Air University Review, January-February 1969

Yemen: Disengagement In Protracted War

Dr. Joseph Churba

Although altered in character through Soviet intervention, the continuing Yemen conflict manifests the difficulties inherent in the quest for containment and disengagement of regional powers engaged in protracted war. What began as a civil war escalated rapidly into a war by proxy between the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.) and Saudi Arabia and threatened to escalate further into open confrontation between these regional powers notwithstanding the attendant risk of an East-West confrontation.

A unique feature of this conflict is its sharp contrast to the Communist-inspired “war of national liberation” characteristic of the revolutionary process in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For in the Yemen the newly emergent forces representing republicanism and social progress are concentrated in the major cities, while the monarchist, reactionary, and theocratic royalists have launched a successful counterrevolution from the countryside with the support of the rural population. Thus, we observe a “war of national liberation” in reverse but which nevertheless contains escalatory dangers inherent in all protracted wars. The object of this article, therefore, is to evaluate the major political and diplomatic efforts made to arrest the escalatory potential of this conflict and to determine their relevance to Egyptian military withdrawal from the Yemen.

Throughout the course of the conflict the continually shifting diplomatic positions of the protagonists reflected approximate battlefield conditions, and while diplomacy failed to effect disengagement it succeeded in restricting hostilities to the geographic confines of the Yemen. Accordingly, disengagement was the consequence not so much of political negotiations but rather the effect of strategic, military, and economic factors external to the dispute. In short, disengagement in this protracted war was a by-product in part of the six-day war in June 1967 between the Arab states and Israel.

The proximate cause of the Yemen—U.A.R. conflict was the arrival of Egyptian troops in the Yemen to support a palace coup by republican revolutionists on the night of 26 September 1962. Saudi Arabia, fearing the revolutionary upsurge on its borders, reacted by sending supplies and money to the pro-royalist forces behind the deposed Imam Muhammad al-Badr, who led the royalist counterrevolutionists. From the republican standpoint, Saudi assistance (never in the form of troops) constituted interference in the affairs of the Yemen. From the Saudi standpoint, the U.A.R. military presence on the Arabian peninsula constituted a threat to its monarchy and its oil fields.

From the standpoint of interested parties external to the conflict (the United States, the United Kingdom), a solution lay in the creation of some understanding whereby the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia would disengage from the civil war. Although this understanding was accomplished on 15 December 1967, the Soviet Union has carried out a massive emergency military airlift to the Yemen, including for the first time the use of Soviet Air Force pilots for combat missions. The effect of this has been to deny a royalist victory and motivate Saudi Arabia’s resumption of military aid to the royalist tribesmen.

That the conflict threatened to escalate beyond its geographic confines and transform itself from a war by proxy between the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia to one of direct confrontation was perceptible only after it was recognized that enough outside aid was going to the royalists to make it impossible for the U.A.R. to withdraw and for the Russians to regularize the situation. The Yemen appeared attractive to Soviet plans because of its location on the Red Sea opposite east Africa, about a thousand miles south of Cairo.¹ The Soviet construction of a modern jet airport for the Yemen was viewed by the U.S. with natural concern, for the U.S.S.R. could use it to develop access to east Africa, improve air connections with India, and open shorter routes across Africa to Latin America. The importance to the Soviet Union of an African air route was understood during the Cuban missile crisis.²

To the British, Egypt’s goal in the Yemen went beyond settlement of the civil war. This interest was evident late in the struggle from the attention Egypt was giving to the activities of the National Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen. The belief was that the U.A.R. sought to extend the Yemeni revolution to all of southern Arabia and bring about the collapse of the Federation of South Arabia, as it was then called. Moreover as was subsequently proven in the spring of 1964, the U.A.R. military presence in the peninsula posed a serious threat of extension of the conflict into Aden.³ The Aden base was regarded as necessary for the protection of British oil interests in the Persian Gulf and as a staging post for the Middle East, east Africa, and the Far East. British troops in Aden were considered necessary to meet treaty obligations to protect Muscat, Oman, the seven states of the Trucial Coast, Qatar, Bahrein, Kuwait, and the South Arabian Federation. In the British view, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian President of the U.A.R., sought to eliminate the British hold on Aden, which controlled the southern outlet to the Red Sea. If he could accomplish that aim, the whole British-protectoral Federation of South Arabia would collapse, opening his way to Oman and Kuwait. Such success would cement Nasser’s hold on the Yemen and force Saudi Arabia to come to terms with him. This would also constitute a giant step toward Arab unity and a step toward actual confrontation with Israel, for which Nasser claims Arab unification to be the primary condition.

