The World Cannot Afford Renewed War in Yemen

As the United States and Iran continue their war in the Middle East with no clear end in sight, a new front is reopening: Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb strait. While largely quiet during the nearly five-month war, the Yemen-based Houthi Movement has announced a blockade against Saudi shipping through the strait in response to Riyadh’s years-long blockade of Yemeni territory and airspace. The move constitutes a major escalation with clear connections to the regional conflict, increasing Iran’s leverage while risking a full renewal of Yemen’s civil war.

These developments highlight how unresolved conflicts across the Middle East can quickly become entangled in wider regional confrontations. Additional crises can reinforce one another, making de-escalation more important but increasingly difficult while raising the costs for both regional actors and the broader international community. For these reasons, Washington must conclude its war with Iran as soon as possible.

A Game of Straits

The Houthi decision to impose what spokesperson Yahya Saree described as a “blockade of blockades” comes nearly 12 years after the start of the Yemeni civil war in 2014. The Saudi-led coalition that intervened in support of the Internationally Recognized Government of Yemen (IRG) instituted a sea and air blockade of the country in 2015 to control arms flows and weaken the Houthis. The blockade became one of the most consequential features of the conflict, contributing to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The Yemen conflict ultimately settled into a bloody stalemate. After the Houthis began to launch missiles and drones at Gulf energy infrastructure, raising the costs of continued intervention, the warring parties reached a truce in 2022. Although the truce eventually expired without renewal, it has remained in de facto effect in the years since. Even so, the air and sea blockade of Houthi-controlled Yemen has persisted, although it has been loosened for humanitarian organizations. The Houthis have continually pushed for broader relief in now-stalled negotiations, arguing that the current situation is untenable. While major fighting has abated in the country, the underlying issues that caused and sustained the conflict remain in place. A single spark could easily reignite the war.

The war in Gaza and its expansion into the broader U.S.–Iran conflict created the conditions for renewed escalation. In solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, the Houthis regularly attacked Western shipping in the Red Sea between 2023 and 2025. The United States-led Operation Rough Rider, conducted between March and May 2025, aimed to deter Houthi missile and drone attacks on these ships, contributing to a ceasefire agreement on May 6, 2025.

Yet that ceasefire was always shaky at best, even if it did likely degrade Houthi capacity to stifle Red Sea shipping. The Houthis had learned the geostrategic value of controlling the Bab el-Mandeb and had no intention of surrendering that leverage. In mid-July, tensions escalated after Saudi and IRG authorities sought to prevent a Houthi delegation from returning to Yemen from Iran aboard Mahan Air, an airline controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. After the aircraft attempted to land in Sana’a despite Saudi Arabia’s longstanding prohibition on Iranian flights to the country, the IRG struck Sana’a International Airport on July 13 to prevent its arrival. Iran redirected the aircraft to Hodeidah, demonstrating its commitment to challenging the Saudi-led air blockade. The Houthis responded the same day with strikes on Abha International Airport before escalating further with missile attacks on two Aramco facilities along Saudi Arabia’s western coastline and multiple ships traversing the Red Sea.

An Expanded War or a Test of Red Lines?

The fact that the Houthis and Saudi coalition exchanged strikes does not necessarily indicate that the war is returning in full force. Instead, the strikes appear to represent a testing of red lines in both the Yemen war and the broader regional conflict. While certainly demonstrating support for Iran, the Houthis operate along their own interests first. They likely view the regional war as an opportunity to extract concessions from Riyadh and the IRG on the economic front, with the blockade of Yemen constituting the mechanism for justifying aggressive action. The IRG has made a similar assessment, believing that heightened regional tensions can draw in greater pressure on the Houthis, advancing their interest in defeating the group and fostering economic gains as well. The question, then, is how far either party and their backers will go in their efforts to gain greater state authority – a defining feature of the war in Yemen for years.

