In Countering the Houthis, America Should Lead From Behind

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The latest round of U.S. strikes on Yemen in October have brought back to the fore an inconvenient truth for Washington and its allies: the Houthi threat is not going away any time soon. Instead, the Yemeni rebel group has continued to assert itself as the vanguard of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” a role left open by the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in September. Since the Houthis began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in November 2023, the United States and its allies have tried to reestablish deterrence through repeated airstrikes, sanctions, and a major defensive naval campaign. These efforts have failed to stop the Houthis, who continue to hold the Red Sea hostage and disrupt global maritime commerce, forcing shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and take much longer routes around Africa. Red Sea traffic accounts for a third of global container shipping, and its disruption will further exacerbate global inflation and dampen global GDP, in addition to snarling supply chains. The Houthis also remain capable of launching attacks on Israel, as they did in October. Most of these attacks, which number over 200, have missed their targets or been intercepted, but a few have managed to evade Israel’s air defenses, including a July drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one Israeli.

The Houthis have styled their attacks as acts of defiance against Israel’s war in Gaza, claiming that the strikes will continue as long as the territory remains under siege.But it is unlikely that a cease-fire in Gaza on its own would put an end to the Houthi threat to global maritime commerce. The group seeks to cement its control of northern Yemen amid a decade-long civil war and harbors larger designs to assert itself as a major regional player. It has realized that attacks against commercial shipping are an effective and hard-to-counter way to achieve both goals.

Despite their apparent resilience, however, the Houthis are far from invulnerable. A more effective response to the Houthi threat is possible, but it will not be led by the United States, which has much less influence within Yemen than do many neighboring countries. Instead, Saudi Arabia and its partners must leverage the Houthis’ greatest vulnerability—the long-term economic viability of their regime—and convince the group that addressing its financial woes and protecting its interests inside Yemen require reining in its aggression.

UNDETERRED The United States and its partners have used three tools in response to Houthi attacks: economic sanctions; airstrikes against Houthi missile and drone sites, such as the ones earlier this month; and a naval campaign to defend ships in the Red Sea. U.S.-led naval operations against the Houthis—the largest naval battle waged by the United States since World War II—have been successful in a vacuum, with dozens of Houthi drones and missiles shot down. But it is extremely difficult to defend against every single drone, missile, and small boat attack across hundreds of miles in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and the Houthis continue to cause enough damage to make passage through these waters unacceptably risky for most commercial shippers. This is precisely why the maritime attacks are so effective, even in the face of the United States’ vast military capabilities: the Houthis can fail 90 percent of the time and still succeed.

After withstanding an aggressive seven-year-long Saudi-led air campaign that followed the outbreak of civil war in 2014, the Houthis have learned how to protect their military assets against airstrikes and rapidly replenish missileand drone stocks. The group benefits from an Iranian-supported smuggling network and the development of domestic weapons manufacturing capabilities. The ground campaigns of the Saudi-led coalition that has fought against the Houthisover the last decade have not registered major battlefield gains since 2018. The Houthis are much stronger than they were then, having reinforced their control inside northern Yemen after turning on its former ally, Yemen’s longtime dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, co-opting his ample military and financial assets, and seizing government institutions. During this time, the Houthis further honed their military capabilities with Iranian help. Yemeni troops backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did manage to seize some territory from the Houthis shortly before the UN negotiated a truce in April 2022, demonstrating that military pressure may help compel the Houthis to negotiate. The truce inside Yemen has largely held since, even with the last year’s turmoil in the region. As the past year has made clear, however, military action by itself will not stop the Houthis from lashing out.

