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Freie Universität Berlin
Master Programme: International Relations Online, 10th run (part-time)
Module: Changing Patterns of Governance: Coping with Global Risks and Uncertainties
Final assignment: Hypothesis test
Power unbalance, identity conflict or economic disparities?
Reasons for the outbreak of the violent conflict between
Saudi-Arabia and Huthi Rebels in Yemen (2015)
Instructor: Stefan Engert
Student: Peter Bleckmann
Berlin, Nov 5, 2017
Word count: 2.659 (without references)
Table of contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 2
Development of the conflict ............................................................................................................ 2
2. What interpretations of the conflict can be deducted from IR theories? .................................. 3
a) Neo-Realism: The fight for regional hegemony .......................................................................... 3
b) Social constructivism: Construction of the ‘Other’ along denominational lines ........................ 3
c) Marxism: what matters is the material base ............................................................................... 3
3. Looking at the empirical facts: Which hypothesis can best explain the case? ........................... 4
a) Economic disparities ................................................................................................................ 4
b) Religion .................................................................................................................................... 4
c) Hegemony ............................................................................................................................... 5
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 6
References ........................................................................................................................................... 7
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1. Introduction
The purpose of this essay is to identify the most plausible explanation of the outbreak of the violent
conflict between the kingdom of Saudi-Arabia – in an alliance with the United Arab Emirates and
other states - and the Huthi rebels and their allies in Yemen in 2015. By now, the conflict has resulted
in a desperate humanitarian crisis with seven million people threatened by starvation, three million
refugees, and 600.000 persons infected by cholera (Peters/Sydow 2017).
In order to explain the Saudi-Arabia’s military intervention, three hypotheses will be formulated
based on theories of International Relations: (a) neo-realism, (b) social constructivism and (c)
Marxism. Drawing from these theories, (a) power imbalances; (b) hostile views of the ‘Other’ based
on differences in culture, identity, and religion; and (c) inequalities of wealth distribution can be
identified as the chief causes for war. These general assumptions will be adapted to the specific case,
and hypotheses will be formulated that seem fit the case. In the empirical part of the paper, each
hypothesis will be weighed against empirical evidence so as to identify the strongest factor triggering
the conflict.
While at first glance the hypothesis focussing on regional hegemony, derived from neo-realism,
seems to make for the best explanation of the case, at closer examination it becomes clear that a
double lens of neo-realism and social constructivism is required understand the role of imagined
threats.
Development of the conflict
In order to set the following analysis in context, I will briefly summarize the circumstances before and
at the outbreak of the conflict (cf. Transfeld 2015, 2017, Steinberg 2017).
Rooted in the Northern part of Yemen, the Huthi rebel group formed during the 1990s. Its core aim
was protecting the traditions of Zaidism, a local variant of Shia Islam, against Sunna elements that
the central government tried to incorporate at that time. When the uprisings in the Arab world
reached Yemen in 2011, the Huthi rebels sided with the protesters, thus contributing to the stepping
down of longstanding president Ali Abdullah Salih in 2011. His successor, former vice president Abd
Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, was confirmed by public vote in 2012. In an internationally brokered process, a
new federal constitution was designed. When the Huthis and secessionist groups in the southern
part of Yemen heard about planned regional subdivision, they started violent protests against what
they thought were disadvantageous demarcation lines. Huthis took over control of the Northern part
of the country. The protest movement soon broadened its scope, and a wider array of issues became
salient, including corruption and the perceived ineffectiveness of the government. Further groups
joined the Huthis, among them supporters of ex-president Salih, putting aside their previous
adversaries. The opposition alliance took control of Sanaa, the capital. President Hadi stepped down
and left the country in January 2015.
Immediately after that, Saudi-Arabia and its coalition partners (United Arab Emirates and other
nations) launched the military operation in Yemen against the Huthis and their allies. The
intervention started in March 2015. Some countries committed ground forces, yet the main military
measure are air strikes and a sea blockade. The US military supports the Saudi-led alliance by
intelligence dossiers, training, equipment and technical assistance.