To be sure, Houthi strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure and shipping signal that a new, escalatory phase of the war in Yemen has been reached. The IRG has called for a renewed offensive against the Houthis since 2023. In recent weeks, direct IRG–Houthi hostilities have led to dozens of deaths on each side along the frontlines. The situation is hardly stable.

Yet it is questionable whether either the Houthis or Saudi Arabia desire a sustained war. Riyadh’s military campaign in Yemen tarnished its image and proved to be a quagmire of its own making, pushing the Houthis closer to Iran. The Houthis are hardly in a better position; they face real economic constraints and governance issues that hinder their capabilities. The group likely prefers to keep the status quo in place or quickly garner new Saudi concessions. As it stands, the group is the most powerful fighting force in Yemen, a strategically useful position that renewed hostilities might upend if the IRG garners additional international support.

It only takes a few drones or missiles to halt shipping in the 18-mile-wide Bab el-Mandeb. The Houthis could be gambling that Saudi Arabia has little desire to return to war, particularly since Riyadh has prioritized diplomacy and economic integration since the 2022 truce as part of its broader diversification efforts. In this scenario, the Houthis can “close” the strait with the assumption that the Saudi response will not be substantial, while claiming solidarity with Iran against its Israeli and American adversaries, bolstering its domestic support. Any Saudi concessions on banking or government salaries, both long running issues in the war, or a Houthi move to mimic Iranian tolls in the Hormuz along the Bab al-Mandab, would further advance this effort by bringing in badly needed revenues. This would be a risky bet, but it is not illogical, especially if it forces Riyadh to concede to additional Houthi demands quickly.

However, the hardline stances in both Washington and Tehran suggest that none of these developments will end soon. As the United States and Iran continue to escalate their confrontation, the risk of additional regional spillover remains high. The Houthis represent the most obvious escalatory path, and once they directly enter the war, the situation could spiral as no party finds an easy way out of the fighting. Herein lies the paradox: neither Saudi Arabia nor the Houthis likely have an appetite for any prolonged hostilities in Yemen, yet both risk becoming trapped in an escalatory spiral driven by the broader regional conflict, complicating any desired future exit.

Stepping Away from the Abyss

In the current geopolitical context, the risk of uncontrolled escalation remains high, even as the primary actors likely do not desire such a development. Far too often, signaling can harden into sustained action in war, with deadly results. The escalatory ladder quickly transforms into the escalatory spiral, with neither side sure of the other’s strategic thinking or the new and shifting deterrence structure. As the cliché goes, it is easy to start a war, but much harder to end it.

Any return to full-scale fighting in Yemen would first and foremost impact Yemenis. Yemen remains one of the world’s worst food crises, with more than half the population facing hunger. Declining fuel imports, both from the Saudi blockade and organized Houthi theft, have worsened access to basic resources while supercharging inflation, lowering the impact of direct cash assistance for hundreds of thousands of people. As one of the most impoverished countries in the world before the war, Yemeni communities lack the capacity to take on any more pressure.

The impact of this escalation will similarly worsen economic conditions globally. Since the start of the war, Saudi Arabia has exported nearly 70 percent of its oil through its western port at Yanbu, meaning the Houthi blockade could have a profound impact on its economy. The closure of Hormuz has already thrown global energy markets into turmoil, driving inflation higher and sending an estimated 32 million people into poverty while worsening food insecurity worldwide. The International Monetary Fund recently warned that global crude reserves have reached dangerously low levels, even after the brief period of relative calm between the United States, Israel, and Iran during their ceasefire. As major policy hubs have assessed, energy markets are nearing a cliff that could foster a global recession.

Roughly 30 percent of global oil trade flows through the Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz, with nearly 37 percent of all seaborne trade passing through both straits. For the United States, preventing prolonged disruption to these waterways will be a critical challenge, given the consequences for global energy markets, trade flows, and economic stability. The simultaneous closure of both chokepoints would represent a major shock to the global economy, with consequences extending well beyond the Middle East.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.