A Game of Chess: America, Yemen and the Houthis

In response to constant attacks by the Houthis on ships transiting the Red Sea, a coalition primarily led by the US and UK has launched Operation Prosperity Guardian¹, which seeks to cripple the ability of the Houthis to target ships and remove the disruption to global trade that the Houthis had created. But why did the Houthis attack shipping in the first place? Who are the Houthis?

A Brief History of Modern Yemen

From the 1960s, what is now known as Yemen was actually split into two countries- the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, or South Yemen, and Yemen Arab Republic, or North Yemen. The two states co-existed as sovereign states and even had UN membership. Unlike other states split in two during the Cold War, like Korea, Germany, and Vietnam, the two were not constantly hostile, though they did fight two wars during the split. However, the two did suffer from civil wars. In South Yemen, a civil war broke out in 1986², when the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party split into different factions. After this conflict, a new faction came to power, recognizing that the poor and desperate South Yemen needed to unify with North Yemen as soon as possible.

North Yemen was heavily divided between the northern Zaydi tribes, which were Sunni, and the southern Shia population, and this conflict created deep divisions, as the Saudis supplied and supported the Zaydis. This decision would prove to not be very good for Saudi Arabia. In the 1980s, as oil was discovered along the borders of the two countries³, the prospect of unification was seen as favourable to both sides, as they would then be able to use the reserves of oil to uplift the entire population. The political instability in North Yemen came to an end under Ali Abdullah Saleh, who became the President in 1978 and managed to stabilize the political situation of the country. South Yemen, like other communist states in the world, was heavily affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially because it was very dependent on Soviet aid due to its poverty. North and South Yemen had been in negotiations regarding how a unified country was to be structured, and in 1990, they came to an agreement. Saleh was sworn in as the President, and the leader of South Yemen, Ali Salem al-Beidh, became the Prime Minister.

Yemen was dominated by the territory of the former North Yemen, and there was great resentment among the people in the rest of the country regarding this. Almost as soon as Yemen became united, it was dealt a major blow, as its vote against the 1990 UN resolution demanding Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait resulted in the US suspending aid, and a building of hostility with Saudi Arabia and other members of the region. In 1994, a civil war broke out, as the former South Yemen felt like North Yemen had almost taken it over, instead of the union being one of equal partnership and cooperation. It was true that North Yemen was much more populated and richer than South Yemen, and using this power, the rebel forces were defeated in two months.

The Houthis

The Zaydis had largely dominated Yemen for centuries, and when North Yemen was established following the First World War, they came to rule the kingdom. There had always been conflict between the Shia Zaidis and other Sunni groups in the region, but in 1962, the royal family was overthrown⁴, and the Yemen Arab Republic was established. After this, the Zaydis largely felt that the new government neglected them and considered them as “outsiders,” and this was especially the case with regard to relations with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia largely wanted to keep the Shia Zaydis out of any kind of power, as a Shia-dominated state would undoubtedly be allied with Iran against the Saudi kingdom, which is Sunni. Within Saudi Arabia, there is a group called the Wahhabis⁵, who are a very ultra-conservative Sunni group, and they are hostile to the Shia Zaydis. Following the unification of Yemen, and especially the 1994 Civil War⁶, Wahhabis supported the Yemeni government, and once the war ended, Zaydis felt that the government was being actively supported by the Wahhabis. In the time after the civil war, a scholar, Hussain Badreddin al-Houthi, emerged as a leader for the Zaydis, and as a member of the parliament, he was a big critic of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and accused him of severe corruption. Al-Houthi had widespread appeal among Zaydis, and this scared the Yemeni government, who saw him as a destabilizing force and a possible cause for a future revolution by Zaydis. The Saudis were also nervous about a strong Shia force right on its border, that could stir up Shias in Saudi Arabia itself.

In 2004, Al-Houthi was arrested by the Yemeni government⁷, as President Abdullah Saleh decided to end the burgeoning movement, this triggered an insurgency by his followers, and this spread widely among the Zaydi people. The government was aided by the Saudis,⁸ who believed that Iran, which it is a very fierce rival of, was aiding the Zaydis in order to establish a Shia state in Iran. In September, al-Houthi was announced to have been killed, and after this, his followers re-branded the movement to the “Houthi Movement,” with his brother taking over as the new leader of the country.