As of today, the conflict remains unsolved militarily with an almost unchanged front line compared to
2015, while the humanitarian situation deteriorates daily.
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2. What interpretations of the conflict can be deducted from IR theories?
In the following section, hypotheses about the conflict will be formulated on the basis of three IR
theories that seem to make for potentially apt explanations:
a) Neo-Realism
b) Social Constructivism
c) Marxism.
After a brief introduction of each of these theories, I will apply their core assumptions to the Yemen
conflict and formulate specific hypotheses on these grounds. These will be pondered in section 3.
a) Neo-Realism: The fight for regional hegemony
Neo-realist theories of International Relations are based on a set of basic assumptions about the
international system: first, anarchy is the ordering principle because there is no formal hierarchy
among different states. Second, states are unitary actors and act as ‘like units’ (Waltz p. 95) of the
system. Third, the type of power distribution is a key characteristic of the system, be that unipolar,
bipolar or multipolar. Followers of an offensive variant of neo-realism claim that in their search for
security, all states pursuit to become regional hegemons and often times apply military action in
order to achieve and sustain this status.
If one interprets Saudi-Arabia’s position as that of a regional hegemon, challenged by its main rival
Iran, the following hypothesis can be deducted from offensive neo-realist assumptions:
The main reason why Saudi Arabia started a military action against the Huthi rebels is its
intention to consolidate its status as regional hegemon and to prevent the emergence of a
possible alliance between Iran and Yemen.
b) Social constructivism: Construction of the ‘Other’ along denominational lines
Emanuel Adler positions the social constructivist approach to International Relations in the tradition
of social sciences, exemplified by his reference to Max Weber’s notion of ‘Verstehen’ /
‘understanding from within’ (cited by Adler 1997, 326) according to whom any social action can only
be fully understood if one takes the actors’ subjective interpretation into account. On this
epistemological grounding, social constructivism’s primary analytical focus are the mental structures
that people establish in order to interpret the world around them, and which determine their social
acting. Regarding questions of war and peace, a key issue is the construction of the dichotomy of
‘Self’ and ‘Other’. This distinction may be constructed along the lines of e.g. ethnicity, gender,
culture, religion, attitudes and other attributes. In extreme cases, such constructions of the Other
can take the form of a Feindbild and thus fuel violent conflicts.
Adapting this approach to the Yemen conflict, the denominational divide between Shia and Sunna
Muslims comes into play; so the hypothesis based on social constructivist thinking reads like this:
The main reason for Saudi-Arabia’s decision to use military violence is the fact that its leaders
view Huthis as enemies because of the conflictive belief system.
c) Marxism: what matters is the material base
For Marxist theories, the starting point of the analysis of social phenomena is the divide between the
few people who own capital and the many who do not. Although some Marxist schools have shifted
the focus away from economy towards politics (e.g. Gramsci), this essay will stick to a more
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traditional take of Marxism. In this understanding, armed conflicts occur as a consequence of
differences of the wealth distribution between states or groups. In a somewhat simplistic take of
Marxism, one could distinguish between violent conflicts which are triggered by the have-nots’
demand for an equal share, and imperialist wars that are driven by the hegemonic groups’ interest to
protect their wealth.
The following hypothesis can be derived from Marxism:
The main reason for the use of military action is Saudi-Arabia’s intention to protect its wealth
against a grassroots rebel group.
3. Looking at the empirical facts: Which hypothesis can best explain the
case?
What follows is a paragraph in which arguments for and against the three hypotheses will be
pondered based on the empirical specifics of the case. There seems to be a kernel of truth in all three
hypotheses; however, the goal is to identify the chief cause of the conflict.
a) Economic disparities
Looking at the conflict through a Marxist lens, one could identify Saudi-Arabia as an imperialist state
in which economic and military power collude, a picture that is reinforced by its longstanding alliance
with the United States. The Huthi, by contrast, represent a marginalised population in a marginalised
country. They are a rebel group with a track record of bringing down unpopular and corrupt regimes.
The differences in wealth distribution are immense; Saudi-Arabia’s fear of the grudge of its poorer
neighbours would be as justifiable as the Huthis’ demand for access to resources.
Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that the predominant reason for Saudi-Arabia’s military strike was
defending its economic wealth. To pursuit this goal, there would be many other possible and
probably more successful strategies, including border control or economic sanctions.
Saudi-Arabia just started a severe conflict with a very rich country - Qatar. So obviously Saudi-Arabia
does not make the choice between friends and foes by their economic potential. It might, however,
be more prone to attack poorer countries militarily, while it would chose other instruments to
weaken richer states. Even if that was the case, economic disparities could only explain different
reactions to a given cause for conflict; so the cause itself obviously has to be searched for elsewhere.
b) Religion
In a region so enmeshed with the emergence and dissemination of Islam and most of its
denominational variants, it would be an obvious mistake to underestimate the importance of religion
in any social situation. This is true also in this case: The Huthi group established itself as a measure of
defence of the specifics of Zaidism, the regional variant of Shia. Saudi-Arabia is known to invest vast
resources in missionary efforts to disseminate Wahhabism, a variant of Sunna Islam, on a global
scale, and there is a high level of adversary against Shiites in Saudi-Arabia. Obviously, for both parties
their specific take of Islam is an essential component of their identity, both seem to be prepared to
fight for it, and religion is likely an important factor in their construction of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’.
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That said, several reasons that speak against the hypothesis that this divide is the deciding factor
sparking the conflict:
• First, the specifics of the Zaidist religion. While it is true that Zaidism is a Shiite denomination
that differs from the Sunna Islam, it also differs from other variants of Shiite Islam. In
particular, Zaidism is closer to the Sunna Islam practiced in other parts of Yemen than it is to
Iran’s Imami Shiite denomination (Transfeld 2017 p 2).
• Second, even if the denominational divide matters, it seems unlikely that Saudi-Arabia would
go to war just because of it. Saudi-Arabia did not and does not intervene when Shiites
acquired an increasing role in Iraq after the Second Gulf War. In Yemen, the denominational
divide existed long before 2015 but did not result in any aggressive act between Saudis and
Huthis.
Therefore, although the denominational divide is likely to contribute significantly to the construction
of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’, it seems unlikely that it caused the outbreak of the conflict just by itself.
c) Hegemony
So if neither economic nor religious divides were the core causes of the conflict: was it Saudi-Arabia’s
pursuit to defend its status as regional hegemon?
Much speaks for this assumption, in particular when taking into account the specific circumstances of
the time (cf. Transfeld 2017, p. 5). For Saudi-Arabia, its longstanding military alliance with the US is a
central element of its security strategy and enabled Saudi-Arabia to acquire and sustain the position
of a regional hegemon. The advantages of this alliance are so compelling that Saudi-Arabia has
always turned a blind eye on the deep ideological divide between a liberal society and Wahhabism,
and on opposing views of the Palestine/Israeli conflict
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.
Now what happened between 2011 and 2015? First, the US refrained from protecting Arab leaders
when the population rose to protest against them, in spite of their loyalty with the US. In 2015, the
US administration enforced serious consultations with Iran on what was to become the nuclear
agreement, thus facilitating economic and diplomatic opportunities for Saudi-Arabia’s chief enemy.
These developments, taken together, resulted in a deep sense of uncertainty: for Saudi-Arabia they
meant that, if the worst came to the worst, the US would not stand by an autocratic regime,
regardless its loyalty; and that the US were prepared to make deals with its chief enemy.
Therefore, Saudi-Arabia came to the conclusion that it had to defend itself against its foes, in
particular Iran and its allies. As one consequence, Saudi-Arabia took action against Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood because of president Morsi’s plan to establish a ‘constructive relationship’ (Al Jazeera)
with Iran. Saudi-Arabia’s aid package to Egypt after the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood
government is another piece in this same puzzle.
The intervention in Yemen can be interpreted as another incident in line with this strategy. From
Saudi-Arabia’s point of view, Huthis were allies of Iran. Some links between the Huthis and Iran were
reported, such as military training of Huthi combatants by Iran, and the operation of an exile Huthi
radio station by the Hizbollah, Iran’s close ally.
