On 22 February 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu announced the Hexagon of Alliances, comprising a framework centred around India, UAE, Greece, Cyprus, Morocco and unnamed Arab, African and Asian states. The Hexagon was positioned as counter to a “radical Shia axis” and an “emerging radical Sunni axis.” The second formulation appears to be aimed at Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. Labelling the Saudis as radical, implying similarities to ISIS, is bound to upset Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who has been trying to modernise his orthodox polity. But the Gulf states chose to remain silent. The Hexagon appears to be designed as an ‘encirclement strategy’ of Saudi Arabia – a feeling that is bound to settle once a deeper analysis of Saudi Arabia’s Risk Matrix is done.
Hexagon of Alliances
With Israel as the central figure in the Hexagon, every pillar is targeted at a specific Saudi vulnerability. India, as the Asian anchor, is Saudi Arabia’s most important oil customer. Pulling New Delhi into an adversarial group damages Saudi economics. The UAE pillar cements Abu Dhabi as the Gulf logistics hub and formalises its role as Israel’s regional ally since it signed the Abraham Accords in 2020.
Greece and Cyprus lead the Mediterranean flank and threaten revival of the dormant Saudi Tapline, built during the Iran-Iraq war to carry crude to Zahrani Port near Sidon in Lebanon, at its Mediterranean terminus. The fourth pillar, the Somaliland-Ethiopia axis, opens the door to Israeli surveillance and military facilities on an 850km Gulf of Aden coastline directly across from Houthi staging points, and within monitoring range of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s primary post-Hormuz oil export terminal.
The fifth pillar, IMEC and the I2U2 economic corridor, bids to make Israel, not Saudi Arabia, the indispensable node between Asia and Europe, bypassing Riyadh’s geographical centrality entirely, even though avoiding Saudi geography may be an impossible feat unless some territorial carve-outs are planned. The final pillar of Morocco-Africa reveals an ambitious Israeli plan to connect to the Atlantic, an imaginative configuration that could transport goods from India to the US via the IMEC-Israel-Gaza-Mediterranean-Atlantic corridor.
Saudi Risk Matrix
Saudi Arabia’s risk matrix was already complicated, but it became even more complex with the addition of this new architecture and four recent risk-enhancing events. First, Houthi attacks in 2019 on the Abqaiq and Khurais refineries, which handle 7% of global oil production, heightened the risk to its processing facilities. Second, Houthi assaults on commercial shipping at the Bab el Mendeb chokepoint, spanning from the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict over Gaza to the subsequent ceasefire, increased Saudi maritime risk.
Third, the recent US-Israel strike on Iran led to closure of the Strait of Hormuz, further elevating maritime risk to Saudi Arabia. Lastly, an Iranian attack on the Saudi East-West Petroline amplified the risk to oil production. On these counts, the Orreryx’ 2026 Country Risk Index calls a large-scale repeat strike on Saudi oil infrastructure as the “single highest-impact tail risk to the global energy system”.
Building Resilience
Yet MbS has not been passive, patiently assembling his counter-architecture since 2017. Initially, his moves were said to be aggressive and somewhat impulsive, but is now seen more statesmanlike and patient than ever before – more in line with the Saudi King being the Protector of the two Holy Mosques and Arab pride. Dr Neil Quilliam of Chatham House notes that the war has “almost reverted (MbS) to form, favouring caution, patience and long-term positioning over short-term gains.”
On supply chain resilience, four measures are underway. The Petroline (East Saudi Arabia to Yanbu) has been expanded from 5mbd to 7mbd, with Yanbu exports reportedly clocking 4mbd in April and five new maritime services added. The dormant Tapline (Trans-Arabian) from Abqaiq to Sidon in Lebanon and the 1.65mbd IPSA (Iraqi Pipeline to Saudi Arabia) may be re-engineered for renewed flows. The Saudi-Egypt ‘Hormuz-proof, Suez-proof’ logistics corridor, routing cargo to and from Trieste to Damietta, overland to Safaga and onward to Saudi ports, has been activated. Though each route has limitations, together they can convincingly de-risk the country’s war, guerrilla and Hexagon hazards.
De-risking Borders
On the Houthi front, Saudi-inspired UN-led talks in Jordan in April led to an exchange of 1,700 prisoners in May, the clearest signal yet of a shift from military belligerence to negotiated containment, in comparison to the Saudi Arabia-led anti-Houthi coalition into Yemen in 2015. The Saudis have committed ~US$3bn (billion) as aid to both Houthis and the Yemeni government, including salaries of civil servants, effectively buying peace with the one actor that can close Bab el Mendeb.
Given Iran’s weakened ability to supply weapons and finances to Houthis, the Saudi lifeline may have been a viable de-risking strategy. No commercial vessel has been attacked since October 2025. Again, in January, Saudi military pressure and air attacks expelled the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) from eastern Yemen’s Hadhramaut and Mayun island, as a consequence to what Riyadh saw as an Israeli-specification airfield sitting on the island, in the throat of the strait.
In the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia has assembled what Horn Review calls a “Coalition of the Status Quo”, with Egypt and Turkey as northern anchors and Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan as southern littoral partners. Further, a 30-year port development concession at Djibouti’s Tadjourah Port was secured in 2025 and in February this year, a military cooperation MoU with Somalia directly countered a sudden Israeli recognition of Somaliland. In the Horn’s emerging binary, this is the Mogadishu Axis comprising Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Eritrea, Egypt, Turkey versus the Berbera Axis comprising Israel, UAE, Somaliland and Ethiopia. Both are real. Both are hardening. And, the Saudi-UAE partnership, much in evidence in 2015, has all but evaporated.
Beyond West Asia
The recent NATO-like protection agreement with Pakistan provides that aggression against either would be treated as aggression against both. Accompanying commentary at the signing suggested that Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella now extends to Saudi Arabia. The UAE reacted by recalling a US$3bn loan to Pakistan. Immediately, the Saudis stepped in with an equal emergency loan. The message was unambiguous: Saudi Arabia will step in where UAE vacates.
Then there is the newest risk of the Abraham Accords. In 2026, Donald Trump demanded that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain all sign the accords as part of any Iran settlement. Every capital responded with an eloquent, sullen silence. MbS reaffirmed that any such consideration would require an irreversible pathway to Palestinian statehood on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital. With perceived antagonism to Israel amongst Arab nationals, favouring severance of ties with Israel, and MbS as custodian of the two Holy Mosques, he has little room for manoeuvre. In keeping with the image, Saudi Arabia welcomed 30,000 Hajj pilgrims from Iran this year, despite ongoing warlike hostilities, thereby indicating scope for deconfliction by renewing the 2023 China-brokered rapprochement.
The Hexagon’s deeper miscalculation may be this: it has handed MbS a cause. The role of guardian and protector of the Holy Mosques and Arab pride, leading a counter-Hexagon coalition of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and the Horn, maybe a far more comfortable branding than what the crown prince wore in 2017. Mr Netanyahu built the Hexagon to contain Saudi Arabia. He may have given it a purpose instead.
(Safi Ahsan Rizvi is a retired 1989-batch IPS officer with over three decades of experience in national security, counter-terror financing, and geo-strategy, including nearly 18 years at the ministry of home affairs and a UN peacekeeping posting in Kosovo. Most recently, he advised the national disaster management authority (NDMA) on disaster risk reduction and risk finance until January 2026.)
