On March 16, President Donald Trump announced that the United States (U.S.) military would conduct a new, more intense air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. The President’s stated goal was to restore “Freedom of Navigation” in the Red Sea and protect U.S. shipping. On May 6, 52 days later, Trump declared victory, announcing the strikes would end. Now that the dust has settled, how should we assess a military intervention that cost more than $1 billion, included more than 200 airstrikes and that killed hundreds of Yemenis but left the Houthis largely unscathed?
Trump said he secured a Houthi promise to halt their attacks on U.S. ships. Yet, for all the rhetoric about “annihilating” the Houthis, the group appears uncowed, declaring that it would even impose a “maritime blockade” on Israel’s Haifa port.
Yemen watchers have seen this story unfold before. Despite taking a military-first approach to Yemen for the past 20 years, the United States has failed to secure any long-term outcomes or to support the resolution of the underlying issues at play in Yemen.
A different strategy is needed – one that resumes diplomatic efforts, leverages American influence to end the fighting, and capitalizes on changes in regional dynamics to push for a ceasefire. A shift in strategy should lay the foundations for a regional peace plan that includes affected groups and citizens. While the United States cannot solve Yemen’s problems, it can play an important role in supporting Yemeni-led peace efforts.
Two Decades of Military-First Solutions
For over three decades – across both Republican and Democratic administrations – it has been U.S. government policy and the stated American national interest to see Yemen stable and free from armed groups that use terror tactics against the United States and its allies. While the United States has pledged to provide “dedicated effort and resources into helping Yemenis achieve a more peaceful, prosperous and democratic Yemen,” it has largely pursued a military-first strategy.
From 2000 to 2011, the United States provided then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government with more than $430 million in security sector assistance to take the lead on counter-terror activities. Under President Obama, the U.S. government leaned into Yemeni-led counter-terror operations. However, the United States failed to appreciate how counter-terror approaches exacerbated Yemen’s key conflict drivers. Among those drivers were extractive governance and corruption, factors that helped lead to Saleh’s downfall and opened a path for the Houthis to sweep south out of Sa’ada and take the capital of Sana’a in 2015.
This led Saudi Arabia to bring together a coalition of 10 countries in March 2015 to oust the Houthis. From 2015-2022, the Saudi-led coalition conducted over 25,000 air raids, directly killing or injuring almost 20,000 Yemeni civilians. At the same time, the United Nations (UN) undertook intensive diplomacy between Yemen’s warring parties, leading to the signing of the Stockholm Agreement in December 2018. This was followed by a major UN-brokered prisoner exchange in 2020 that sought to revive talks about a broader peace process. Then, in April 2022, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen brokered a nationwide truce that has since largely held, reducing violent conflict between the Houthis and their southern opponents.
Despite these efforts, the United States continued to rely on a militarized approach. By the end of 2021, the UN estimated the war had killed 377,000 Yemenis through direct and indirect causes. American support for the Saudi effort was so critical that human rights groups accused the U.S. government of being complicit in war crimes. In January 2024, the Biden Administration ordered airstrikes against the Houthis in retaliation for their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and to “degrade” the group’s capabilities.
The Trump administration doubled down on President Biden’s campaign, expanding and increasing the strikes with a new campaign that began in mid-March. Under the code name, Operation Rough Rider, Trump administration airstrikes have hit over 1,000 targets, including critical civilian infrastructure like oil facilities in the Ras Isa port.
Resolving Insecurity in the Red Sea Requires a Non-Militarized Approach
Despite the billions of dollars spent and repeated rounds of airstrikes, 20 years of U.S. military-first policy in Yemen has failed to produce long-term outcomes that promote stability, reduce insecurity, support Yemeni civil society organizations, or bring peace to the country. At the time of this writing, the Houthis are no longer attacking U.S. ships, but they continue to pose a threat to the broader Red Sea region and to American allies in the Middle East, including by firing ballistic missiles at Israel. Meanwhile, the situation inside Yemen remains very tense.
Instead of using force to address this ongoing crisis, the Trump administration should support Yemeni efforts to bring peace to their country and transform the root causes of insecurity and violent conflict. A new approach would entail pursuing a peaceful response to insecurity and fragility through diplomatic means, leveraging U.S. influence to secure a ceasefire, capitalizing on changes in regional dynamics to make progress, supporting Yemenis in moving from a ceasefire to an inclusive peace agreement, investing in Yemeni civil society, and promoting accountable, transparent, responsive, and inclusive governance.
