Despite intermittent talk of peace negotiations, the conflict consuming the Middle East shows no credible signs of resolution. Rockets and drones continue to streak across the region with grim regularity, and the entry of Yemen into the war has only widened the theatre of violence, adding yet another layer of complexity to an already intractable crisis.
The moment Yemen’s missiles were fired at Israel, the conflict entered a new phase altogether, one with serious implications not just for regional security, but for the global economy and the civilians caught in the middle.
Yemen have long threatened to blockade the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Billions of tonnes of cargo pass through it every year, crude oil, manufactured goods, and much else besides. Whether that threat will materialise remains to be seen, but the warning alone has been enough to rattle markets.
The Strait of Hormuz is already closed to navigation, and the consequences have been immediate. Oil and gas production across the Gulf has plummeted, infrastructure has taken significant hits, and a growing number of companies have declared force majeure. Should Yemen follow through on their threat to blockade the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the primary conduit for energy shipments reaching much of the Western world, an already dire situation would deteriorate further still. According to Goldman Sachs economist Farouk Soussa, because of the current economic instability, Gulf economies could see GDP contract by between 3 and 5 percent. Keeping those economies functioning under such pressure will demand more, not less, and it is migrant workers who will feel that weight most acutely. Bound to their employers under the kafala system, underpaid and with little legal recourse at the best of times, they are now expected to keep the lights on while much of the region’s population shelters from missile strikes. No hazard pay, no security, no way out.
The Middle East has weathered wars before, but rarely has a single conflict threatened to unravel so many threads at once, regional security, global energy supply, and the lives of millions of invisible workers propping up economies that were never designed to protect them. Yemen now hold a hand on the throat of global trade, and they know it. Peace talks may continue, and diplomats will keep meeting in air-conditioned rooms, but on the ground, in the shipping lanes, and in the labour camps of the Gulf, the cost of this war is already being counted.
