The Yemen Crisis has emerged from a complex array of factors coming together. However, there are strategies capable of coping with these challenges and facilitating positive change. The international community can support efforts towards establishing peace and stability by adopting solution-oriented approaches through cooperation and dialogue.
Building on this, the Ankara Crisis and Policy Research Center (ANKASAM) presents an interview conducted with Assoc. Prof. Olga Alekseevna Antoncheva from the North-West Institute of Management of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and Political Science Expert Tatiana Evgenievna Apanasenko from the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Service, to evaluate the developments in Yemen.
1-What are your views on the origins of the Yemeni crisis and its place in the regional power struggle? How do you perceive the significance of this conflict in terms of international relations and geopolitical balance?
The origin of the Yemeni crisis lies in the contradictory nature of international relations and the dysfunctionality of systems designed to keep international relations within the framework of peaceful adherence to international laws.
The tangle of contradictions in the Yemeni region consists of:
- the clash of interests of the great powers of the US and Russia, which claim to be the power poles of the world balance of power and which, with the help of allies and spheres of influence, create lines of pressure in this region;
- the consequences of the confrontation between the USA and the USSR. This confrontation may no longer make sense. However, it has an impact on the situation in the region in the form of the persistence of agent networks, which creates additional contradictions between the northern and southern parts of Yemen;
- struggles for influence between tribal alliances within Yemen itself;
- ambiguous relations within the US-Saudi alliance. Saudi Arabia, being a satellite of the US, does not forget its own interests;
- traditional religious confrontations between representatives of various branches of Islam;
- the underlying but ongoing struggle between secularisation and religious fundamentalism;
- the struggle for spheres of influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia;
- the mood for a war of total annihilation between Islam and Judaism.
These multiple contradictions make the region very volatile and explosive.
These characteristics of the region are reinforced by Yemen’s high level of poverty and the high percentage of young people in the population, which often predetermines the destabilisation of the socio-economic system.
At the moment, the expansionist potential of Ansar Allah is being actualised due to the general aggravation of the international situation. The results may be unexpected for the initiators of the escalation of the conflict in a region with such intertwined contradictions.
The Yemeni crisis presents a complex picture of events, with a number of political actors who cannot be unequivocally labelled as being on the wrong side. For example, the Houthis themselves, the late former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the Southern Transitional Council and many others are ambiguous agents of influence.
For example, President Saleh, who unified Yemen, thus depriving Russia of a sphere of influence such as the US-centred South Yemen, acted in the interests of the US, but it was he who fell victim to the Arab Spring, a process that the US is behind.
President Hadi, who replaced Saleh at incredible sacrifice, is a member of Saleh’s team. He differed little from Saleh in his political programme and style of political leadership Accordingly, questions arise as to which social groups were behind the backs of these presidents.
The role of the “Southern Transitional Council” was also ambiguous.
And finally, the Houthis, due to their Shiism, gravitate towards Iran, Russia’s traditional and geopolitically natural ally, but due to their anti-secularity and illegitimacy, cannot be a clear agent of Russia’s influence.
Thus, the actualisation of the Yemen crisis against the backdrop of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis seems to be an inevitable factor in strengthening the confrontation between Russia and the West. At the same time, it is very difficult to find those responsible for the direct transition to military action.
The Yemeni crisis plays a significant role in the regional and geopolitical struggle for power because the Ansar Allah movement, represented by the Supreme Political Council of Yemen, which represents the unrecognised proto-state of Yemen, has gained control over shipping in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
If ship traffic through this region stops, the US and Israel will suffer. This means that the Houthis will gain the status of an international player of global importance. The position of the Houthis will also be strengthened at the regional level as they gain the status of a global agent of influence.
At the same time, an extremely strong change in the balance of power in the region is unlikely: there will remain a kind of equilibrium established during the ten years of war, when the opposing forces have learnt each other’s capabilities well. This is evidenced by the fact that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, on the one hand, and the Houthis, on the other, are trying to avoid mutual provocations. The support of the Houthis for the Palestinians is more of a symbolic value, as, indeed, is the case with all Arab States in the region.
2- In light of current geopolitical developments, what are the biggest challenges in international relations and what strategies should the international community adopt to overcome these challenges?
Assuming that the field of international relations faces certain challenges, it is also necessary to assume that the international community is something monolithic, a single socium with common interests. However, this society is split, both along the lines of interstate, intercivilisational contradictions, and along the lines of contradictions between different social strata. What is a challenge for one side (a state or a union of states, a social group or homogeneous social groups in different states) is a benefit or at least a favourable opportunity for the other side.