From the outset the U.S. and Great Britain were in fundamental disagreement as to the scope and nature of the problem, and therefore they disagreed over the means by which to preserve Western influence in the Arabian Peninsula. Nevertheless, the two Western powers understood that the Yemeni civil war provided the Soviet Union with the unprecedented opportunity to pose as the champion of social change and progress at the relatively cheap price of supplying all the military hardware for the republicans. While all of this aid was channeled through the U.A.R., the U.S. declined to reduce its aid program to Egypt and decided not to intervene actively unless its primary interests in the Saudi oil fields were directly threatened. The internal stability of both Saudi Arabia and Jordan was considered tenuous, and the Kennedy Administration feared any move that might either jeopardize its access to oil or increase the risk of a pro-U.A.R. coup in Jordan, which in turn would trigger a clash with Israel. Therefore, the primary aim of the U.S. was to seek containment of the conflict and do everything possible to avert an open confrontation between the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. hoped to avert escalation by exchanging recognition of the republican regime for a withdrawal of Egyptian forces. In effect, it sought to condone the Egyptian intervention as the price for achieving a peaceful settlement that would result in a U.A.R military withdrawal.

This policy was foreshadowed by President Kennedy’s personal messages in November 1962 to the leaders involved: Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, Nasser of Egypt, and Abdullah al-Salal of the Yemen. Tile texts of these messages were never released, but according to the New York Times they “proposed as a first step that Egyptian troops withdraw from the republican side in Yemen and that Saudi Arabia and Jordan halt their material support of the royalist cause.” The implication was that U.S. recognition of the republican regime would then be in order.

Subsequently, in defending the recognition policy, Phillips Talbot, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian affairs, stated:

We realize that only by recognizing the regime could we play a useful role in preventing an escalation of the Yemen conflict causing even more foreign interference and placing in jeopardy major U.S. economic and security interests in the Arabian Peninsula.⁴

But the proposed solution, U.S. recognition, was contingent not on an accomplished and verified withdrawal but rather on a promise to withdraw.⁵ Prince Faisal increased aid to the royalists immediately, and it is left to further investigation whether Saudi Arabia and Jordan were consulted or were bound to cease their aid upon U.S recognition of the republican regime. In the circumstances, the U.S. decision eliminated the possibility of any official U.S. negotiations with the royalist government to seek a compromise between the two factions. The decision also sharply reduced any leverage Washington might otherwise have exercised through its aid program to Egypt.

While recognition was accorded by the U.S. on 19 December 1962, for three days beginning 30 December Soviet Ilyushin-28 bombers carried out heavy raids into Saudi territory directed against Najran, the major transit area for Saudi arms and supplies for the Yemeni royalist forces. Sharp protests from the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, and from Washington had no effect, and a week later Najran suffered another bomber attack that lasted throughout the day. It was obvious that the U.A.R. sought a military settlement before the actual withdrawal of its troops. Heavy attacks continued on Yemeni villages suspected of harboring royalist tribesmen or troops. Most probably, the bombing of Najran (in addition to interdicting traffic along the main road to the Yemen border) was calculated to test President Kennedy’s reflexes and the so-called “Pax Americana” in the Red Sea and South Arabia. The U.S. was told in Cairo and Washington that the U.A.R. wanted some sort of verification that Jordan and Saudi Arabia had ceased their aid to the royalists. This, of course, was impossible, for it assumed the full collaboration of both sides to the dispute. The Egyptians went further: their press and spokesmen stated that withdrawal would be undertaken only when it had been requested by the republican government.

Thus in the months following U.S. recognition the conflict was intensified on all fronts. The total Egyptian forces rose from 12,000 to an estimated 28,000, with a sharp increase of Russian and Soviet bloc personnel. Significantly, U.S. recognition of the republican regime was widely interpreted in Middle East countries, Arab and non-Arab alike, as a U.S. acknowledgment of Nasser’s right to send a large expeditionary force into a neighboring country.

