As the war in Yemen has been largely eclipsed in world attention by other wars in the region, the Yemeni power constellations on the ground and regionally have dramatically changed. Officially proclaiming to aim at restoring Yemeni unity, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners have committed war efforts not only to liberate the central and southern part of Yemen from Huthi-Salih advance, but also to build a “national” army to the southerners. Popular Committees, local militias joined together to form the Southern Resistance have been equipped and trained by Emirati forces. Meanwhile in other parts of wartime Yemen, old foes have returned to fight for power, namely Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, the former right hand of erstwhile president Ali Abdullah Salih who during the course of the 2011 uprising turned against him and whom the Huthis sent to exile after capturing Sana’a. In the current war situation, Ali Muhsin fights alongside the Saudi coalition against Huthi-Salih forces. Still, he can hardly be counted as an ally of president AbdRabbuh Mansur Hadi, whose power base inside the country anyhow remains disputed. While the fighting goes to its second year, it is time to focus on the new power constellations that the war has proliferated. Among these, the Southern question is the most progressed one with a seemingly clear plan to establish a new state with the provisional name “Republic of South Arabia.” In the South, where the war has been experienced as the “second North-South war,” there hardly is a way back to Sana’a rule. Still, some of the regions in the South, namely Hadhramaut and al-Mahra, have also negotiated with neighbouring countries in seeking solutions to the state crisis in Yemen. In my paper, I explore the various conceptions of the state in Yemen, divided by generation, region and approaches to modernity. My paper is based on long-time ethnographic fieldwork first in the PDRY, and following Yemeni unity, in the current Republic of Yemen, and on archival and online sources.