Annual Strategic Assessment of Abaad Studies 2025: Yemen between Pressure on the Houthis, State Fragmentation, and Regional Shifts

Executive Summary

The report provides a strategic reading of Abaad Studies’ 2025 research output, treating the year as a turning point in which the Yemeni crisis moved from an internal conflict file into a regional and.           international strategic node. Five major tracks shaped this transformation: the Houthis and the U.S. approach, Iran and the Axis of Resistance, the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, the crisis of the state and war economy, and the evolving dynamics of southern and eastern Yemen.

The assessment shows that U.S. pressure on the Houthis, including designation, sanctions, and military strikes, did not produce a decisive shift. This was largely due to the fragmentation of the anti-Houthi camp and the absence of a unified Yemeni decision-making center. At the same time, Iran did not abandon the Houthi card; rather, it adapted its tools and increased reliance on the Houthis as a low-cost, high-impact instrument in Yemen and the Red Sea.

The report also emphasizes that Yemen’s crisis is no longer limited to the Houthis. It has become a crisis of statehood, legitimacy, institutions, and economy. The internationally recognized government has struggled with multiple centers of power, weak institutions, failed force integration, disrupted oil and gas exports, and the erosion of fiscal sovereignty.

The Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab have transformed Yemen into a central file in international maritime security. The Yemen crisis now intersects with global trade, energy flows, maritime insurance, supply chains, and subsea digital infrastructure. Meanwhile, Hadramawt, Al-Mahra, and eastern and southern Yemen have become a direct test of Yemeni state unity, regional influence, and Gulf security.

The central conclusion is that the greatest danger in 2025 was not only Houthi endurance, but the convergence of three risks: an armed and regionally backed Houthi movement, a divided and economically weakened internationally recognized authority, and local and regional projects that threaten the unity of state decision-making.

 Methodology

The report is based on a strategic reading of Abaad Studies’ research papers published throughout 2025. Rather than treating these studies as separate documents, the assessment reads them as a connected analytical sequence that reveals the broader trajectory of Yemen’s crisis.

The studies were organized into five analytical tracks:

1. The United States and the Houthis: designation, sanctions, military pressure, and limits of impact.

2. Iran and the Axis of Resistance: repositioning, smuggling, financing, and indirect support.

3. The Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab: maritime security, global trade, deterrence, and subsea cables.

4. The State, Legitimacy, and War Economy: multiple decision-making centers, fiscal erosion, and institutional weakness.

5. Southern and Eastern Yemen: Hadramawt, Al-Mahra, the Southern Transitional Council, and regional competition.

The report also uses selected numerical indicators cited in the studies, including data on intercepted shipments, the share of global trade through Bab al-Mandab, humanitarian needs, and risk levels. These indicators support the visual infographics and help connect individual events to broader strategic trends.

The methodology links events to structural trends and extracts political, security, economic, and humanitarian implications for decision-makers and research institutions.

Key Findings

First, pressure on the Houthis did not lead to a decisive outcome. U.S. designation and military action narrowed the Houthis’ room for maneuver but did not dismantle their military capabilities or smuggling networks.

Second, Iran adapted its tools in Yemen. As some of its regional arms weakened, the Houthis gained greater strategic value as a pressure tool in the Red Sea and against Iran’s adversaries.

Third, the Red Sea internationalized the Yemen crisis. Houthi attacks became linked not only to Yemen’s internal war, but also to global trade, energy security, insurance, supply chains, and digital infrastructure.

Fourth, the crisis of the state is at the heart of Yemen’s crisis. Multiple centers of decision-making, failed force integration, halted oil and gas exports, and eroding fiscal sovereignty have weakened the internationally recognized government.

Fifth, Hadramawt and Al-Mahra have become a test of Yemeni unity and Gulf security. Competition in the south and east is no longer a local issue; it has become a sovereign file affecting Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, and the future of the Yemeni state.

 Recommendations

1. Redefine the national priority
   The priority should not be limited to confronting the Houthis. It should focus on restoring the state as the overarching framework for confronting armed actors, regulating weapons, and rebuilding institutions.

2. Unify the Presidential Leadership Council’s decision-making
   No political, military, or economic track can succeed without a unified mechanism for sovereign decision-making in war, peace, and economic policy.

3. Build a unified Yemeni front against the Houthis
   International pressure will remain limited unless there is a unified Yemeni partner capable of translating external support into organized political and military leverage.

4. Turn the Red Sea into a Yemeni national security file
   The Yemeni government needs its own national vision for Bab al-Mandab and Red Sea security, rather than leaving the file to be managed mainly by international actors.

5. Disrupt Houthi smuggling and support networks
   This requires coordinated maritime, land, financial, customs, and intelligence efforts at the local, regional, and international levels.

6. Treat the economy as a national security priority
   Salaries, currency, oil, ports, revenues, and electricity are not merely service issues; they are instruments of sovereignty, stability, or collapse.

7. Protect Hadramawt and Al-Mahra as sovereign files
   Unilateral actions should be prevented, resources protected, and regional competition managed within the framework of the Yemeni state.

8. Link any political settlement to weapons and resources
   Any settlement that does not address Houthi weapons and armed formations outside the state will remain fragile and temporary.

9. Transform research output into early-warning tools
   Abaad can develop periodic indicators on the Houthi threat, the Red Sea, the war economy, southern and eastern Yemen, and the positions of international research and policy centers.