The United Nations entered the Yemeni picture only after both sides recognized that the war had reached a stalemate. The U.S. proposal for disengagement, as originally put forward in President Kennedy’s letters of November, called for the U.N. to play a supporting role if and when necessary. It was not until late February of 1963, however, that Dr. Ralph Bunche, Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs in the U.N. Secretariat, was dispatched to the Middle East on a “fact-finding” mission. Interestingly enough, the Bunche mission was looked upon by U.N. officials more as an attempt to alleviate tensions than as an effort to prevent escalation.

At about the same time, Washington mounted a parallel drive to expedite U.N. intervention. After two or three weeks of secret and separate talks with Nasser, Faisal, and Salal (but not with the Yemeni royalists), special envoy Ellsworth Bunker obtained their agreement to a plan for a phased Egyptian withdrawal tied to cessation of Saudi aid to the royalists. Accordingly, on 8 April 1963 a draft of the agreement was initialed at the U.N. However, it was not until 10 June that the U.N. Security Council met to consider Secretary-General U Thant’s announced decision to send a U.N. observer mission to the Yemen. The Council adopted, by a vote of 10 to 0 (with the Soviet Union abstaining), a compromise solution, sponsored by Ghana and Morocco which noted “with satisfaction” Thant’s initiative and the agreement of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.R. to share equally the costs of the observer mission. The resolution urged the two countries to observe the disengagement agreement and requested the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on implementation. On 13 June the U.N. mission, led by Major General Carl Carlsson von Horn of Sweden, arrived in the Yemen to supervise the disengagement operation. It should be noted, however, that U Thant stated that he considered the operation to have officially begun only when observers were placed in Jizan on 4 July, almost three months after the parties signed the disengagement agreement.⁶

While it is true that the U.A.R. started to withdraw its forces in the early days of May 1963, the ships and planes that ferried troops to Egypt invariably returned with replacements in systematic rotation. Consequently, there was no net reduction of Egyptian forces in the Yemen, nor did Saudi Arabia fully terminate its aid to the royalists. During this time Yemeni republican President Salal sought to broaden Arab support for his cause by seeking admission into the newly proposed United Arab Republic. In June Salal, on an official visit to Cairo, reiterated his desire to join the U.A.R., but the Yemen was excluded from the Cairo unity talks between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Nasser was thought to be disinclined to involve Egypt in the Yemen’s vast economic difficulties. It was not until after Salal had secured Syrian and Iraqi endorsement for union that the U.A.R. on 17 June acceded to the Yemen request to join the proposed Arab Federal Union, and even then the Egyptian president specified that there would be no constitutional union until after Egyptian troops had been withdrawn from the Yemen.

Thus, both the royalists and republicans were using the interim period to shore up their respective military and political positions. Therefore, the hesitancy of the U.N. to act decisively to effect a disengagement at this juncture is indeed a factor to be considered in light of future evidence. While it cannot be stated at this time that the delay necessarily contributed to protraction of the conflict, it certainly did not enhance the prospect for peaceful settlement.

As events unfolded from July 1963 onward, the major weakness of the “Bunker agreement” appeared to be that it did not include any deadline for the withdrawal of U.A.R. forces or Saudi aid. This omission, coupled with U Thant’s emphasis in a later report to the Security Council that “fulfillment by one side is contingent on fulfillment by the other,” provided a self-renewing invitation to delay and evasion.

Another serious deficiency in the Bunker agreement was that it had never been agreed to or signed by the royalists. Thus the second-largest fighting force in the Yemen remained free to operate as it pleased. Its nonparticipation in the agreement provided the U.A.R. with the necessary excuse to remain in the Yemen: the right of self-defense against attacking forces that were not bound by the disengagement agreement.

At no time during the fourteen-month existence of the U.N. Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) did the Secretary-General express satisfaction with the terms of the mandate under which the mission operated. Quite the contrary, the mandate restricted UNYOM to observing, certifying, and reporting. In U Thant’s second report to the Security Council he stated:

. . . . that UNYOM, because of its limited size and function, can observe and certify only certain indications of the implementation of the disengagement agreement . . . as an intermediary and as an endorser of good faith on behalf of the parties concerned. I believe that within its severe limitations it has fulfilled this role very well and that certain improvements in the situation have been the result. I do not, however, believe that the solution of the problem, or even the fundamental steps which must be taken to resolve it, can ever be within the potential of UNYOM alone—and most certainly not under its existing mandate.⁷

