Issue No. 111

Yemen's Long War and the Unravelling of the Red Sea

The politics of 2015 can feel almost quaint in light of the international system today. In the years since, the post-World War II order has run aground, with a dizzing new world system now taking shape in Trump's second term. At that time, however, the petrodollar monarchies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were once again beginning to flex their own geostrategic muscle on the Arabian Peninsula, expanding both their reach and gaze. The culmination of this initial adventurism was the Yemen conflict, with the Saudi-led coalition intervention seeking to counter Iranian influence via the Houthis following the fall of Sana'a in 2014. And yet Yemen's conflict also arguably represented one of the starting pistols for a much broader political struggle within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the past decade that endures to this day-- albeit in different forms. 

In many ways, Yemen's civil war might be considered the modern 'original sin' of the Red Sea Arena—the term used to denote the vast, interconnected conflict system that spans the Horn of Africa and the Gulf today. A site of proxy war involving Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi, it has been a fulcrum —along with the ongoing Sudan conflict —through which the rifts and alliances stretching across both sides of the Red Sea have played out with calamitous effect. And, in turn, the insecurity bred from the Yemen war has repeatedly spilt over from the Arabian Peninsula into the Horn, dragging the littoral African countries into the Gulf's perception of it as their 'backyard.' Now, a decade after the Saudi-led coalition intervened to dislodge the Houthis, the fractious status quo showed signs of extreme strain in early December as factions backed by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi came into renewed conflict.

The Yemen civil war was hardly the first proxy conflict between the Gulf monarchies and the Iranian theocracy. For decades, the UAE, Qatar, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more have tussled with intermittent and destructive conflicts erupting in turn. Cyclical patterns and allegiances have taken shape and collapsed, though several broad ideological and geopolitical tenets have endured, particularly related to the struggle between Israel and Iran and over the role of political Islamism. In 2015, gunboat diplomacy, too, underpinned the Saudi-Emirati intervention, with the coalition further motivated to secure the Bab al-Mandab shipping lanes. Even then, however, flickers of divergence were apparent between the Gulf monarchies, with the Emirates preferring a relationship with southern separatist militias —emulated by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) —in contrast to the Saudis' focus on national unity and border security.

Still, there were 'bigger fish to fry' in the eyes of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in the 2010s, with the Saudis and Emirates in lockstep as well over the expulsion of Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council and its subsequent blockade in 2017, opposing its cooperation with Iran and support for Islamist extremist groups, among other considerations. And while relations were ostensibly patched up in 2021 with the Al-Ula Declaration, the broader, overlapping and divergent strategic interests of Qatar, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the UAE have continued to play out, ranging from securing natural resources to enabling political Islamist movements.

But today, it is the Saudi-Emirati schism refracting in Sudan and through arrayed forces involved in the war, elements of the Israel-Gaza war, and now increasingly Somalia and Somaliland. In the first conflict, Yemen was involved, as the site where Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Dagalo 'Hemedti' served on behalf of the Emirates, operating several thousand Sudanese mercenaries against the Houthis. The forging of such a patrimonial relationship between the Emirates and Hemedti at that time has proved pivotal– though denied by the UAE– to the direction of the Sudan conflict. So was Eritrea used as a launching pad for drone strikes against the Houthis as well. And not only in Sudan, but the UAE has also forged a broad swathe of African and Arab forces dependent on its largesse, among them Puntland, Jubaland, and Somaliland – now recognised by Israel, Ethiopia, Chad, and the forces of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, initially remained somewhat out of the fray, preferring to invest domestically in Vision 2030 and Project NEOM, though maintaining active linkages with the Sudanese army, Djibouti, Egypt, and Eritrea. But the longer the Sudan war has dragged on, the greater the divergence between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has grown as well, with both sides repeatedly doubling down in their military assistance to the warring belligerents in spite of the vast humanitarian emergency. Repeated half-hearted attempts to move Abu Dhabi and Riyadh away from their apparent zero-sum understanding of their distinct interests in the region have made little headway. Subsequently, last year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman travelled to the US to entreat with Trump to intervene on his behalf on Sudan, a move that purportedly infuriated the UAE and, at least in the eyes of some Saudi officials, triggered the STC advance last month at the behest of the Emirates.

Yet this has proved a step too far for Riyadh, seemingly caught unawares as the heavily-armed separatist STC movement swept across much of Yemen and seized a number of oil-rich areas in eastern Yemen, including parts of Hadramawt on the Saudi border. It upended the territorial control over the bitterly divided country and alarmingly set up the STC and the Houthis for further conflict as well. But it was not to be, with Saudi Arabia-- the historic hegemon of the Gulf-- viewing it unconscionable, and in turn launching intense airstrikes on a range of targets, including Emirati military equipment. The simmering Gulf tensions in Sudan thus burst into the open in Yemen, with Riyadh, too, condemning the UAE, which has denied any involvement. But in early January, in a shock move, the Emirates announced it was pulling back its troops from the country, with the STC bloodied and much of its forces routed. Still, rather than join political talks in Riyadh, it appears the STC leader Aidarus al-Zoubaidi travelled to Berbera in Somaliland before departing for the UAE.

At the same time, Iran has placed greater importance on its Yemen proxies in the past two years as well, with the Houthis playing an ever-more significant role within the gravely wounded 'Axis of Resistance.' Post-October 2023 and the Hamas attacks in Israel, the Houthis have further sought to diversify their own footprint away from Yemen, not only by striking dozens of transiting international vessels in solidarity with Palestine but also by establishing linkages with Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State-Somalia. Israel, as well as the US, have launched dozens of strikes on the Houthis in turn in the past couple of years.

Thus, while Israeli recognition of Somaliland certainly appeared as a bolt out of the blue, in many ways, it represents the next step of a much broader battle playing out in the Middle East. The definitive entrance of Israel into the Horn of Africa-- in discreet coordination with the UAE, one of the remaining signatories of the Abraham Accords-- had been coming for some time, with Tel Aviv expanding its own gaze during the war in Gaza to further afield. Now, the distinct prospect of an Israeli military base in Somaliland establishes Tel Aviv for yet more conflict with Iranian proxies, as well as Türkiye, as it comes to the fore in Mogadishu. And the cascading nature of the proxy conflicts in the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula is now so aggravated that at each turn, these broader conflicts appear ever more intractable. Even so, if this latest bout of conflict in Yemen finally draws the necessary senior leadership in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to the table to deconflict their interests across the region, it may be the catalyst for serious political talks in Sudan. But, critically, that is not the case for Israel and Iran or Türkiye, with the stage now apparently set for yet more conflict.

It is impossible to understand the recent series of events in Somaliland and Yemen without examining the region writ large, one of intense political churn. And looking back across the past decade, it is clear that in the Red Sea Arena, Yemen remains both one of the origin points and an accelerant of a regional order in dangerous flux.

​The Horn Edition Team