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Regional Stability

The Yemen War: A Proxy Sectarian War?

Image courtesy of Ibrahem Qasim/wikimedia. (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

This article was originally published by The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) on November 14 2018.

The diffusion of protests against authoritarian regimes across the Arab world in 2011 reinvigorated Yemen’s marginalized social movements and united different geographical and political factions in Yemen, such as the northern Houthi movement and the southern secessionist movement Hiraak.1 The Saudi Kingdom, along with other Gulf monarchies, swiftly designed a transitional plan for the country to ensure that President Ali Abdullah Saleh wass replaced with a friendly government led by President Abd Rabo Hadi. Disillusioned by the transition, the Houthis took military control of the capital Sana’a in September 2014, and Yemen descended into a civil war. On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes on Yemen with the aim to restore the Saudi-backed Hadi government and destroy the Houthi movement. What was initially planned as a limited operation degenerated into a war of attrition without a conclusion insight. Scholars and policy analysts moved quickly to examine the Yemen war as a by-product of Saudi-Iranian rivalry and another manifestation of a region-wide war between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. Yet, the crisis in Yemen is more complex; it is neither an international proxy war nor a sectarian confrontation.

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Regional Stability CSS Blog

Middle East

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This map shows the key players in the Middle East. For more on how Trump’s Middle East policy differs from that of Barack Obama, see Jack Thompson’s recent addition to the CSS Analyses in Security Policy series here. For more CSS charts, maps and graphics on proliferation, click here.

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Regional Stability

When Will the Next War Erupt in the Middle East?

Image courtesy of dozemode/pixabay

The article was originally published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on 4 October 2018.

The signs are ominous—especially in Israel and its neighbours, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Violence, both actual and rhetorical, has been escalating on all three fronts. Gaza could become the immediate flash point as the Palestinians’ ‘March of Return’, which began on 30 March, intensifies and Israeli retaliation becomes increasingly lethal.

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Regional Stability

A Europeanized NATO? The Alliance Contemplates the Turmp Era and Beyond

Image courtesy of The White House/Flickr

This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 25 September 2018.

When asked about President Donald Trump’s July 2018 visit to Europe, Henry Kissinger presciently noted, “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.” In other words, for all the uproar surrounding the president’s personality, something bigger is going on, and Trump has come to personify it. Perhaps the biggest challenge is, therefore, to put words to this shifting ground and imagine its potential consequences.

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CSS Blog Regional Stability

The EU Global Strategy Resilience Index

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This graphic charts changes in resilience (using the EU’s definition of resilience) of select EU member states from 2015 to 2017. For more on the role of resilience in contemporary deterrence efforts, see Tim Prior’s chapter for Strategic Trends 2018 here. For more CSS charts, maps and graphics on defense policy, click here.