Old Wine in New Skins: The Yemen Presidential Council
Yemen’s new presidential council was made in Saudi Arabia and backed by the UAE, which means it may struggle to find legitimacy on the ground.
Gregory D. Johnsen
Former Member, U.N. Panel of Experts on Yemen
Gregory D. Johnsen has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Jordan, a Fulbright Fellow in Yemen, and a Fulbright-Hays Fellow in Egypt. In 2013-14 he was selected as BuzzFeed’s inaugural Michael Hastings National Security Reporting Fellow where he won a Dirksen Award from the National Press Foundation and, in collaboration with Radiolab, a Peabody Award. He has a PhD from Princeton University and master’s degrees from Princeton and the University of Arizona. Johnsen is the author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia (W.W. Norton), which has been translated into multiple languages. From 2016-18 he served on the Yemen Panel of Experts for the United Nations Security Council. In 2019, he served as the lead writer for the United States Institute of Peace’s Syria Study Group. His writing on Yemen and terrorism has appeared in, among others, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. Currently, he is a nonresident fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is also the editor of the Yemen Review and a non-resident fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.
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Blog Post content-type in which the post is published
The Ramadan Cease-Fire in Yemen
An agreement is likely still a long way off in Yemen, but at least some of the parties are starting to talk, listen, and, ever so slowly, compromise.
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Seven years since their intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE remain mired in a disaster, and they’ll need U.S. assistance to end the war.
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The UAE’s Three Strategic Interests in Yemen
The length of the war and the associated costs have led the UAE to recalibrate its position in Yemen, but influence in southern Yemen remains a key part of its regional strategy.
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Under Pressure, the Houthis May Once Again Turn to Iran
If the Houthis believe their military offensive in Marib is in danger, they will likely look to the only real ally they have, Iran.
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The Beginning of the End for the Saudi-Led Coalition in Yemen
UAE, Saudi, and affiliated local forces have begun withdrawing from locations across southern and western Yemen; while couched as “redeployments,” together the moves suggest the Saudi-led coalition is actively looking for an exit strategy.
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The United States’ Empty Toolbox in Yemen
With the Houthis making gains in their offensive on Marib, and anti-Houthi alliance fragmenting, the United States is out of options on Yemen.
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Seven Yemens: How Yemen Fractured and Collapsed, and What Comes Next
Yemen’s fragmentation will have severe repercussions for U.S. foreign policy, regional stability, and, ultimately, international security.
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A Grand Bargain for Yemen
The next U.N. special envoy for Yemen will be uniquely positioned to spearhead a grand bargain that might be the international community’s last chance to reconstitute Yemen as a single state.
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The Great Fall: Putting Together Peace Talks for a Broken Yemen
With Yemen’s increasingly fractured political landscape, the longer the war continues, the harder it will be to resolve.