The Yemen Crisis: Trials and Tribulations of security of issues

By Anonymous -
The transcript is written below. 

Hello listeners, thank you for tuning into my podcast; The Cosmo-politiks. In this week's episode, we’re going to discuss the case study of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, yes, you might have guessed it right, I’m talking about The Yemen Crisis and we’ll be viewing it through the lens of International Security! 
I would like to give my listeners a little overview before we begin. Security has an everyday meaning of being secure and not feeling threatened. In traditional terms, it is the field in which states threaten and challenge each other's sovereignty, try to impose their will on each other, defend their independence, and so on. Security has not been a constant field and it has evolved ever since World War II, it has transformed into a rather coherent and recognizable field. Thus we come to understand security studies as a deeper and broader concept, that operates on the framework of the relativity of security. This means that oftentimes security becomes a complex issue wherein there is no one way of arbitrating notions of security. (Krause, K., Williams, M.) 
The term security has taken on a variety of implications derived from the ‘international’ discourse of state security, policy, etc.; making it a much broader concept that involves issues like religion and climate change as threats other than the traditional military ones.
Now that you have broadened your horizons more than by just understanding security through a realist approach, I would like to press concern about the Yemen crisis by first understanding its history and then analyzing it by the relativity of security i.e. pointing out who is the referent object, the threat object, and the one who needs to be protected through the discourse of this podcast in detail. Yemen is a desert country in the Middle East on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, bordered by the Red Sea to the west. It has become the site of grievous civilian suffering due to the 7-year-old civil war which has turned into a proxy war. It started in 2011 when there was an uprising against the authoritarian president Ali Abdullah Saleh who was forced to hand over power to his deputy Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. 
There was a failure of the political system which was supposed to bring stability to Yemen but due to problems like corruption, unemployment, food insecurity, and separatist movement in the south by Jihadists, it became worse. The Houthis advocated Yemen’s Zaidi Shia minority and fought a series of rebellions against Saleh after which they seized control of the northern heartland of Saada province in 2014 and advanced southwards.
Many Yemenis including Sunnis supported Houthis and by 2014, the rebels took over the capital Sanaa after which President Haidi flew abroad in 2015. Saudi Arabia along with eight other Sunni Arab states began an air campaign to defeat Houthis (Shias) as they feared Iranian influence in Yemen which they wanted to end and restore the Haidi government. This coalition received logistical and intelligence support from the USA, UK, and France. 
The aftermath of which led to six years of military stalemate since 2015. In any war or rebellion, it is the people of the state who are the worst sufferers regardless of them being from Shia or Sunni sects. Therefore, they are the referent objects whose freedom and liberty are at stake. The situation in Yemen can exacerbate regional tensions, hence the depiction of existential threat. The conflict is seen as a part of regional powerplay between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia.
The West is worried because of the attacks from Al Qaeda or IS affiliates emanating from Yemen as it becomes more unstable. Hence Saudi Arabia and the West become the securitizing actors who make the statements of pertinent threat from Houthi backed by Iran and threat from Al-Qaeda, hence characterized as Existential Threats. 
This is the best way to analyze this issue because Yemen sits on a strait linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, which strategically speaking means that Yemen is an important yet undervalued player when it comes to the international oil trade. Hence securitisation theorists determine five sectors, Economic, Societal, Political, Environmental, and Military. All these seem to be covered as each sector has specific threats as in threatening the referent object. Thus, it can be concluded that the relativity of security specifically in the Yemen crisis is important to consider. For instance, The Yemenis people are in constant fear of violence, also most people do not have a guarantee of adequate healthcare and other basic necessities. So it can be said that there are multiple threats and referent objects in this case study.
Due to Yemen’s low rates of human and economic development and general instability, neighboring states did not invite the country into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economic integration zone despite its geographic location, oil-based economy, and common cultural and historic ties to the region.(Eroukhmanoff C) They were denied membership in the GCC that exacerbated Yemen’s impoverishment: not only for trading, investment, and industry opportunities that GCC membership encouraged by passing Yemen, but its economic growth slowed down due to diminishing direct investment since it couldn’t compete with wealthier, neighboring countries. Lack of revenue further prevented it from developing infrastructure to encourage foreign investment. Individual poverty levels continued to rise due to the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment criteria in pursuit of Millennium Challenge Goals, which forced the government to reduce subsidies on petroleum products and foodstuffs. 
Above all these seven years of civil war have ruptured the social fabric of Yemen. Systemic problems such as famine, epidemic, poverty, illiteracy all pose a bigger threat to the security of the country than ever before.
References- 
1. Krause, K., & Williams, M. (2018). Security and “Security Studies.” The Oxford Handbook of International Security, 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.2

2. Eroukhmanoff, C. (2020, May 7). Securitisation Theory: An Introduction. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2018/01/14/securitisation-theory-an-introduction/
 
3. Lipschutz, R. (1995). On Security (New Directions in World Politics) Paperback. Columbia University Press (13 Oct. 1995). War in Yemen. (2022). Global Conflict Tracker. https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen 

4. World Report 2020: Rights Trends in Yemen. (2020, January 14). Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/yemen# 

5. BBC News. (2021, November 2). Yemen crisis: Why is there a war? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29319423

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