American Ally Turns To Chinese Ballistic Missiles To Challenge Iran And Houthis

Saudi Arabia is expanding a secretive ballistic missile manufacturing complex that could produce larger, more powerful Chinese-designed missiles as the kingdom battles Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

The expansion could allow Riyadh to manufacture missiles capable of carrying heavier warheads or striking targets farther away, potentially strengthening its ability to threaten Iran, according to an analysis published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). Saudi Arabia is struggling to contain Houthi attacks while confronting growing regional instability.

“While the United States had been effectively a guarantor of security (providing both opportunities for purchasing assets and equipment as well as providing presence through basing), the retaliatory strikes against those bases by Iran, followed by the U.S.’s lukewarm reaction to supporting some of the Gulf states and rhetoric that indicates the U.S. is not a hard-and-fast partner, make it so that each state (particularly those under greatest threat, like Saudi Arabia) needs to do more to ensure their own defense,” Dr. Ian Ralby, a maritime security expert and president of Auxilium Worldwide, a nonprofit focused on international security and governance, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

However, the new development by the Saudis is likely to be impotent, as not even the might of the U.S. military was able to defeat the Houthi rebels through missile strikes and air superiority.

President Donald Trump’s 2025 bombing campaign against the Houthis cost the U.S. roughly $1 billion in its first month but failed to establish air superiority or stop attacks on U.S. warships, The New York Times reported on May 12, 2025. The Houthis also downed several MQ-9 Reaper drones, while two F/A-18 Super Hornets were lost in carrier accidents, according to the outlet.

The U.S. military launched over 1000 airstrikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon reported on April 29, 2025.

The administration halted the campaign on May 6, 2025, under an Oman-brokered deal requiring the Houthis to stop targeting American ships, but not other commercial vessels, according to the Times.

“Northwestern Yemen is incredibly mountainous terrain, with peaks and valleys that run parallel to the Bab Al-Mandeb & Red Sea—a critical but very narrow passageway,” former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent said in an X post on July 23. “This combination gives the Houthis a tactical advantage—by positioning themselves on higher ground, they’re able to easily fire down into the Red Sea and monitor & defend their airspace.”

However, the new missiles could prove to be a strategic boon for the Saudis. The Houthis have successfully shot down multiple aircraft in the past, such as the aforementioned MQ-9 drones.

Satellite imagery collected between April 2025 and September 2026 revealed significant construction at the al-Duwadimi missile complex, approximately 125 miles west of Riyadh, according to FPRI.

The expansion’s Chinese connections could prove particularly significant for Washington, given Saudi Arabia’s longstanding dependence on American military equipment.

“Over the last few years, China has become a much more significant player in the Middle East, offering economic and trade-based relationships more so than they have military ones, but that has led to an opening up of discussion on defense technology,” Ralby told the DCNF. “It seems that China offers an appealing alternative to the United States, or perhaps a complement to it, when diversifying an arsenal. The Chinese equipment may be perceived as cheaper and more readily replenishable, and so many states are likely to back both horses in what is perceived to be a race between the Chinese and the Americans for global hegemony.”

Beijing previously supplied the kingdom with approximately 40 DF-3 ballistic missiles in 1987, while Chinese assistance helped Saudi Arabia establish domestic missile production capabilities, according to FPRI.

Researchers identified wreckage from a Chinese-designed DF-15A ballistic missile in Yemen in September, providing the first evidence that Saudi Arabia had used missiles acquired from China, according to FPRI.

The discovery suggests Riyadh has acquired or domestically manufactured the DF-15A, although the origins of the recovered missile remain uncertain, according to FPRI.

Saudi Arabia sought additional air defense assistance from France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt amid dwindling missile interceptor supplies, the Associated Press reported Sept. 16, citing regional officials.

However, the missile expansion began before the latest escalation, and researchers have not established that Saudi battlefield difficulties prompted the construction.

The researchers cautioned that larger warheads may offer limited additional advantages against Iranian and Houthi targets because neither possesses extensive missile defenses, according to FPRI’s analysis.

The buildup could also complicate Washington’s relationship with Riyadh as Congress considers a controversial civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.

A September analysis warned that the proposed agreement could undermine longstanding American nuclear nonproliferation safeguards by opening the door to Saudi uranium enrichment, FPRI reported.

Saudi Arabia’s growing missile capabilities could further intensify concerns about the kingdom’s potential to develop nuclear-capable delivery systems, according to FPRI.

Although relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are currently good, one expert pointed out that these new missiles could hit Israel if that relationship sours in the future.

“On the other hand, these missiles could significantly alter regional tensions vis-a-vis Israel,” J.D. Foster, a former senior fellow on the economics of fiscal policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “True, relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are decent today, but Israel cannot yet count on those decent relations in the future. The question is whether Israel is sufficiently confident its current and projected anti-missile capabilities are sufficient to deal with the new threat, should it arise, and that will depend in large part on the quality of the technology the Chinese are providing.”

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