The group doesn’t seem to mind absorbing blows. Even when strikes on Houthi targets are successful, the political legitimacy the group gains by appearing to be the victims of U.S. and Israeli bombardment offsets any loss of military capabilities. Houthi control inside Yemen depends largely on the widespread belief that the group is fending off foreign aggression and standing up to the region’s (and the world’s) most powerful countries. Direct conflict with the United States and Israel greatly bolsters this narrative: in a recent speech, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi asserted that the Yemeni people are proud to be confronting the United States and Israel, vowing to continue the fight. It’s no surprise, then, that Israeli airstrikes on the port of Hodeidah, one of the most significant economic and humanitarian sites in Houthi-controlled Yemen, have failed to establish deterrence. Instead, they have further inflamed Houthi rhetoric and prompted a new round of attacks against Israel.

Nor are U.S.sanctions likely to turn the tide. Unlike Iran’s economy, which depends heavily on global oil exports, Houthi revenues come primarily from domestic and illicit sources, including aggressive and sometimes arbitrary taxation of the Houthi-controlled Yemeni economy and 100 percent tariffs on goods coming from the government-controlled south; diversion of profits from confiscated assets and state-owned companies, such as the still lucrative telecommunications sector; and drug trafficking, according to seizures by Saudi authorities. This makes it hard for a sanctions regime meant to isolate offending countries from global commerce to have much effect. The group also relies on donated Iranian fuel, obscured through false shipping records and complex front companies, further insulating it from the world market. And by grinding commercial shipping to a halt, the Houthis have shown they are more interested in disrupting the global financial system than participating in it.

As long as Yemenis believe the Houthis are defending Palestinians and Yemen from the United States and Israel, the Houthis will not need to worry about placating a restive population. Prior to October 7, the group did face growing pressure from business leaders and popular protests over its economic mismanagement, the lack of basic services in the territory it controls, and unpaid public sector salaries. But those complaints evaporated after the Houthis made common cause with the Palestinians and began attacking Israel and the United States. The Houthis also benefit from the low expectations of those they rule: the ongoing civil war and the accompanying humanitarian crisis, one of the world’s largest, have been the status quo for a decade, and Yemenis do not make great demands of their leaders as a result. In these circumstances, Yemeni dissidents struggle to channel discontent into active political opposition. The Houthis effectively reign uncontested over northern Yemen, having established a firm grip on all government, religious, economic, and social institutions in the areas they control. To really pressure the Houthis at home, influential business, tribal, and political groups must believe that there is a viable alternative to the Houthis’ repression and poor governance.

SHOW THEM THE MONEY The Houthis’ economic posture, not their military posture, is their greatest vulnerability. Although most Yemenis live under Houthi rule, Yemen’s hydrocarbon resources, including its modest oil resources and a more lucrative natural gas project that is currently paused, fall outside their control. A few years ago, the UN estimated that annual Houthi revenues were only $1.8 billion—hardly enough to govern 25 million people and satisfy influential business and tribal groups while maintaining a war chest. This meager revenue is unlikely to lead to the group’s collapse any time soon, but the Houthi regime is not viable over the long term unless it secures significant, durable new sources of funding soon. The Houthis spent years trying to seize Yemen’s oil and gas fields militarily and, with a recent surge in recruits, may revisit this effort.

The Houthis’ economic weakness is further exacerbated by their lack of formal international legitimacy. This soft spot became clear over the summer, when Yemen’s internationally recognized government—the Houthis’ rival in the decade-long civil war—began to use its authority to cut commercial banks in northern Yemen off from the international financial system, a move that could have jeopardized the imports and remittances that are crucial to the economy in Houthi-controlled territory. The consequences of the Yemeni government’s measures would have been much greater than the effect of existing U.S. sanctions, as the measures broadly targeted the banks inside northern Yemen, rather than the murky, rapidly changing networks the Houthis use to channel weapons and money from outside the country. The Houthis were able to forestall this action only because they threatened renewed attacks on Saudi Arabia, which pressed the Yemeni government to withdraw its decision.