This view, reiterated in subsequent reports, appears to substantiate, to a limited degree at least, the sweeping charge of gross incompetence and moral cowardice of U.N. headquarters by General von Horn, who resigned in late August 1963. He charged that U.N. observer teams were undermanned, discouraged, and short of rations and lacked sufficient aircraft to supply their remote outposts in the deserts and mountains. Important sectors of the proposed U.N. buffer zone along the Saudi-Yemen border, from which all military forces and equipment were to be excluded, had been under royalist control from the earliest days of the fighting. The Swedish chief of the U.N. mission could not send his men into these areas. He declared to a correspondent of the London Observer that he had been “expressly forbidden to make contact with the Royalists or even to acknowledge receipt of their letters . . .”From his first report addressed to the Security Council (4 September 1963), the Secretary-General freely admitted the failure of the U.N. mission to effect a disengagement. “It cannot be said at this stage that encouraging progress has been made toward effective implementation of the disengagement agreement . . . . No plan for phased withdrawal of U.A.R. troops has been received.” Nevertheless, he asked for and received permission to continue the observer mission for an additional twelve months, the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia agreeing to pay the operating costs of the mission.

It is important to stress that the observation operation undertaken was not financed as part of the regular United Nations budget. The Secretary-General arranged in advance that the costs were to be paid by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and it was on that basis that the Security Council passed resolution S. 5331 on 11 June 1963, with the Soviet Union abstaining. Had the U.N. been called upon to finance the operation, the Soviet Union would have vetoed the draft resolution. Inasmuch as the mission was totally dependent upon the mutual consent and the finances of the disputants, the mandate under which it operated was restricted. It was virtually impossible under those circumstances for the U.N. to achieve any degree of independence in relation to the national policies or the three governments directly concerned. Consequently, UNYOM had no authority to issue orders or directives. The parties themselves were solely responsible for fulfilling the terms of disengagement on which they had agreed.

The second Egyptian and Saudi agreement to disengage from the Yemen was concluded in direct negotiations between President Nasser and Prince Faisal in Alexandria on 5 September 1964, the same day that UNYOM began its withdrawal marking the end of its unsuccessful 14-month effort. The well-launched U.A.R. summer offensive against Muhammad al-Badr’s mountain stronghold had failed, and the momentum of the Egyptian summer offensive was spent. Five days before the Arab “summit conference” in Alexandria and four days before UNYOM was to wind up, Prince Faisal threatened to escalate the conflict by implying that he would send Saudi troops to help the royalists unless the U.A.R. agreed to withdraw. Following private talks on 12-13 September between Nasser, Faisal, Iraqi President Arif, and Algerian President Ben Bella, a joint Egyptian-Saudi communiqué announced an agreement “to fully co-operate in mediation with the concerned parties in order to reach a peaceful solution of all problems in Yemen” and to continue these efforts “until conditions stabilize there.” The first result of the agreement was a cease-fire which took effect 16 September 1964.⁸

While the details of the agreement were withheld, diplomatic sources with contacts in both delegations said the agreement provided for a seven-month armistice in the civil war and that simultaneous with the beginning of Egyptian withdrawal all Saudi support to the royalist tribesmen would cease. It was also understood that the agreement called for both of the opposing Yemeni factions to replace their leaders and that the Egyptians agreed to the formation of a new Yemen government which would include some royalists but no member of the Imam’s family. In addition, President Nasser and Prince Faisal were reported to have agreed on a joint force to police the borders between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The joint communiqué issued after the talks said that the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia would “undertake necessary contacts with the parties involved for a peaceful settlement.” This statement implied that each side was willing to accept peace without unconditional victory.

Nevertheless, this agreement, concluded in the shadow of the second summit conference of Arab kings and presidents, was not a settlement. It was an agreement to seek a settlement. What existed at this stage of the conflict was an armed truce brought about by the pressures of the summit conference, by the U.S., and by the fatigue of the disputants. The agreement therefore was convenient to both sides. It provided an opportunity for the U.A.R. to consolidate U. S. military and political position and for the royalists to force the U.A.R. into spending more of its dwindling financial reserves in the Yemen.

The first direct peace talks between Yemeni republican and royalist delegations were subsequently held at Erkhawit in the eastern Sudan on 1-3 November 1964. The preparatory committee agreed on the following terms:

(1) A cease-fire would come into force at 1:00 P.M. on 8 November 1964.

