Passengers board a Yemenia airplane preparing to depart on September 8, 2018, from Sayoun International Airport in the Hadramawt governorate, about 600 kilometers east of Sana'a, Yemen // Photo Credit: Sala al-Sakkaf. Sitting in departures at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, a backlog of WhatsApp messages ping in upon connecting to the airport Wi-Fi – friends warning me that…

The United States does not have a Yemen policy. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: the United States has never had a Yemen policy. What it has – what it has always had – is a Saudi policy that dictates and determines its actions in Yemen. For the US, Yemen is an add-on country, small enough and unimportant enough to be out-sourced. Periodically, of course, there are moments of crisis that demand more focused attention from US policymakers.

Russia, unlike many Western countries, is in direct contact with all parties to the Yemen war. It accepts the internationally recognized Yemeni government, yet does not condemn the armed Houthi movement. Russian diplomats affirm support for a unified Yemen but are willing to meet with southern separatists. Moscow rejects Saudi accusations that Iran is arming Houthi forces. At the same time, it is increasingly courting Gulf Arab monarchies, deepening its economic and defense partnerships with the Saudis and their key…

A mountain towers over hilly farmland, where the cash crop is Yemen’s finest qat and rugged dirt roads are precarious not just because of the steep cliffs they skirt. Along the side roads between mountain villages, armed militants often with their faces covered man separate al-Qaeda and Islamic State checkpoints, keeping watch for Houthi rebels, government soldiers or any outsiders.…

After three days of United Nations-mediated meetings in Amman with representatives from Yemen’s divided central bank, the delegations from Sana’a and Aden arrived at no agreement aside from a commitment to meet again. Both before and during the talks, which began on May 14, the Sana’a Center met regularly with both delegations, as well as other Yemeni and international stakeholders.…

The conflict in Yemen is now in its fifth year with no end in sight. Like most of the world’s seemingly unsolvable conflicts Yemen has ended up at the United Nations Security Council, the international community’s forum of last resort. The UN, which has limited tools at its disposal, has responded to Yemen the same way it responds to most…