The Conflict in Yemen and Its Shadow on the Horn of Africa

Retrospectives • Changes • Comparative Outlook • Future Trajectory

The crises unfolding across Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and the wider Red Sea region are no longer isolated conflicts - they form a single, deeply interconnected security landscape. What has changed since 2022 is not the presence of fragility, but the scale of its internationalisation. 

After nine years of diplomatic service in Yemen, Desta Kahsay Negussie offers rare firsthand insight into the region’s political turbulence and humanitarian realities. Retrospectives, Changes, Comparative Outlook, and Future Trajectory shape his reflective analysis. He authored the 2022 book The Conflict in Yemen and its Shadow on the Horn of Africa, which explores how civil war, insurgency, state fragmentation, and regional rivalries have long destabilised both sides of the Red Sea corridor. Building on this foundation, he now provides a comparative analysis of how the conflict has evolved and what today’s shifting regional dynamics mean for the future security of Horn of Africa and the broader Red Sea basin.

A key argument of the work is that treating Yemen and the Horn of Africa as separate security arenas is analytically misleading. Instead, the Red Sea basin has evolved into a unified geopolitical theatre where local conflicts are increasingly shaped by global power competition.

✨ A strategic perspective from an experienced diplomat on one of the world’s most consequential geopolitical theatres: 

• The full article is available to our Alumni & Security Policy Community in our exclusive library
• Purchase his book “The Conflict in Yemen and its Shadow on the Horn of Africa”