This book explains the Saudi decision to launch a direct military intervention in Yemen in 2015 by comparing it with the monarchy’s response to Egyptian intervention into Yemen in 1962. It does so through the lens of domestic politics by tracing the monarchy’s response to the opposition in both time periods, and how this was informed by the different regional contexts of the 1960s and the 2011 Arab Spring. The study argues that Saudi Arabia enhanced its own institutions, including a pan-Islamic ideological justification to rule, in response to aggression from Egypt and its revolutionary pan-Arab ideology. This contributed to a relatively cautious Saudi foreign policy in response to regional threats from Arab nationalism, along with a strategy of co-optation within the kingdom. In contrast, the non-ideological threat embodied in the Arab Spring posed a more existential danger to Saudi legitimacy. The new crown prince manipulated the regime’s sense of anxiety from this to consolidate power through further scapegoating of the Shi’a minority, exacerbated tensions with foreign rivals, and, most blatantly, the 2015 intervention in Yemen. Comparing Saudi foreign policy changes from the Arab nationalist period to the post-Arab Spring period, this volume is a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in political science, history, international relations and Middle East politics.

This project seeks to explain the aggressive turn in Saudi Arabia's foreign policy after 2011, most drastically exemplified through its 2015 military intervention into Yemen. It does so through a two-case historical comparison between the Saudi interventions in Yemen in 1962 and 2015. Additionally, it compares the nature of internal regime survival strategies within the kingdom during these two distinct time periods of regional revolutionary upheaval: the Nasserist period of the late 1950s to 1960s and the time during and after the Arab uprisings in 2011. It makes the argument that, despite comparable internal and external threats in each time period, Saudi foreign policy is more openly aggressive in the contemporary period as a function of the regime's ontologically weakened ideological legitimation. Whereas the Nasserist period offered an ontologically distinct threat in the form of a rival state ideology (secular Arab nationalism) that could be strategically co-opted and repressed by the Saudi regime, the Arab uprisings embodied a broader threat. This has included movements that have combined variations of both Islamism and liberal constitutionalism to challenge authoritarianism in the region. It has ultimately been threatening in part because of an ontological similarity to the regime's own historic use of Islamic legitimacy. Thus, unlike the mediated Saudi approach to the Nasserist threat, the Saudi regime today has opportunistically engaged in an exaggerated aggression abroad as well as more deliberate, open displays of domestic repression at home.

This international relations study investigates the underlying causes of the Yemen crisis by analyzing the interactions of global, regional, and local actors. At all phases, GCC member states played a key role, from political negotiations amidst street protests in 2011 to formation of an international military coalition in 2015. Using a multi-actor model, the book shows that various actors, whether state or non-state, foreign or domestic, combined to create a disastrous armed conflict and humanitarian crisis. Yemen’s tragedy is often blamed on Saudi Arabia and its rivalry with Iran, which is usually defined in sectarian “Sunni-Shia” terms, yet the book presents a more complex picture of what happened due to involvement by many other foreign actors, such as the UAE, UN, UK, US, EU, Russia, China, Turkey, Oman, Qatar, and African states of the Red Sea and Horn of Africa.