(2) A national congress would meet in a Yemeni town on 23 November to lay down the principles for settling existing differences through peaceful channels in order to maintain stability in the Yemen.

(3) The congress would consist of a chairman, 63 Ulema (Muslim religious teachers), 63 tribal leaders, and 42 military leaders and “men of experience,” in addition to 18 members of the preparatory committee.

(4) The congress would implement the preparatory committee’s decisions and would request the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia, jointly or separately, to help carry out the agreement.

The cease-fire came into effect on 8 November as arranged. This was considered a Faisal triumph, since it meant that Nasser was required to give de facto recognition to the Yemeni royalists and to acknowledge that the Egyptian Army could not subdue them. The proposed national congress, however, was indefinitely postponed when statements made by both sides demonstrated that the disputants were unable to agree on where the congress should meet and on the choice of delegates.

The Jidda Agreement of 24 August 1965 represented the third Saudi-Egyptian attempt at disengagement from the Yemen civil war. Between January and July 1965 the royalists had taken the offensive on all fronts, occupying large areas previously held by the republicans. The royalists’ successes were no doubt due to the increased military and financial aid which they received from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the principalities in the South Arabian Federation. A new factor was added to the struggle with the reports of large-scale Iranian aid to the royalists from February onward. On 30 July Le Monde reported that Iran had supplied the royalists with several light bombers and that they also had spent unlimited credits from non-Arab sources.⁹ To a considerable degree, the Algerian coup of June 1965 had sharpened the U.A.R. sense of isolation in the Arab world. Moreover, the virtual disintegration of the republican regime from within and the impetus given by the royalist issuance of a “national charter” designed to rally dissident republican support were added factors that prompted the U.A.R. to sign the agreement.¹⁰

More decisive perhaps were the pressures of dissatisfaction within Egypt which unexpectedly burst forth with the resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the establishment of the “Free Egypt” movement headquartered in Switzerland.¹¹ Most probably it was the new Soviet Ambassador Dimitri Pogdiaev who impressed upon Nasser the need to come to terms with King Faisal and also the desire to avoid strengthening the U.S. position in Saudi Arabia.¹² In the face of an increased danger of armed uprising, an immediate relief from the Yemen problem appeared necessary. To the Russians, preservation of the existing U.A.R. regime was a pressing matter in light of their decline in Iraq and Syria. If for their own sake alone they had to save Nasser and the Yemen, peace was the first step.

In these circumstances, Faisal informed Nasser of the terms he would exact, publicly and privately, prior to the latter’s arrival at Jidda. The terms of the Agreement were as follows:

(1) The People of the Yemen would decide the form of government they desired through a plebescite, to be held not later than 23 November 1966.

(2) The period until the plebescite would be considered a transitional period.

(3) With the cooperation of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.R., a conference of 50 representatives of all the national forces and leading personalities of Yemen would meet at Harad on 23 November 1965, to decide the system of government during the transitional period, form a provisional government, and determine the form and nature of the plebescite.

(4) Saudi Arabia and the U.A.R. undertook to respect the decisions of the Harad conference and to cooperate to ensure their successful implementation. They agreed to form a joint committee to organize the plebescite if the conference considered it necessary.

(5) Saudi Arabia would immediately stop military aid of all kinds and forbid the use of her territory for operations against the Yemen.

(6) The U.A.R. would withdraw all her forces from the Yemen within ten months beginning on 23 November 1965.

(7) Fighting in the Yemen would end immediately, and Saudi Arabia and the U.A.R. would form a joint peace commission to supervise the cease-fire and control the frontiers and posts. Food aid would continue under the commission’s supervision. The commission would be entitled to use all transport facilities within the Yemen and to move through Saudi territory if necessary.

(8) Saudi Arabia and the U.A.R. would form a joint force to be used by the commission where necessary to prevent any violation of the agreement or any action intended to obstruct it or provoke disorders.

(9) President Nasser and King Faisal would remain in direct contact to overcome any difficulties in carrying out the agreement.

The Egyptian President won time to cushion the shock of defeat: there was to be no fundamental change in the Yemen for three months. Withdrawal of U.A.R military forces would begin as of 23 November 1965 and be completed by 23 September 1966, two months prior to the Yemeni plebescite. Thus the inherently dangerous humiliation of a quick withdrawal was avoided. The agreement also offered a face-saving device for Salal to give up his office.

