capital and energy infrastructure have expanded Saudi Arabia's security needs, and developments in the Bab el-Mandeb have put maritime trade in the Red Sea under pressure. Every tension experienced on this route, used by oil and merchant ships, has the potential to directly affect the global economy as well as the countries in the region.

Therefore, the scope of the support Riyadh may request from Turkey could change as the war drags on.

Washington's stance has made this picture even more significant.

The U.S.'s reluctance to use direct American combat power in Yemen has shown that Washington does not want to assume full military responsibility in the region. Trump either did not want to take risks as the midterm elections approached, or he saw that the possibility of the crisis spiraling out of control was high.

We do not know.

The U.S.'s intelligence and other forms of support are a separate topic.

The question that arises is clear:

Will a portion of the security burden that America does not want to assume be left on Turkey's shoulders?

It is not possible to answer this yet.

However, we can expect the picture regarding this to become clearer after Tayyip Erdoğan's contacts in the U.S.

Nevertheless, we must emphasize that the defense cooperation Ankara has developed with Saudi Arabia needs to have its boundaries drawn from the start to ensure it does not turn into one of the de facto elements of the conflict in Yemen.

If the government truly has such an intention...

We know that the defense cooperation framework of the Mecca Agreement and the reality of the war in Yemen are not the same thing. Supporting the protection of Saudi Arabia's territorial integrity is one thing; becoming a party to the military activities carried out in Yemen is another.

This is the point Turkey needs to pay the most attention to.

If Ankara loses control over how deeply it gets involved in the Yemen war while defending Riyadh, the process that began as "technical support" could drag Turkey into a military engagement it never accounted for.

There is also a cost to this.

Turkey is already in the midst of a severe economic crisis. The vast majority of our people are living almost at the hunger threshold.

Increased defense spending, the logistical and operational costs of being drawn into a regional conflict, the potential rise in energy prices, and new disruptions in trade routes will place a new burden on the economy.

What Turkey needs today is not to shoulder the costs of other countries' wars, but to protect its own economic and security balances.

Let us conclude our article by saying that the real answer to the question of whether Turkey will stand where America has withdrawn lies right here.