The paradox of intervention: How US strikes in Yemen empowered the Houthis

Following the end of the US military campaign against the Houthis on May 6th, American president Donald Trump claimed the group had “capitulated”. In reality, however, the US pullback is likely as much a result of the mission’s failure as US reluctance to get drawn into a deeper conflict. America started targeting the armed group in December 2023 to halt Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which the group had begun two months earlier in response to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The attacks reduced commercial maritime traffic through the Suez Canal by 60%-70%.

On the surface, the intensified US strikes appear to have had some success, with Houthi attacks largely ceasing since March. But this tactical win has not delivered broader strategic gains: despite the pounding, the Houthis still managed to attack US targets and Israel. Commercial shipping has not meaningfully resumed. Moreover, the campaign has allowed the Houthis to tighten their grip domestically and they now celebrate the US stand-down as a sign of victory. A senior Houthi official, Mohammed Abdul Salam, said that America “backed down”.

To restore Red Sea shipping routes, European and American partners need to work towards a sustainable solution to this crisis.  They will need to combine pressure on the Houthis with a wider focus on reviving a Yemeni political track and addressing the country’s urgent state-building needs. This is the only way to weaken the Houthis’ domestic hold on power and contain their militant activities.

Internal fissures

The Houthis rose to power through force, taking control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in 2014 and initiating a seven-year war that triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, claiming the lives of over 100,000 Yemenis. The country has since been effectively divided into two main zones of control: the dominant north and west under Houthi control; and the south, east, and parts of central Yemen, controlled by the internationally recognised, but deeply fractured, government based in the port city of Aden.

Despite their military dominance and control over at least 60% of the population, the Houthis have been unable to secure national legitimacy, partly because they have rejected efforts to move towards an inclusive political system and have failed to provide effective governance. The group has imposed heavy taxes on the population, has not paid regular civil service salaries in years, and has failed to provide functioning public services. Today, millions of Yemenis lack access to basic supplies, including food and safe water.

In December 2023, the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended its humanitarian aid for six months, citing the need for a new mechanism to determine who qualifies for assistance. They paused aid because the Houthis were trying to exploit aid distribution to advance their agenda, including by prioritising their fighters’ families on beneficiary lists. Although the WFP eventually resumed operations, the scale of aid was significantly reduced, reaching only 6.5 million people compared to the previous 9 million.

These failures have generated widespread resentment and opposition in Houthi-controlled territories, with increasing calls for salary payments and unrest. A funeral in March 2023 in the city of Ibb for a young man critical of the Houthis, who died under suspicious circumstances in their custody, escalated into angry protests against the group. Six months later, national holiday celebrations turned into spontaneous and widespread protests against the Houthis, who arrested demonstrators en masse. The resentment surfaced more forcefully after the Houthis entered a UN-mediated truce with the internationally recognised government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, in April 2022. It was the first nationwide ceasefire in seven years. But as the guns went quiet, their governance failures got louder.

This strained one of the Houthis’ key advantages compared to the weak and fragmented official government: their internal unity. The group’s centralised leadership had long used war and existential threats to reinforce their cohesion. However, divisions within the group became apparent amid the governance challenge. Tensions between key figures such as Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the nephew of Abulmalik al-Houthi and the head of the revolutionary committee, and Ahmed Hamid, the head of office of the Houthi president, over state resources were one notable example.

How the Houthis exploited the Gaza Conflict and US attacks

The war in Gaza and Western counter-strikes in the Red Sea presented Houthi leaders with an opportunity to re-entrench themselves. Although the group has a clear ideological affinity with the Palestinians and sees the conflict as an opportunity to cement its regional status, it has also used the situation as a means of cementing control. This has involved keeping Yemenis on a war footing, renewing the group’s ideological legitimacy at home, and using the conflict conditions to suppress dissent and divert attention from their governance failings.