The accord was a shattering military and diplomatic setback to the U.A.R Nasser had given far-reaching undertakings about nonintervention in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. His long-declared demand that the royalists be excluded from any power was dropped in acknowledgment that the U.A.R. could neither kill the monarchy nor guarantee the republic.

The royalist regime announced on 25 August that it had ordered its forces to stop fighting but to maintain their positions pending the outcome of the Harad conference. While the U.A.R. pulled back its forces from the Saudi frontier, the Cairo press reported on 5 September that the U.A.R. had agreed to a joint Saudi-Egyptian force which would man the observation posts no later than 25 September. This force was to consist of an infantry brigade from each side and a fighter-bomber squadron, to be commanded by Saudi and Egyptian officers in alternate months.

In accordance with the Jidda Agreement, 25 Yemeni republicans and 25 royalists met at Harad on 23 November 1965, to discuss the nature of the plebescite on the future form of government and the formation of a provisional government. The U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia were each represented by two observers, while a Yemeni liaison committee comprising two republicans and two royalists acted as a link between the conference and the joint Saudi-Egyptian peace commission. However the Harad conference collapsed in a dispute over the name of the Yemeni state in which moderate royalists and republicans might combine. The royalists wanted a plain state of Yemen (not an imamate), but the republicans stood for a republic. The second main disagreement arose over the royalist demand for the immediate withdrawal of all U.A.R. forces from the Yemen, to be followed by a plebes cite as quickly as possible. The republicans raised no objection to a plebescite but argued that time was needed to arrange the evacuation of Egyptian troops.

Notwithstanding Al-Abram’s statement on 30 October that 10,000 troops would be withdrawn each month beginning 1 December and other indications that the Egyptian President was interested in a settlement, the royalists insisted on immediate U.A.R. withdrawal. The conference broke up 24 December, and while both sides agreed to reconvene on 20 February 1966 the meeting never took place.

Nevertheless, Egyptian forces regrouped and evacuated the northern and eastern Yemen in the early months of 1966, concentrating their force in the area between San’a, Hodeida, and Ta’izz. Adoption of this “enclave” strategy, designed to reduce both the size and cost of the expeditionary force, was subsequently confirmed by the Egyptian President in an address on 22 March.

Throughout this continued military and political stalemate, the split between the pro-Egyptian and moderate republicans had widened and intensified. Notwithstanding his earlier Egyptian orientation, the republican prime minister, General Hassan al-Amri, was brought into alliance with the moderate republicans headed by Ahmed Muhammad Noman, a former prime minister who had been ousted but a year earlier for pursuing a policy independent of U.A.R. direction.¹³

The main cause of friction had been U.A.R. insistence on controlling the Yemen’s foreign relations and finances, including all foreign aid to the Yemen. During Premier Kosygin’s visit to Cairo in May 1966 the U.A.R. government was said to have had to prevent General al-Amri from meeting with the Soviet leader, until the latter insisted on meeting with the general. Offers by the Soviet Union to arm and equip a republican army of 18,000 men and by East Germany to supply military equipment to the Yemen had been vetoed by the U.A.R. Similarly, a request by the Yemeni government for the release of Yemeni foreign exchange deposits retained in the Central Bank of the U.A.R. had been refused. Moreover, the moderate republicans had put forward in July 1966 a plan for peaceful settlement through direct negotiations between the royalists and republicans acting independently of the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia. It was proposed that a Supreme State Council and Consultative Assembly of 99 members should rule the country for a transitional period of one year, at the end of which the Assembly would determine the future form of government.

This plan was superseded by yet a fourth agreement for a peaceful settlement, reached between representatives of the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia at Kuwait on 19 August 1966. Although no details of the plan were published, unofficial reports indicated that it envisaged the formation of a transitional government, drawn from all Yemeni factions but with a republican majority, from which members of the former royal family would be excluded. For an interim period of ten months, the country would be known as the “State of Yemen,” thus avoiding use of the term “republic” or “imamate.” The Egyptian forces would be withdrawn during this period and replaced by a joint Arab force, which would supervise a plebescite on the final form of government. The agreement was never implemented, however, partly (it was reported) because both the republicans and the royalists resented the fact that they had not been consulted on it but mainly because the U.A.R. refused to withdraw its troops from the Yemen.