The division into geopolitical poles of power is also a constant of international relations.
Accordingly, we cannot talk about challenges to the international system as a whole, but only about challenges to one or the other side.
The same can be said about fundamental ideological contradictions between states, civilisations or socio-economic systems representing a type of thalassocracy or tellurocracy: the contradictions between them are irrecoverable, as they go back to values of existential nature.
Nevertheless, an approach that assumes the existence of common interests in the system of international relations is possible. It was named after K. Clausewitz, who postulated that domestic policy is derived from foreign policy, therefore, all domestic contradictions should be smoothed out in the face of an external enemy. This approach is the opposite of Lenin’s approach, according to which foreign policy is a continuation of domestic policy and is determined by class interests.
So, let us imagine that all internal contradictions of the global system of international relations should evaporate in the face of global challenges.
This approach is legitimate, because in the modern world a global society really exists.
A global society united by information and logistics networks, conflicts and crises, chains of economic interaction and value creation, and social stratification is a reality. Persistent and escalating conflicts are part of this reality, not a manifestation of deglobalisation and (or) conflict of geopolitical power poles.
In this case, the fundamental contradiction of geopolitical values of the East and the West takes the following forms. On the one hand, these are:
- The values of multipolarity, the impossibility of ruling the world from a single centre of power;
- the inadmissibility of imposing institutional models (such as, for example, liberal democracy canonised by the West);
- diversity of political-administrative systems.
These are the values of the East, they are close enough to the official position of Russia and these values are accepted by other countries dissatisfied with their current situation.
They are opposed to the values of centralising world governance and imposing their own institutional models on the world. These values are characteristic of the so-called collective West, the states that have world hegemony and are on the way to losing it.
Thus, the current global system of international relations is a reality, but it is inherently contradictory, as it should be.
The structures and institutions born of this reality (including officially operating intergovernmental associations) are extremely inefficient and dysfunctional. In this mode of functioning, which can only lead to compromise but not to the eradication of the source of the conflict, they will continue to operate not only for the next few decades but also for the next few generations.
Officially operating international legal institutions (the UN, its subdivisions, regional associations, including the EU and NATO) will, within the framework of this mode of functioning, choose exclusively from random and/or opportunistic circumstances one or another scenario:
1) regulation;
2) freezing (stagnation);
3) an attempt at aggravation followed by the opening of a new “window” or “fan” of opportunities.
The formation of various kinds of situational, opportunistic, temporary missions and coalitions is also a reflection of a long-standing ambivalent and tense, but, at the same time, absolutely not catastrophic situation.
Just to cite the most famous cases:
- Mediation missions in the Middle East;
- De-jure denounced by Trump but de-facto maintained mediation group to control Iran’s nuclear programme;
- Mediation by Ankara and Abu Dhabi between Moscow and Kiev (and a significant number of countries willing to offer additional mediation services);
- Beijing’s unsuccessful attempts to establish a dialogue between Riyadh and Tehran;
- Efforts by Washington, Cairo, and Doha to establish dialogue between Israel and Hamas.
Thus, the current biggest challenges before the global system of international relations should be considered the extinguishment of international armed conflicts, such as:
- Russia’s special operation in Ukraine,
- the conflict between Israel and Hamas,
- prevention of potential conflicts related to the ambitions of Iran, Ansarullah and Hezbollah.
Strategies, on the other hand, will be:
- Regulation,
- freezing
- attempted escalation that will lead back to the starting point.
The agents of such strategies will be officially acting international intergovernmental associations and states or groups of intermediary states. The effectiveness of these strategies will be low, since irreconcilable contradictions cannot be resolved.
However, let us imagine that all the elements constituting the system of international relations are interested in peace rather than war in order to improve their present situation. Let us assume that all contradictions give way to consolidation in the face of such challenges as:
- contradictions between the interests of the state and the individual, making military solutions to conflicts increasingly difficult;
- impediments to the optimisation of global economic processes from across national borders;
- the problems of hunger, poverty and inequality, including inter-country inequality, migration, easily solved by the refusal of the most economically developed states from the imperialist rent;
- environmental problems, the irreplaceability of the planet’s resources, etc.
Even a simple enumeration of the challenges facing the world community as a whole makes it obvious that these tasks can be accomplished only by the world government and strong supranational structures. And although the contradictory nature of international relations makes the establishment of such structures very difficult, the general direction of progress in the sphere of international relations should follow this path.