Economic woes were a major factor in the Houthis’ decision to pursue the April 2022 truce with the Yemeni government and coalition forces and subsequent UN negotiations toward a road map for a peace process. The road map, to which the parties tentatively agreed in December 2023, requires that the Houthis adhere to a cease-fire in exchange for economic inducements, such as access to hydrocarbon revenues, followed by a political process that would ostensibly require the Houthis to share political power with other Yemeni parties. The future of the process is uncertain given the region’s current instability, but its basic framework still provides the most viable path to a negotiated solution that constrains Houthi behavior, since it leverages the economic resources the Houthis need most; provides the kind of sustained, sovereign resources they prioritize; and formally resolves the question of legitimate political control in the country. If the Houthi’s maritime threat is not sufficiently addressed in this framework, it is difficult to imagine any other arrangement that could convince the Houthis to refrain from future attacks.

It will be difficult to convince the Houthis to agree to new, stronger terms for a peace process given their current emboldened posture, but it is necessary to ensure its viability, and to realize the kind of economic recovery the Houthis say they are seeking. One of the most significant dividends from a peace process would be the potential resumption of liquified natural gas production and export. But TotalEnergies and other major shareholders in Yemen’s liquid natural gas project will not agree to resume gas exports as long as ships near the export terminal on Yemen’s southern coast remain at risk of being bombed by the Houthis. A peace process that allows the Houthis to turn Red Sea access on and off whenever they please will doom Yemen to a slow economic death.

NEW TERMS, NEW PEACE Strengthening Yemen’s peace process requires Saudi involvement. Saudi Arabia has the most at stake in both the Red Sea and Yemen. It shares a long border with Yemen, making it uniquely vulnerable to Houthi strikes. Additionally, much of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious 2030 agenda is based on building up economic activity along its Red Sea coast. Saudi Arabia also enjoys the greatest leverage due to Riyadh’s influence with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which depends heavily on Saudi economic and military support. As a result, the Saudis have significant sway over the terms of a Yemeni peace process. More important, Saudi Arabia is the dominant player in the Arabian Peninsula. Even as they present themselves as belligerents uncowed by geopolitical powers, the Houthis understand that they will need to deal with the Saudi government long after their attacks on commercial shipping cease and international interest in Yemen wanes.

The Saudis have not yet used their leverage to help stop the Houthi maritime threat because they have another priority: avoiding renewed Houthi attacks on their territory, which have largely stopped since the 2022 truce. If the Houthis were to resume attacks on Saudi territory, Saudi leadership could quickly find itself on what many Saudis assess to be the wrong side of a war in support of Palestinians. In addition to opening a dangerous new front in the regional conflict, renewed hostilities could create domestic instability at a time when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is still attempting to enact sweeping economic and social reforms.

De-escalation in Gaza is likely a precondition for progress on a more productive peace process in Yemen. It would weaken the Houthis’ position by diminishing the political legitimacy the group gains from attacking Israel and maritime shipping, and it would give Saudi Arabia the space necessary to adopt a more assertive posture. But preparation by Riyadh and its partners must begin now, including by reaching a consensus that Yemen’s peace process road map must be broadened to include an enforceable Houthi commitment to ceasing maritime attacks. The Houthis will likely respond to these new conditions with renewed attacks on Saudi Arabia, as they seek to test their opponents’ steadfastness. Mediators such as the UN and regional actors such as Oman can help ensure this does not trigger an escalatory spiral. The United States should play a supporting role in this effort, first and foremost by helping secure some form of de-escalation in Gaza.

The Houthis will likely be a perpetual source of instability in Yemen and the region. Foreign-backed ground campaigns have not succeeded in the past and risk further bolstering the Houthis’ support in the country. The resilience of their military arsenal to airstrikes will dull the impact of any air campaign. Returning to a peace process in Yemen can help constrain Houthi behavior, but only if it forces the Houthis to choose between their goals inside Yemen and their regional aggression. Just as the Houthis have capitalized on instability in the Middle East to assert themselves as new leaders of the axis of resistance, Saudi Arabia and its partners should seize the opportunity to establish new guardrails on Houthi behavior.

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