Meanwhile, during this time, the Yemeni government was receiving massive amounts of aid from the United States, which signaled that relations between the two had improved. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda on the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the Yemeni government, signaling that it had learned from its stance in 1990, stood in full support of the US against terrorists. President Abdullah Saleh was one of the first leaders to visit Washington DC after the attack, and the Bush Administration began sending millions of Dollars in aid to fight Al-Qaeda in the region⁹. This aid sustained Saleh’s administration for ten years, as it was effective in fighting the Houthis.
In 2011, Yemen was hit, like many other countries of the region, by mass protests as part of the Arab Spring, and these protests finally forced President Abdullah Saleh to resign. His vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, became the new leader of the country, and he had to immediately deal with constant interference from the Army, which was still loyal to Saleh, and there was constant infighting between the various factions in the government.

In 2014, Mansur tried to resolve the issues of infighting and political fragmentation by proposing that Yemen be made a federation of six regions¹⁰, each with autonomy and a degree of self-rule. While the international committee largely supported the proposal, it caused widespread outrage in Yemen itself. This was especially pronounced among the Zaydis and the Houthis. In the region controlled by the Zaydis, there was almost no oil at all, which they perceived to be a deliberate action in order to weaken them. The Houthis saw that the region they controlled, called the Saada, was going to be landlocked, which meant that they would have been made dependent on other regions to make any kind of money from their oil.
This final proposal of federalism triggered a full-blown civil war in the country between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, and in January 2015, Hadi was forced to resign after the Houthis occupied the residence of the President in the capital of Sana’a. Following this coup, the Houthis declared their control over the Yemeni government, but Hadi, after fleeing to Aden, declared that the Houthi government was illegitimate and that he was the leader of the legitimate government. As this civil war continued, the Houthis managed to take control of the most populated areas of the country, although they are not the internationally recognized government of Yemen. At the same time, a new group, the Southern Transitional Council, also emerged, which wanted to reverse the unification of the country and have South Yemen secede from the country, as they believed that the government had always neglected their concerns. In 2020, the STC had taken control of Aden and many areas of the south, and declared their own autonomy, with backing from the UAE, while the Saudis backed Hadi’s government.

Saudi Arabia had been involved in the conflict since the very start, as it wanted to prevent the Houthis from gaining power. The Houthis are supported by Iran as well as its proxies in Hezbollah and Hamas. The intervention, which has escalated into mass bombardments several times, has attracted international condemnation for civilian deaths that have occurred.

At this point, Yemen remains in a stalemate between the Houthis, the internationally-recognized government, and the STC, and while the government is aided by the Saudis, the Houthis have been aided by Iran¹¹, who want a Yemeni state controlled by the Shia Houthis, who would obviously be an enemy of the Saudis. 

Also, the Houthis control a very strategic area of the Middle East- the coast around the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which is the strait through which ships enter the Red Sea from the Arabian Sea. This puts the Houthis in a very good position to, if it benefits them, attack shipping that goes into the Red Sea, and this is what has been happening since October 2023, and provoked the US and UK into launching Operation Prosperity Guardian.

Why are the Houthis attacking Red Sea shipping?

After the attack on Israel by Hamas on 7th October, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a blockade and subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip¹², to root out Hamas from the region and make future attacks impossible. Hamas, despite being a largely Sunni militant group, is supported by Iran¹³ purely because of Iran’s desire to keep Israel occupied in dealing with those militants and to damage Israel’s position in the region as much as possible. The Houthis are explicitly anti-semitic and anti-Israel, and their slogan explicitly contains the words- “...Death to Israel, A Curse Upon The Jews…” While many groups oppose Israel’s actions but are not antisemitic, the Houthis are openly antisemitic. After the 7th October attacks, they targeted, according to them, Israeli-owned ships and those ships that were flagged, operated, or were heading to Israeli ports¹⁴. However, many ships that were attacked by drones and missiles had no connection to Israel and had simply been transiting through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Among these were several oil tankers and many cargo ships, which the Houthis said was a response to “American-British aggression.” This caused the level of danger to ships passing through the Red Sea to rise to high levels, causing shipping companies to decide to take the long way around Africa- going down the Atlantic Ocean and crossing the Cape of Good Hope, which has increased the cost of transportation by sea.
The attacks of the Houthis have resulted in significant disruption to global trade¹⁵. Several manufacturing plants in Europe have experienced stalls in production because of the delayed shipments of raw materials. Many oil companies have decided to stop sending oil tankers through the Red Sea, causing the price of oil to increase, and this, combined with the increased cost of shipping, has threatened to increase the rate of inflation across the world, particularly in Europe and North America.

Why did the US and UK launch this operation?

