Ongoing Conflict in Yemen: A Proxy War?

Abstract

It has been almost three years since the eruption of the civil war in Yemen by March 2015, leading to high political instability and severe humanitarian crisis. This article elaborates on the civil war in Yemen by focusing on the interests of main actors, who are involved in the ongoing conflict. The article also evaluates the nature of civil war in Yemen, mainly questioning the liability of describing the tension as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In recent years, there has been a tendency to explain Yemeni conflict through the lens of a religious struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'a Iran in order to reinforce their control over the region. It is argued in this study that it would be misleading to call Yemen's ongoing crisis as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The tension did not emerge as a result of clash of interests by these two countries. Rather it would be fair to suggest that involvement of Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen's civil war further triggered and complicated the already existing tensions in the country. The outcome is a complex pattern of conflict which the author of this article argues is indeed different from a proxy war. TESAM Yemen'de Devam Etmekte Olan Çatışma: Bir Vekalet Savaşı mı?Öz Mart 2015'de patlak vermesinin üzerinden yaklaşık üç yıl geçen Yemen'deki iç savaş, yoğun siyasi istikrarsızlık ve vahim insani krize neden olmuştur. Bu makale, Yemen'deki iç savaşı, savaşta yer alan aktörler ve çıkarlarına odaklanarak detaylı olarak incelemektedir. Makale ayrıca Yemen'deki iç savaşın doğasını, temel olarak bu gerilimi Suudi Arabistan ve İran arasında bir vekalet savaşı olarak tanımlamanın geçerliliğini sorgulayarak değerlendirmektedir. Son yıllarda, Yemen'deki çatışmayı, bölge üzerinde kontrollerini güçlendirmek amacıyla, Sünni Suudi Arabistan ile Şii İran arasında yaşanmakta olan dini bir mücadele olarak açıklama eğilimi vardır. Çalışma, Yemen'de devam etmekte olan krizi, Suudi Arabistan ile İran arasında bir vekalet savaşı olarak tanımlamanın yanıltıcı olacağını savunmaktadır. Burada; gerilim, söz konusu iki ülkenin çıkarlarının çatışması sonucu ortaya çıkmamıştır. Daha ziyade, Suudi Arabistan ve İran'ın Yemen'in iç savaşında taraf olmaları, ülkede devam etmekte olan gerilimi daha karmaşık hale getirmek suretiyle arttırmıştır. Sonuç karışık yapıda bir çatışma olsa da, bu makalenin yazarı bunun kesin olarak vekalet savaşından farklı olduğu görüşünü savunmaktadır.

“What about Military Decision-Making?”: A Bibliometric Review of Published Articles

“…Moreover, as shown in Table 1, where scientific productions were divided among the three decades of the period under consideration, the value of the data representing scientific productivity for the last decade (2012-2023) is noticeably higher compared to those from the other two preceding decades. Confirmation of this hypothesis stems from a listing of the main conflicts that erupted from 2007 to 2023, including the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict starting from 2008 [57], the outbreak of the "Arab Spring" in 2011 [58], the onset of the war in Syria in 2011 [59], the eruption of the conflict in Yemen in 2014 [60], the conflict in Afghanistan lasting from 2001 to 2021 [61], the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in 2022 [62], and the exacerbation of the Gaza conflict in 2023 [63], just to name a few without forgetting all the other conflicts worldwide. The second hypothesis envisaged that one or more world military superpowers would exhibit greater scientific productivity in the MDM sector (H2), and indeed, at the top of the list of the most scientifically productive countries is the United States of America, as shown in Table 4.…”

President Joe Biden’s Policy Shift: A Transformative Impact on Resolving the Yemen Conflict

“…Public unrest was a result of a number of things, including corruption, economic hardship, and governance problems (Wedeen, 2009). In the early 2000s, the Zaidi Shia Muslim minority's armed Houthi movement staged a number of uprisings against the Yemeni government in order to demand more socioeconomic and political rights (Karakir, 2018). Yemen saw large demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's leadership, which had been in place since 1978, motivated by the Arab Spring uprisings (Fraihat, 2016).…”

Sectarian War in the Middle East: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and an Unending War for Regional Hegemony

“…Both perceive that influencing neighbours' policies and regional affairs is essential to generate alliances and credibility (Cerioli, 2018). Proxy warfare is defined as a situation whereby the third parties in a conflict scenario try to involve and intervene by covert means for gaining a strategic influence in the conflict outcome (Karakir, 2018). This type of conflict requires the external actors such as states or non-states to influence the internal behaviour of internal actors by providing them with material support (Ahmed & Akbarzadeh, 2018).…”

“…Many scholars such as Karakir (2018) have put this Yemen conflict in the category of Proxy sectarian warfare, which has roots in the strategic and sectarian traditional antagonism between Saudi Arabia and Iran. For Saudi, intervention in Yemen is justified, because Iran has provided tremendous indirect support to the Houthi rebellious movement.…”