Hard Power: Civil War in Yemen

Since 2015, Yemen has been embroiled in a vicious military conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition. The conflict started when the interim president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, was forced out by the Houthi insurgency. The Saudis, friendly with Hadi, lost Yemen as a crucial ally in the region. Seeking to reinstate the favorable Hadi regime, Saudi Arabia, in coalition with the United States, began to drop bombs on Yemen. In addition to the aerial campaign, Saudi Arabia has blockaded Yemen by land, air, and sea, rendering the people of Yemen utterly isolated. This has proved absolutely devastating, given Yemen's desert climate (Yemen in the past has imported roughly 80 percent of their food supply). Finally, Saudi-backed forces have established a military presence on the ground. These three factors result in a disaster that the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis continuing today, one that many have labeled genocidal. UNICEF has reported that over two thirds of the population are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, noting that the people of Yemen are being deprived of medical imports in addition to food.

Unsurprisingly, the United States has received considerable internal and external criticism for their complicity and indeed direct culpability in this mass human tragedy. While the United States military no longer provides direct logistical support to the Saudi campaign, the U.S. State Department, who have since signed a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, maintains their faith in the intervention. This reality received worldwide media attention in 2018, when a Saudi bomber killed 40 innocent Yemeni children using a bomb manufactured by American defense contractor Lockheed Martin. In 2019, a War Powers resolution to end American support for the intervention, led by Senator Bernard Sanders, was passed through the House and Senate but was vetoed by President Donald Trump. To this day, the Saudi-American campaign in Yemen continues. While the exact death toll remains unclear, the UN estimates that upwards of 200,000 will have perished by the end of 2019 if the crisis continues.

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