Thus, the moderate republican faction felt that the Yemen’s true interests were being subordinated to Egypt’s ambition in South Arabia, for the Egyptian-Saudi power confrontation loomed larger as the British confirmed their intention to withdraw from Aden. It was in these circumstances that President Salal’s return to San’a on 12 August from Cairo, where he had been living for almost a year, precipitated a crisis between the two factions. The crisis came to a head with the arrest on 16 September by the Egyptian Security Police of General al-Amri and Noman, along with other leading members of a 40-man delegation that had arrived in Cairo on 12 September to demand that Salal be permanently exiled. On that same day San’a radio announced that President Salal had accepted the “resignation” of General al-Amri and assumed the premiership. He violently denounced the “professional politicians, deviationists, hypocrites, and traitors who had attempted to sow dissension between Yemen and the U.A.R.” Through his foreign ministry, Salal announced his wholehearted support for the Egyptian-backed National Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen. This was the first time that the republican government openly supported this front.

The change of government was followed by a sweeping and bloody purge of the Yemeni armed forces and the administration.

As a result of these repressive measures, many republicans fled to the mountainous country and others into Saudi Arabia, where they organized the Union of Popular Forces under the leadership of Ibrahim al-Wazir, a member of a powerful family opposed to the imamic dynasty. On 31 December he claimed that fighting was now virtually between Egyptians and Yemenis regardless of their former loyalty.

The Yemen conflict reached its decisive turning point with the outbreak of war between Israel and the U.A.R. on 5 June 1967. Egypt was reported to have withdrawn 15,000 men, 150 tanks, and all its heavy artillery from the Yemen during the week of 5-12 June. (Estimates of the number of Egyptian troops in Yemen before this withdrawal varied between 40,000 and 70,000.) Egyptian garrisons were withdrawn from the towns of Haja, Harad, and the port of Maidi in the northwest (70 miles from San’a) and from Harib. While the royalists subsequently occupied these areas, an Egyptian counteroffensive regained much of this lost ground in July.

Confronted with the massive and humiliating defeat by the Israelis and their occupation of Egyptian soil, the U.A.R. delegation to the Khartoum conference of Arab foreign ministers, 1-6 August 1967, proposed the reactivation of the Jidda Agreement as the basis for a peaceful settlement of the Yemen conflict.¹⁴

In a personal meeting between President Nasser and King Faisal resulting from Sudanese mediation in Khartoum, the Saudi leader agreed to pay $120 million a year to Egypt (as part of a $378-million subvention provided also by Libya and Kuwait), to continue as long as the Suez Canal remained closed.¹⁵ This arrangement was naturally contingent on U.A.R. withdrawal from the Yemen. Significantly, the Jidda proposal for a plebescite had been dropped. The withdrawal was supervised by Morocco, Iraq, and the Sudan and was completed on 15 December 1967.

The arrangement was vigorously denounced by President Salal, who shortly thereafter was ousted in a republican coup,¹⁶ which has yet to come to terms with the royalists. Russia has since assumed a paramount position with its direct involvement in the affairs of the Yemen.

The Yemen conflict demonstrates that, notwithstanding the relaxation of cold war tensions in Europe, there is no Soviet accommodative spirit in this region. On the contrary, despite its lack of strategic mobility and amphibious capability, the Soviet Union has directly intervened in the civil war in order at least to guarantee the survival of the republican regime. This decision undoubtedly is related to the increased deployment of Soviet naval power in the Mediterranean, the decision to reactivate the Soviet marine corps, and the effort to develop an “amphibious” capability as part of the development of a strategy of “flexible response” designed to create an environment in which wars of “national liberation” can be more actively encouraged. In effect, the Soviets have gained ascendancy within the republican camp and seek to fulfill the role Egypt has abandoned. In doing so, they have abandoned a tacit refrainment from superpower intervention and have discounted fears of American counter-intervention and possible escalation. Thus, in the absence of coordination, the ability of the two superpowers to coerce their client states (the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia) was extremely limited. Moreover, the U.S. and Great Britain failed decisively to coordinate their policies except on the minimum objective of nonintervention. While the U.S. extended recognition to the republicans, the British steadfastly refused to do so. When its recognition failed to achieve the intended purpose of disengagement, the U.S. strove for containment through a policy of inaction on the assumption that inasmuch as Egypt lacked the physical resources for protracted war, it would sooner or later, of its own accord, disengage.

