Yemen: Another Somalia in the Arabian Peninsula (original) (raw)
Related papers
Yemen: A State Torn, Not Restored
Reports, 2019
A recent escalation of fighting in the south of Yemen has renewed calls and increased demands from secessionist groups for independence. This comes amidst a critical point of the war, during which developing events have indicated a peaceful resolution could be possible in the coming months. These incidents indicate the significant internal weaknesses of President Hadi and his government, and show the coalition's overall failure at achieving its publicly stated objective. The empowerment of separatist groups in the south and the Houthis in the north pose important questions as to Yemen's hypothetical make-up if and when a resolution is reached among the major parties to the conflict. While decisions as to Yemen's final form would ideally be left up to the Yemeni people themselves, regional and international actors will necessarily have a crucial say on this issue due to their influence and interests. Any possible change to the structure of the Yemeni state will have ramifications that reverberate not only through Yemen's local levels, but also in the regional and international realms. However, as the interests of major external actors increasingly diverge, Yemen will continue to be a theater of regional instability.
Competing for Control over the State: The Case of Yemen
Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2018
This article argues that the current conflict in Yemen is better understood as a competition over who controls the state, rather than as a conflict between the state and a non-state actor. It traces the development of the Houthis and shows how the movement managed to seize key government institutions. However, the Houthis lack internal legitimacy and have not been able to position themselves as a nationally relevant political elite. The fragmentation of the Yemeni state has resulted in a shift to more localized struggles over access to resources and power that involve both internal and external actors.
The Present and Future of Yemen's Geopolitics amid Local and Regional Conflict
Alsharq Strategic Research, 2022
Yemen has been lead to the dire situation it faces today due to the conflict of local and regional powers which have sought to control strategic areas in Yemen, thereby dismantling the country’s territorial integrity. Yemen’s strategic location holds high geopolitical value for regional and global powers. This has led to attempts toexploit its geopolitical value by dismantling its unity and subjugating parts of the territory to hegemonic projects. Yemen’s primary challenges are territorial division, societal fragmentation, economic structural destruction, and a governance vacuum, the combined effect of which has been state failure. Yemen is also passing through a dangerous phase that threatens the country’s territorial integrity. Locally, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) seeks to establish an independent state in Southern Yemen, while the Shiite Houthi group in the North seeks to reshape Yemen’s map on sectarian grounds. Moreover, regional actors, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)actively support local proxies in the conflict to pursue their own objectives. Consequently, local actors are engaged in hybrid warfare and are consumed in multiple conflicts in desperate attempts to redraw Yemen’s geopolitics. This study demonstrates the complexity of the ongoing conflict in Yemen and examines how local and foreign rivals seek to dominate strategic areas of the country in their quest for influence and control. Such a conflict can affect the geopolitical significance of post-war Yemen. The study uses the descriptive-analytical method, as well as visual aids and maps to demonstrate the geography of the conflict.
This study guide aims to embrace the most important issues regarding the present situation in Yemen, in order to provide a basis for understanding and debate over the topic. To do so, this paper is divided into five sections. The Historical Background will explain Yemen's historical formation, the roots of the North-South divide, its colonial past, as well as the trajectory of both states during the second half of 20th century. This session ends with an overview of the major problems in recently-unified Yemen as well as a description of Arab-Spring-related events in 2011. The Statement of the Issue will concentrate in describing the country's most influential political factions which are parties of the current conflict. Later, it will provide a description of the events from the fall of Hadi's government onwards, including the highlights of the civil war and the subsequent intervention led by Saudi Arabia. The Previous International Action session shall list the actions taken and the International and Regional sphere to deal with the situation in Yemen, as well as analyzing UNSC approved resolutions and related documents. The Bloc Positions will concentrate on the UNSC members' interests and arguments used in debates regarding the situation in Yemen. At the end, the Question to Ponder shall provide five main questions that may guide the debate.
Yemen Civil War: A Conflict That Has Never Ended
Political Reflection, 2019
Yemen, a country of the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula in western Asia, has suffered by years of violence. However, the civil war which began in 2015 has been one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The war caused twenty two millions of people who need urgent help to survive and to trap civilians in a life of starvation, violence and disease. This paper assesses the conflict from the beginning of the protests of the Arab uprising to civil war and peace negotiations. It aims to illustrate the underlying reasons for the country to be a total war-zone.
The War in Yemen Fragmentation and Consolidation of Local Power Structures
RLS West Asia Dossier
The Western media often discusses the war in Yemen in an overly-simplified manner without shedding light on its complex history. The conflict is mostly depicted as a war between Sunnites and Shiites, with the Saudi and UAE-led military coalition on one side and Iran on the other. In this account, Yemeni actors are often described as mere puppets of their foreign protective powers. Another common and very simplistic perspective describes the war as a conflict between Houthi rebels and the internationally-recognized Hadi government ousted from Sanaʽa by a coup. The recent UN-mediated peace negotiations held in Stockholm in December 2018 seemed to confirm this picture of the war, as these two parties were the only ones to participate. The actual situation in Yemen, however, is significantly more complex, and involves many other actors who have had an important influence on the war and its continuation or could work towards its end. The following article by Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, advisor at the Foreign Representation of the Southern Transitional Council in Europe, focuses on the different political and military actors involved in the Yemeni crisis while also offering an overview of the key issues that led to the war and showing the country’s ongoing fragmentation since 2015.
Yemen’s Question: From the Struggle for Freedom to the Struggle for Survival
DergiPark (Istanbul University), 2016
When Yemenis demonstrated almost 5 years ago, shouting "The People Want the Fall of the Regime," they did not know how complex the situation is, and how regional and international powers will determine their future. As one of the objectives of the revolution, Yemenis deemed that by removing President Salih from power, the revolution would guarantee their freedom. But the politics of the Arab World and the Middle East proved otherwise. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago, the Arab World has been subjected to the hegemony of the great powers. Thus, the real obstacle for democratic transition within the Middle Eastern countries comes from outside rather than domestic threats. The objective of this study is to demonstrate that revolutionary leader's reliance on foreign powers to change the political system and to achieve the revolutionary objectives was counterproductive in which constituted a huge obstacle in achieving those objectives, paving the way to civil war in Yemen, turning the struggle for freedom to struggle for survival.