3-What impact do economic and social problems have on international relations and geopolitical conflicts? What role should international organisations and states play in addressing these issues?
Economic and social issues are at the heart of conflicts in international relations. Nation states realise the interests of a particular social group with access to political power in that state.
Geopolitical causes of conflicts in the field of international relations only serve certain social interests realised in foreign policy. The leading role in the structure of these interests is played by economic interests.
For example, abstracting from the moral and ethical component of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, let us consider how it is based on the need to redistribute the European oil and gas market in the interests of the United States, which wants to completely replace Russia in this market.
Of course, the traditional confrontation between Russia and the West also plays its role, but the consequences of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine for this confrontation are uncertain and long-term, while the redistribution of the European oil and gas market as the immediate goal for the US is in place, and it has been achieved.
The need to occupy the European markets with its energy carriers is especially urgent for the US due to the dollar’s unsecured material wealth.
After the introduction of the Bretton Woods system into the organisation of world monetary relations (when the American dollar became the standard of world currencies instead of gold) and especially after its collapse (when the floating exchange rate regime was introduced and world currencies had no standard left, but the American dollar remained as such), the gap between the real economy and its symbolic reflection in money reached unprecedented proportions. Oil is a key interest of the US in its geopolitical initiatives, as it is incredibly difficult to displace Russian gas from European markets (although the US is beginning to succeed).
For the US, the need to increase shale oil exports will soon arise, and to make this possible, it is logical for the US to take Russia’s place as a major oil exporter in the European market. With Russia out of the game, Iran and Venezuela could potentially take its place on the European market, but they were prudently withdrawn by the United States earlier. Iraq, Syria and Libya were also taken out earlier.
The rise in oil prices caused by the war also played into the hands of US interests.
That is why in connection with the start of special operations in Ukraine the USA imposed an oil embargo on Russia, and on 31.03.2022 the USA made a decision on the largest in history release of oil reserves from the country’s strategic reserves. If we consider the connection of these events, we can conclude that the war in Ukraine was provoked by the United States for this very purpose.
The situation on the world oil markets shows that the West was the initiator of the aggravation of relations between the West and Russia, as Russia was already doing very well (despite the fact that NATO was at the gate). The Russian budget for 2022 included a base price of Urals oil of $44.2 per barrel. In February 2022 – by the start of the special operation in Ukraine – the price of Urals oil was $97-99 per barrel, Brent oil was around $97. Although Urals is usually cheaper than Brent.
However, Russia was forced to start pushing NATO out of the gate against its economic interests. It was forced to sell oil to non-European countries at a heavy discount.
Experts believed in February 2022 that the growth of shale oil production in the US would lead to the fact that such record prices would not exist: Brent would not cost $100 per barrel, but $70. The US wanted to increase the volume of its oil, but in such a way that oil prices would not fall. And for this it was necessary to exclude Russia from the number of oil exporters.
The US made plans to print its strategic oil reserves in November 2021. Even then it was clear that war was coming.
The special operation in Ukraine is also a war for gas markets.
The US intends to export its liquefied natural gas (LNG). Before the special operation began, they had already started to replace Russia on the European gas market. In January 2022, the US overtook Russia in raw gas exports to Europe: it exported 10.36 billion cubic metres, while Russia exported 7.2 billion cubic metres.
There is no substitute for piped Russian gas. Only Qatar can compete with the US in liquefied LNG.
With Russia absent from the European gas market, an ideal marketing niche is created for US LNG. It is vital for the US to free the European market for its LNG. How can we not force Russia to move NATO away from the gates? As for the role of international organisations and states in resolving conflicts driven by the economic interests of social groups dominating the foreign policy of states, it can be argued that this role cannot be significant, since the clash of economic interests is a “zero-sum game”.
Officially acting international legal institutions, situational missions of Turkey and the UAE can lead, at best, to a freezing of the conflict. But this freezing is not in Russia’s interests, as it gives the losing side a chance to take a breather and regroup. A conflict frozen in this way will be doomed to escalate when the slightest new opportunity arises.
Tatiana E. Apanasenko
Tatiana E. ApanasenkoCandidate of Political Science (PhD), specialist in the concepts of international relations in the structure of French political science.
Since 2019. – Participant of the international research project of the NWIM RANEPA and the Shanghai Administrative Institute on the problems and prospects of the implementation of the social credit system in the PRC.
Area of research interests: international relations, political communication, political regimes, political economy, Marxism, monetary circulation.
