Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context

Dr. Roby Barrett’s sweeping study of Yemen’s historical legacy and its current social, economic, and political systems is essential reading for all who would seek to understand the challenges to U.S. security interests in southern Arabia and reassess current U.S. strategy in light of recent turmoil there.

Knowledge of the political, economic, social, and cultural context is fundamental to the development of a realistic counterinsurgency strategy based on the possible and affordable as opposed to the ideological or theoretical.

The central theme of Dr. Barrett’s monograph is that in Yemen, power is based on family, clan, and tribal relationships and not a national identity.

The insights provided in Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm In Context plus recent events in Yemen suggest that the time is ripe to reconsider U.S. approaches toward Yemen. Dr.Barrett suggests that Yemen cannot be transformed. Good governance, as Western nations would define it, is most likely unachievable. Our policy must deal with multiple Yemens with conflicting  historical, political, economic, and cultural heritages. These are Yemens with identities and values hinged upon familial, clan, and tribal loyalties.

Dr. Barrett, however, argues that while Yemen may be a failed state, it is not  a failed society. This suggests that U.S. policy goals for addressing the root causes of instability and improving governance will have to reach beyond the  central government and weak institutions to engage tribes and clans and to achieve a balance among the multiple Yemens that are in virtual continuous conflict. Dr. Barrett suggests that perhaps the only improvement possible in Yemen is a fluid equilibrium between the various groups and whoever dominates the government in Sana’a, a situation that may in fact mirror in many respects the future for other areas including Afghanistan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Roby C. Barrett is a senior fellow with the JSOU Strategic Studies  Department. He has over 30 years of government, business, and academic experience in the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Barrett is the president of a consulting firm, specializing in technology applications and systems  for national defense and security. He has extensive experience in space systems, nuclear issues, police and security systems, command and control, technology development, and weapons acquisition as they relate to both U.S. and foreign governments.   The current focus of his research is strategic security issues in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, including Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. He is a former Foreign Service officer in the Middle East with a strong background in the cultural and political dynamics of historical Islamic and political development. His posting and other assignments included Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Arabian Gulf.

As a founder of the National History Center within the American Historical Association, Dr. Barrett specializes in the application of broad historical and conceptual paradigms to issues of ongoing political and military conflict and the projection of future trends. He is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, D.C. He provides domestic and international media commentary on a range of issues from the Palestinian territories to nuclear proliferation and the challenges of Russian policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Initially trained as a Soviet and Russian specialist, Dr. Barrett brings unique insights to the regenerated competition between Russia, China, and the United States in the Middle East and Africa.

He also serves as the senior advisor to the Board of Directors of the Bilateral Arab-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an organization whose members include major foreign and domestic petroleum companies. He is the lead panelist on Middle East and South Asian Policy. He also participates in the Congressional Fellowship Program, American Political Science Association, and Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He has been a featured panelist for the German Council on Foreign Relations on Middle East and Gulf Affairs. Dr. Barrett also serves as a lecturer on Gulf affairs, Iraq, and U.S. foreign policy for the Air Force Special Operations Command and in response to special requirements. Dr. Barrett was an Eisenhower-Roberts fellow of the Eisenhower Institute in Washington D.C., a Rotary International fellow at the Russian and East European Institute at the University of Munich, and a Scottish Rite Research fellow at Oxford University. He holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from East Texas State University and an M.A. in Political Science and Russian History from Baylor University. He is a graduate of the Foreign Service Institute’s intensive 2-year Arab Language and Middle East Area Studies program and the Counterterrorism Tactics course and took part in the Special Operations course. He has a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and South Asian History from the University of Texas (UT)–Austin. Other honors include the Guittard Fellowship (Baylor), the Dora Bonham Graduate Research Grant (UT-Austin), the David Bruton Graduate Fellowship (UT-Austin), the Russian Language Scholarship (Munich), and the Falcon Award from the U.S. Air Force Academy. 

As an author, Dr. Barrett’s works range from books to articles on the Arab League and digital research techniques:

a. The Greater Middle East and the Cold War: U.S. Foreign Policy under Eisenhower and Kennedy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

b. “Intervention in Iraq, 1958-1959” in MEI Policy Briefs, 2008 and many more.

ABOUT THE AGENCY
The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special operations. JSOU publications advance the insights and recommendations of national security professionals and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) students and leaders for consideration by the SOF community and defense leadership.

JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The JSOU mission is to educate SOF executive, senior, and intermediate leaders and selected other national and international security decision makers, both military and civilian, through teaching, outreach, and research in the science and art of joint special operations. JSOU provides education to the men and women of SOF and to those who enable the SOF mission in a joint and interagency environment.

JSOU conducts research through its Strategic Studies Department where effort centers upon the USSOCOM and United States SOF missions: USSOCOM mission. USSOCOM provides fully capable and enabled SOF to defend the nation’s interests in an environment characterized by irregular warfare.

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Foreword ...............................................................................  ix
About the Author ...................................................................  xi
Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context ................... 1
1.Yemen, the Pre-Islamic Era to 1500 ..................................... 7
2.Yemen and the Age of Empires, 1500 to 1918 ................... 17
3.Yemen, Old Paradigms and New Realities ......................... 25
4. Setting the Stage, Yemen 1953 to 1962 ............................. 35
5. TheYemens’ Post-Imamate 1962 to 1979 .......................... 45
6. The Saleh Regime, Survival and Self-Interest ..................... 59
7.Yemen, a Nation-State? ..................................................... 69
8. Conclusion, U.S. Interests and theYemens ........................ 89
Endnotes ............................................................................ 105

This text would be a valuable resource for historians, political scientists, socio-economic students, government students, and others interested in Yemen's history.