For years, the war in Yemen was seen essentially as a regional conflict, where the Houthis were fighting Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, with Iran and Saudi Arabia supporting opposite sides. But the picture has dramatically changed in the last few days. The Houthis have made a rapid advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and have captured important territory, including the port of Mocha and strategic islands around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. At the same time, they have stepped u

The USA-Israel war against Iran has never been confined to the skies alone; it has spread to the waters and straits, eventually blockading the key lifelines of the global economy. While there are no signs of truce on the horizon, the war seems on the verge of escalation, and the intertwining of more factions and partners appears inevitable. The recent Saudi-Houthi escalation is spiralling as another arm of the wider regional conflict, and another 12% of global trade, along wi

In September 2015, Saudi and Emirati forces were coordinating airstrikes together over Yemen. In December 2025, Saudi Arabia was bombing ships sent by the UAE. That reversal, one of the most dramatic shifts in Gulf politics in a generation, did not happen because of a single dispute or a single miscalculation. It happened because two countries that once needed each other have spent years building incompatible visions of what the region should look like, and those visions have