Far from being a weak move, this shift would acknowledge that repeating the mistakes of the past 20 years will not yield different results today. Despite the U.S. government’s technological superiority and allocation of substantial resources, the Houthis continued to attack U.S. ships. The U.S. Navy described Houthi fire as “the most sustained combat its sailors have faced since World War II.” Rather than cowing the Houthis, the group appeared to “relish” the strikes, which they used as propaganda to reportedly recruit and train more than 200,000 new fighters. The Houthis’ willingness to continue to fight through serious bombardment suggests that if the United States wanted to inflict enough damage to seriously weaken the group, the resulting collateral damage would be tremendously high, and it would likely be morally if not legally unacceptable.
A pivot would avoid this problem. It would also not be entirely foreign to U.S. officials and analysts. For years, strategic documents have highlighted the need to address the underlying conditions of fragility and insecurity and to establish the building blocks for resilient governance through promoting accountability and supporting democratic practices. The current U.S. government needs to put this into practice, along with providing more support to Yemeni-led peace efforts.
Priorities for a Strategic Pivot
Since a military-first approach is not working, what might an alternative strategy look like?
1.Resume diplomatic efforts to end the war in Yemen. The foreign policy of President Trump – exemplified by the outcome-driven negotiating posture of his envoy, Steve Witkoff – will be undermined if the United States does not draw upon the lessons of previous engagements in Yemen. Under United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, Yemen’s conflict parties agreed to a truce in 2022, followed by two major exchanges of conflict-related detainees. The parties also agreed to follow a UN-led roadmap to peace. This truce has largely held and violent conflict has generally decreased within Yemen. These diplomatic steps are not perfect, but they have provided a measure of success. Similar additional steps are needed to build confidence for further negotiations and to lay the foundation for sustainable peace. It is necessary to ensure that what comes next is genuinely inclusive of women, young people and civil society. It is critical that – even though the Trump administration has expressed disdain for the UN – the U.S. government supports the areas of the UN’s work that are effective.
2.Create the terms for a ceasefire for all parties. Since October 2023, the regional balance of politics has undergone significant upheaval. Israeli airstrikes and other direct military action have weakened Hezbollah and Hamas, and by extension weakened Iran, which has supported the Houthis. Trump should use and capitalize on this moment to call for a ceasefire between Yemen’s political and armed parties and work with the UN Special Envoy and Gulf allies to bring armed groups, members of civil society, as well as tribal and community leaders to the negotiating table. The president has unique relations with the Gulf states’ leaders and he should use them to bring the parties to the table. At the same time, it is critical that the United States does not sacrifice peace and security in Yemen during its dealings with Gulf states.
3. Implement a regional peace plan and invest in the full spectrum of civilian, diplomatic and stabilization approaches. To ensure a ceasefire can transition into fully fledged peace negotiations, it is critical that civilians – civil society organizations, women, young people, tribal and community leaders – outside of elite circles in Aden and Sana’a are involved from the beginning. It is also important that whatever political system comes into place following talks is inclusive and responsive to Yemenis’ needs rather than being extractive and corrupt. Ultimately, the political structures that come next are up to Yemenis.
The United States should support inclusivity and civil society engagement by insisting on civilian engagement from the very start. It should pressure the Presidential Leadership Council, which governs southern Yemen, and its regional backers to be inclusive of and responsive to the needs of Yemenis. By doing this, the U.S. government can help set peace talks in the right direction from the outset. Support should entail targeted financial, technical, and political assistance to elements of the Republic of Yemen Government that believe in and will act to establish an inclusive government. On the other hand, the Trump administration should apply pressure on officials and factions that resist this change.
Airstrikes Won’t Lead to Peace
The Trump administration’s 52 days of airstrikes on the Houthis is the latest episode in a long history of military escalation in Yemen. If the administration is serious about realizing its desired outcome of a peaceful Red Sea region, it needs to shift its strategy to one that takes a nuanced approach to the situation, prioritizes inclusive peace and security, invests in Yemeni groups that want a representative and democratic Yemen, and moves away from airstrikes and military force.
The lesson of the past 20 years is clear: Military-first approaches to insecurity and fragility in Yemen will not bring the long-term outcomes the United States may seek. It is time to envision a new future for the country and take a new path toward peace.
