Yemen has been at the top of Washington’s foreign policy agenda over the last month. Most Americans find this surprising. Our trade with Yemen is minimal, there isn’t a large Yemeni American community, and few of us have Yemen on the top of our vacation list. Yet, while Yemen is far from the hearts and minds of most Americans, the reverse is not true. And we need to try to understand why.

Yemen is larger than California and has roughly the same population as Texas: almost 30 million people. Like California, it is immensely fertile when irrigated. It was in this region that coffee was first cultivated, and it’s where myrrh and frankincense came from. It also happens to be the epicenter of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The United Nations reports that this year, 54% of the population, 16.2 million people, will experience acute food insecurity. To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased the misery and put additional pressure on a system that was already strained. How can a fertile region be plunged into a famine of biblical proportions? And why should it matter to Americans?