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This repugnance, according to many observers, contributed to facilitate the emergence of Al Qaeda.
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So if Saudi-Arabia wanted to prevent an enemy’s ally from taking control of its neighbouring country,
it had to act. And so it did.
In this light, it appears plausible that Saudi-Arabia had a very strong motif to weaken its primary
competitor Iran, to destroy the Iranian-Huthi coalition, to defend its status as regional hegemon.
However, at closer investigation, things are not as clear as they may seem. Without question, Saudi-
Arabia viewed Huthis as allies of Iran; but what kind of alliance was that? While Western media
mention the Iranian support for Huthis in a customary fashion, SWP researcher Mareike Transfeld
(2017) estimates that the Iranian-Huthi ties much weaker than one might think, at least at the
beginning of the conflict. According to her, Huthis are primarily local actors rather than agents on
behalf of an external power. The Huthi’s relative military strength can best be explained by their
access to Yemen’s armed forces’ equipment and personnel – rather than by external support. While
links with Iran do exist, they were much weaker and less comprehensive compared to Iran’s dense
interaction and ideological accordance with its closer allies, e.g. the Hezbollah. As the Huthis pursuit
domestic goals, Iran’s opportunities to influence them are very limited (ibid., p. 2). On the other
hand, when Saudi-Arabia started its military operation, the Huthi needed to search for external
support, so unwittingly Saudi-Arabia itself created a stronger Iranian-Huthi alliance and the severe
security threats
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that it wanted to prevent in the first place.
Whether or not one agrees with this interpretation of the Iran-Huthi axis, the least one can say is that
it is worthwhile distinguishing between real and imagined power distribution, and resulting real and
imagined security threats. In the case at hand, Saudi-Arabia chose military action because of its
perception of the Iranian-Huthi alliance. From a theoretical point of view, the importance of the
imagined or perceived reality can best be captured by social constructivism.
While neo-realism makes for the best explanation of the reasons for Saudi-Arabia to go to war,
adding a social constructivist lens as a corrective helps to understand that imagined threats are
sufficient causes for war.
4. Conclusion
After pondering arguments for and against the three hypotheses, one can conclude that the
hypothesis derived from neo-realist theories comes closest to a convincing explanation of the conflict
at hand. The most plausible reason for Saudi-Arabia to go to war against the Huthi rebels is its
intention to defend its status as regional hegemon and security interests which were threatened by
the outlook of Yemen becoming an ally of Iran if the Huthis resumed power. The other two
hypotheses point to secondary causes which do play a role in the conflict but which are not the main
factors.
However, it also became clear that Saudi-Arabia’s decision for military action was triggered by the
perception of a close Iranian-Huthi alliance, while the factual interaction between these two players
may have been much looser than perceived, at least at the time of the outbreak of the conflict. This
means that in order to understand the conflict properly, one needs to apply a double lens of neo-
realism and social constructivism – that is to say, there is no power imbalance in the international
system and no security risk unless somebody perceives it as such.
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Substantiated by the missile attack of Nov 4, 2017
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References
Adler, E. (1997): Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics, in: European Journal of
International Relations 3(3), pp. 319-363.
Al Jazeera (2017): Saudi and the Brotherhood: From friends to foes. News story, Jan 23, 2017. Online:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/saudi-brotherhood-friends-foes-170623093039202.html
Lister, T./ Albadran, A./ Al-Masmari, H./Levenson, E. (2017): Saudi Arabia intercepts ballistic missile
over capital. CNN, Nov 4, 2017. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/04/middleeast/saudi-arabia-
ballistic-missile/index.html
Peters, D./Sydow, Ch. (2017): Krieg und Katastrophe in Jemen. Die schlimmste aller Krisen. Spiegel
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krisen-a-1165255.html
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fördert die Internationalisierung des Konflikts. SWP aktuell 13 März 2017.
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Verbündeten immer weiter ins Lager Irans. SWP aktuell 51 Juli 2017
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Weiss, M.I. (2015) A perfect storm: the causes and consequences of severe water scarcity,
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