The solution is to weaken militias, not the other way round

Today, Saudi Arabia has become the target of terrorist attacks as Yemeni rebels threaten it with missiles and drones. The Houthi expansion along Yemen's Red Sea coast towards the crucial Bab al-Mandab Strait also poses an additional risk to one of the world's most important arteries of trade and energy. Elsewhere, energy security is under pressure from tensions around the Strait of Hormuz and confrontation with Iran.

Feeling the impact

Though not immediately in the regional vicinity of these latest developments in the Gulf, Syria still feels the effects. Every attempted Houthi attack, and every Iranian threat, channelled through its proxies, to Bab al-Mandab or energy routes, raises costs across the regional economy and reshuffles priorities. Higher energy prices put pressure on the economy and raise the cost of living. A missile attack thousands of kilometres from Damascus can still send economic shrapnel into Syrians' pockets.

But another aspect of the Syrian experience deserves attention. One of the most important tests the 'new Syria' has faced since the end of 2024 has been the attempt to end factionalism and return weapons to state control. The army was restructured, factions were integrated into its institutions, and Damascus continued integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces, aiming to create one army and a single authority over military decisions, rather than armies and militias dividing territory, weapons, and loyalties among themselves.

Not every problem has been resolved, and not every stage of integration is complete, but the direction is clear. No state can be stable with multiple guns and multiple centres of decision-making over war and peace. Here, too, the distance between Syria and Yemen shrinks. What is happening in Yemen presents the opposite picture. Instead of the state maintaining a monopoly over weapons, the Houthi militia managed to build a military force parallel to the state and then use it to seize territory and impose facts on the ground, before its threat spread beyond Yemen's borders to neighbouring countries, on land and at sea.

When an armed militia can threaten a neighbouring state and holy sites, target energy facilities and routes, and affect one of the world's most important maritime passages, building the Yemeni state and restoring its decision-making authority become concerns for regional security and the global economy. Supporting the Yemeni state and its legitimate authorities is therefore no longer solely a Yemeni matter.

Important lesson

The Syrian experience offers an important lesson here. It is not enough to contain militias or coexist with them indefinitely. What is needed is support for building state institutions, strengthening the army and unifying armed authority, so that decisions on war and peace rest with the state. This is what Syria needs to complete its transition, and what Yemen needs to emerge from its war. Just as Washington withdrew its political cover from the Syrian Democratic Forces, it should withdraw it from the Houthis.

A year ago, al-Sharaa went to New York carrying one question: political recognition. This time, he carries a harder one. How can recognition become investment, investment become jobs, and openness become tangible improvements in Syrians' lives?

The answer does not lie in Damascus alone. Syria is counting on the wider Arab region to help it recover and rebuild. But that region must also safeguard its states, energy resources and maritime routes against the threat posed by militias.

Syria, then, is not alone in needing stability. The region also needs to return to the formula for stability: a stronger state, one army and one gun. From Syria to Yemen, it is not enough for the state simply to become stronger. The solution begins by weakening the militias, not the other way round.