This report provides information on the ongoing crisis in Yemen. Now in its fifth year, the war in Yemen shows no signs of abating. The war has killed thousands of Yemenis, including combatants as well as civilians, and has significantly damaged the country's infrastructure. The difficulty of accessing certain areas of Yemen has made it problematic for governments and aid agencies to count the war's casualties. One U.S. and European-funded organization, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), estimates that 60,000 Yemenis have been killed since January 2016. Though fighting continues along several fronts, on December 13, 2018, Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Yemen Martin Griffiths brokered a cease-fire centered on the besieged Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, Yemen's largest port. As part of the deal, the coalition and the Houthis agreed to redeploy their forces outside Hudaydah city and port. The United Nations agreed to chair a Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) to monitor the cease-fire and redeployment. On January 16, the United Nations Security Council (UNSCR) passed UNSCR 2452, which authorized (for a six-month period) the creation of the United Nations Mission to support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA), of which the RCC is a significant component. As of late March 2019, the Stockholm Agreement remains unfulfilled, although U.N. officials claim that the parties have made "significant progress towards an agreement to implement phase one of the redeployments of the Hudayda agreement." Although both the Obama and Trump Administrations have called for a political solution to the conflict, the two sides in Yemen appear to fundamentally disagree over the framework for a potential political solution. The Saudi-led coalition demands that the Houthi militia disarm, relinquish its heavy weaponry (ballistic missiles and rockets), and return control of the capital, Sanaa, to the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia. The coalition asserts that there remains international consensus for these demands, insisting that the conditions laid out in United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2216 (April 2015) should form the basis for a solution to the conflict. The Houthis reject UNSCR 2216 and seem determined to outlast their opponents while consolidating their control over northern Yemen. Since the December 2017 Houthi killing of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former Houthi ally, there is no apparent single Yemeni rival to challenge Houthi rule in northern Yemen. Armed groups, including Islamist extremists, operate in other parts of the country, and rival political movements and trends advance competing visions for the long-term reestablishment of national governance in the country. The reconciliation of Yemeni factions and the redefinition of the country's political system, security sector, and social contract will likely require years of additional diplomatic engagement. According to the United Nations, Yemen's humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world, with close to 80% of Yemen's population of nearly 30 million needing some form of assistance. Two-thirds of the population is considered food insecure; one-third is suffering from extreme levels of hunger; and the United Nations estimates that 230 out of Yemen's 333 districts are at risk of famine. In sum, the United Nations notes that humanitarian assistance is "increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions of Yemenis."

Nasser's Gamble draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as "my Vietnam." Jesse Ferris argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi-Egyptian struggle over Yemen, Ferris demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the "Arab Cold War" set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, Nasser's Gamble brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

This report provides material on the ongoing crisis in Yemen and the U.S. policy response. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and members of a coalition it established (hereinafter referred to as the Saudi-led coalition) launched a military operation aimed at restoring the rule of Yemen's internationally recognized President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Prior to the start of hostilities, Hadi's government had been gradually supplanted by an alliance comprised of the Iran-supported Houthi movement and loyalists of the previous President, Ali Abdullah Saleh (hereinafter referred to as Houthi-Saleh forces). Despite multiple attempts by U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to broker a peace agreement, the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-Saleh forces continue to disagree on the fundamentals of a political settlement. After two years of war, the Saudi-led coalition would most likely resume negotiations from a position of strength. The coalition's current offensive along the Red Sea coast seeks to cut maritime access off to Houthi-Saleh forces in the hopes that their isolation will force them back to the table. In January 2017, the United Nations estimated that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict had reached 10,000. In March 2017, the World Food Program reported that while Yemen is not yet in a full-blown famine, 60% of Yemenis, or 17 million people, are in "crisis" or "emergency" food situations. During the last year of the Obama Administration, U.S. policy toward the conflict in Yemen shifted toward a more nuanced approach after having initially emphasized strong support for the Saudi-led coalition's campaign and the restoration of Hadi's presidency. The Obama Administration called upon the parties to negotiate a political settlement directly, emphasizing that "we're on the side squarely of the Yemeni people," while also stressing that Saudi Arabia itself is under daily attack and has a right to defend itself. The Administration sought to work multilaterally through the United Nations to pursue a cease-fire that would-in the expressed hopes of the Administration-ultimately jumpstart negotiations toward a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict. As those peace efforts did not succeed, some observers expect the Trump Administration to take a different approach toward the conflict by more openly trying to deter Iranian support for Houthi-Saleh forces and refraining from openly criticizing the Saudi-led coalition's conduct of the war. In 2017, President Trump reportedly authorized an increase in U.S. airstrikes against AQAP. In early March 2017, the United States reportedly conducted over 40 airstrikes against AQAP inside Yemen, which U.S. officials said were coordinated with the Hadi government. A recent counterterrorism raid in Yemen generated debate following the death of Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens. The raid also claimed the lives of between four and twelve Yemeni civilians, including several children, one of whom was a U.S. citizen. The raid was the Trump Administration's first acknowledged counterterror operation