US President Donald Trump says his administration will ensure that Yemen’s Houthi rebels are “completely annihilated”—and he is ramping up Washington’s military might to prove it.
Trump has spent the early months of his second term in office escalating US military strikes against the rebel force over their attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea.
The renewed US military campaign has so far inflicted significant damage, targeted weapons stockpiles, drones, and missile storage facilities in an attempt to degrade the Houthis’ ability to strike Red Sea trade routes.
Paired with recent successive losses of other Iran proxies’ leadership, it may seem that the Houthis’ demise is a foregone conclusion.
However, such an assumption underestimates the Houthis’ resilience, strategic adaptability, and deep-rooted influence within Yemen.
The challenges of targeting the rebels require recognition from the Trump administration that a purely military approach will not achieve Washington’s goal of “complete annihilation.”
Washington last week took a rather significant step to expand its anti-Houthi crackdowns beyond military force, announcing sanctions targeting two Russia-based Afghan brothers who assisted in orchestrating shipments of stolen Ukrainian grain from Crimea to Yemen.
However, the Trump administration’s Houthi strategy will require a more nuanced approach that deepens these non-military components.
The Trump administration should employ a multi-pronged strategy, combining increased intelligence operations on the ground, intensified naval interdictions, and robust regional diplomacy to pressure external actors, particularly Russia and China, from bolstering the group’s capabilities through economic incentives like sanctions relief or threats of increased tariffs.
One of the greatest challenges in eliminating the Houthis lies in neutralizing their leadership, particularly their leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi. Unlike other Iran-backed organizations, the Houthis have a dynastic structure and are highly centralized around al-Houthi and his family. The loss of al-Houthi would be a major blow to the organization, especially given that the lack of a clear successor would likely mean the group would need to focus on quelling internal rivalries instead of operations. But taking al-Houthi out will be a tall order.
The United States’ ability to track al-Houthi is likely hindered by limited intelligence on the ground in Yemen. This reality was echoed early last year when the US had difficulty assessing the success of its operations and the group’s full arsenal due to a lack of intelligence.
Without a reliable presence or informant network, targeting such a well-hidden leader will prove challenging.
Combatting Houthi messaging around the military campaign requires a nuanced approach, too: the rebels have leveraged the damage to vital infrastructure and civilian casualties from the airstrikes for their own propaganda.
Finally, to keep the Houthis from popping up again, the United States would have to sever the group’s means of resupplying, especially from its international partners.
Efforts to cut off weapons deliveries from the Houthis’ primary backers, Tehran, have been inconsistent. Due to factors like shifting regional priorities and a desire to avoid escalation with Iran, US naval efforts to seize Iranian weapons shipments to the group have ebbed and flowed in recent years.
By Emily Milliken: Associate director of media and communications for the N7 Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.