The Houthis frame their resilience and successes against more powerful adversaries, such as the Saudi-led coalition, and even the US and Israel, as proof of divine support

For instance, the Houthis were quick to endorse the October 2023 Hamas operation against Israel and launched their own campaign, “Battle of the Promised Conquest”, to support Gaza soon after. The Red Sea attacks were part of this campaign. The movement mobilised domestically with a new push of religious and ideological propaganda, amplified through local radio stations, awareness campaigns promoted by the Ministry of Education in schools, and regular updates on the war by the group’s leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi. Al-Houthi frequently mentions the idea of “divine victory” in his speeches. In their Zaydi doctrine, an imam who triumphs in battle to seize power is seen as having divine support that proves his legitimacy. In addition to domestic victories, such as capturing Sana’a in 2014, the Houthis frame their resilience and successes against more powerful adversaries, such as the Saudi-led coalition, and even the US and Israel, as proof of this belief.

But the Houthis do not rest on ideology alone. The group also used the Gaza conflict as a justification to initiate wider military mobilisation. Shortly after the Gaza crisis started, they launched two-week-long military drills. Promoted at universities, the first batch of these drills saw 16,000 recruits graduate in early December 2023. The wave of recruitment and mobilisation was unprecedented, even compared to the Houthis’ previous confrontations with the Saudi-led coalition, further demonstrating their intent to use the Gaza conflict to reshape and militarise society.

This tightening of control extended to governance structures. In August 2024, the Houthis formed a new government entirely composed of their own members. They also dismantled judicial independence, granting executive authorities absolute power to interfere in legal matters, further centralising their rule. In mid-2024, arrests of UN and NGO staff escalated, with televised confessions staged to shift blame for Yemen’s woes onto external conspiracies.

Rather than challenging this position, US-led military strikes have only fed these same dynamics and helped further strengthen the Houthi posture. While the US strikes have set the group back militarily, it has long experience in withstanding external attacks, developing home-grown and Iranian-backed armed capabilities, and regrouping to launch new military action once the heat has passed. Even as the US relentlessly attacked Houthi positions over recent months, further fuelling the group’s ideological narrative and mobilising power, they still succeeded in launching attacks on US ships, shooting down US drones and even successfully launching military strikes against Israel’s main airport. The US pullback is now being portrayed as another sign of divine victory despite apparently impossible odds.

Beyond military action

Despite years of military intervention, from Saudi Arabia’s invasion in 2015 to the current US-led attacks, the Houthis remain the dominant force in Yemen. Ultimately, the US strikes, while temporarily deterring maritime attacks, did nothing to address the country’s deeper structural issues that enabled their rise to—and continued hold on—power. Instead, they risk prolonging Yemen’s conflict by further entrenching the Houthis and fuelling wider armed mobilisation. This narrows rather than widens the space for a political solution, which is necessary to weaken the group and stabilise the domestic and regional situation.

Pressuring the group through military action and sanctions is one element of a strategy to move them towards negotiations. But that pressure alone will not succeed in compelling the Houthis to engage in meaningful negotiations—and they will need to be part of the eventual solution. Rather than focusing solely on a narrow military strategy, Western states, including the US and European governments, should also do more to support Yemen’s state-building needs and explore pathways to facilitate necessary dialogue, such as through fairer revenue-sharing arrangements. This should involve close collaboration with Arab Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, which holds decisive political and economic regional influence.

International efforts should also aim to strengthen the internationally recognised government, because this would boost its domestic legitimacy and improve its negotiating position vis-à-vis the Houthis. The internationally recognised government needs to undergo urgent reforms to regain legitimacy. This entails establishing constitutional frameworks, reforming security forces, ensuring technocratic appointments are based on qualifications rather than factional loyalty, monitoring and combating corruption, and enacting local governance reforms. Gulf countries could also offer greater economic incentives, such as reconstruction aid and employment opportunities for Yemeni workers, to make negotiations more appealing. 

To sustainably end Red Sea attacks, American and European partners must invest in helping to stabilise Yemen. This requires a wider political strategy that is far more complex than the misleading simplicity of the ultimately flawed military approach, but it is the only way.