While inflation has been an issue in the past few years across Europe, it has particularly been a key issue in the US and UK. The UK has been going through a painful cost-of-living crisis for several years, and inflation has been a really big issue that has reduced the approval of the Conservative government. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the UK, stated his ‘five promises’ to the people¹⁶, that his government would deliver on. The promise of reducing inflation was one of these promises, and while his government has had success in this, he has not really been successful in the other four issues. The Houthi attacks and the resulting increases in the cost of transportation have caused the British government to be concerned that it would increase inflation, and thus nullify the one issue Sunak can run on in the upcoming general election. Therefore, it is in the interest of the British government to resolve this disruption in trade as soon as possible, and hopefully decrease inflation before the general election is held. At this point, the Labour Party is far ahead of the Conservative Party in polls, and if inflation rises, the Conservatives might lose even more ground. As the Conservatives are also facing a challenge by the Reform Party from the right, the prospect of suffering a worse defeat than the disastrous 1997 general election is not one that Sunak is excited about.

The US is facing similar domestic issues. President Joe Biden has faced constant trouble from inflation since the very start of his presidency, which was one of the main reasons why¹⁷ the opposition Republican Party managed to capture control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 Congressional elections. Inflation is one of the main topics of attack used by the Republicans against Biden and his Democratic Party, and as the Republicans have historically been perceived as the party that is better at economic policy, Biden understands the need to keep control of inflation to counter this perception. One of the main reasons for high inflation was the shock to supply chains caused by the pandemic, which delayed production of goods and the resulting gap between demand and supply. A similar situation might occur because of the Houthi attacks, as it causes significant delays in the arrival of raw materials to manufacturing plants, and also causes the cost of transportation to rise. To avoid another shock to supply chains, especially with the Presidential election coming in November, Biden wants to resolve the disruption.

Aside from economic issues, the US is also geopolitically tied up in the region. Being Israel’s main supporter both militarily and economically, the US wants to protect Israeli access to the Red Sea and protect the country itself from attacks from those militants. 

The Houthis are one of Iran’s proxies in the region, alongside Hamas and Hezbollah, and because the US and Iran have a very hostile relationship, the US wants to neutralize Iranian influence in the region. 

While the close relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States has been under scrutiny because of the autocratic rule of the royals and the kingdom’s various human rights violations, the two are still allies, and the Saudis continue to be in conflict with the Houthis. Saudi Arabia fiercely opposes Iran and its influence, and it benefits it too for Iran to have its influence reduced in this way.

What will happen in the future?

The Houthis do not seem like they are going to back down, since they are primarily motivated by ideology and not a strategic approach to the conflict. Still, they do have the knowledge that Israel will be significantly harmed if they keep attacking ships passing through the Red Sea, and they might think that continuing the attacks makes strategic sense. At the same time, American airstrikes might hurt their capability to launch their attacks on transit in the Red Sea, and the Houthis might decide to stand down, as they continue to be in conflict with the internationally-recognized Yemeni government and the STC.
Largely, it seems like Operation Prosperity Guardian is going to continue until either the Houthis stand down or their ability to continue their attacks is gone. The US, UK, and their coalition partners are vastly more capable of continuing their attacks than the Houthis, and so it is almost assured that it will be the Houthis who will fall.

Bibliography

1. 1. Sabbagh, Dan, “US announces naval coalition to defend Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks.” The Guardian, 2023
2. Arnold, Clay, “South Yemen (1967-1990).” University of Central Arkansas
3. Central Intelligence Agency, “South Yemen’s Oil Resources: The Chimera of Wealth.” cia.gov, 2012
4. Orkaby, Arthur Aviad, “The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1968.” Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, 2014
5. PBS, “Analyses- Wahhabism.” Frontline, PBS
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10. Al-Deen, Maysaa Shuja, “Federalism in Yemen: A Catalyst for War, the Present Reality, and the Inevitable Future.” Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, 2019
11. Nakhoul, Samia; Hafezi, Parisa, “Iranian and Hezbollah commanders help direct Houthi attacks in Yemen.” Reuters, 2024
12. “What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?” BBC News, 2024
13. Skare, Eric, “Iran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad: A marriage of convenience.” European Council on Foreign Relations, 2023
14. “Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking Red Sea ships?” BBC News, 2024
15. “How have Red Sea attacks by Yemen’s Houthi fighters affected companies?” Al Jazeera, 2024
16. “Rishi Sunak’s five promises: What progress has he made?” BBC News, 2024
17. Horsley, Scott, “Inflation is top issue in this week’s midterms.” NPR, 2022

Author: Abhinav Santhosh Nambeesan

Research and Publications Division