At no time did the Western powers seek to attempt a sea blockade, arms embargo, or economic sanctions as a means to prevent escalation or force disengagement. Thus, given the U.A.R.--Saudi stalemate and the absence of superpower and Western coordination, the circumstances permitted the dissident protagonists on both sides to acquire a degree of political flexibility in their relations with their respective sponsors. The republicans were weakened by dissension between the supporters of Salal, who was backed by the U.A.R., and his opponents, who advocated the ending of foreign aid for both sides and a negotiated peace settlement. The dissident republicans enjoyed wide support among the tribal leaders, the trading class, and the intellectuals. Undoubtedly, an awareness that the revolution had been lost to great power and regional rivalry had prompted the moderate republicans to put forward in July 1966 a plan for a peace settlement through direct negotiations between republicans and royalists acting independently of the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabia. Although contact had not yet been established with the royalists, the growing support which the plan had received among republicans was reported to have been responsible for the U.A.R. decision to allow President Salal to return, despite General al-Amri’s vigorous opposition.

While this dissent had reflected and weakened the overall republican position, it was insufficient in itself to overcome the necessity for deference to Egyptian prestige that a disengagement presupposed. From the moment Egyptian troops first landed in the Yemen, any republican-royalist understanding at the expense of Egyptian prestige was prohibitive. For the U.A.R. as the vanguard of Arab republicanism had, after all, expended substantial human and financial resources in a war that was never popular at home. Any Egyptian withdrawal without having accomplished the minimum objective of guaranteeing the republican form of government was bound to have severe adverse consequences. The credibility of Egyptian leadership would have been challenged, giving added impetus to the forces of conservatism led by Arab monarchs and also to the more radical if not volatile Syrian Baathists. How the U.A.R. fared in the Yemen therefore was considered central to its position as the leading revisionist power in the Arab world.

The Egyptians, however, had badly miscalculated in their intelligence estimates prior to their intervention. They failed to evaluate correctly the time, the possible fields of battle, and the attitude of the local population.¹⁷ Their unawareness of the pitfalls of protracted conflict was underlined by the speed of their intervention, which assumed a quick and decisive victory. Even after it was clear that enough outside aid was going to the royalists to at least guarantee the possibility of a protracted war, the Egyptians failed to revise their goals or broaden their options for disengagement. The fighting thus followed the classic pattern of a large, well-equipped force attempting to subdue a mountain-based guerrilla force working in small units with primitive weapons. As it developed, the fighting centered in the unfamiliar terrain, and the Egyptian army was unable to force a decision before the first winter as had been expected. Moreover, resorting to dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilian targets in the hope of breaking the royalists’ will to resist had the opposite effect. Certainly the intensity of the conflict was dramatized with the issuance of a statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross confirming that poison gas had been used in U.A.R. bombing operations against civilians in the Yemen. Thus, as time progressed, the conflict increased in intensity, for no agreement was concluded between the combatants restricting the use by type of military weapons, demilitarization, sanctuaries, target restrictions, or zonal disengagements.

The conflict has demonstrated the limits of Egyptian power and the dangers of miscalculation and overextension. It has confirmed the basic principle that foreign policy objectives must be adjusted to the harsh realities of limited resources and that failure to do so invites hazardous consequences. Equally important, the conflict has shown that, unlike Cairo and Damascus, the towns in the Yemen were not the focal points of political power. From another standpoint, the results affirm that the unconventional war doctrines of Mao Tse-tung are not the exclusive option of the left

In the final analysis, the U.A.R. decision to disengage was due to military, economic, and. strategic factors external to the conflict. Each political arrangement to disengage reflected the different stages of the conflict, the net effect of which was no more than to serve as an expedient pause before resumption of hostilities. The U.A.R. military withdrawal from the Yemen should therefore be understood in light of the more catastrophic defeat suffered in its conflict with Israel. This extreme circumstance provided U.A.R. the necessary condition for disengagement without realizing the minimum objective. The Jidda Agreement was thus nothing more than a convenient face-saving device for withdrawal. Had it not existed, a similar arrangement would have been concluded to effect disengagement. Thus, while diplomacy has succeeded in arresting the escalatory potential of this conflict, even if temporarily (for the U.S. has not challenged the recent direct Soviet intervention), diplomacy has proven of limited value in effecting a solution through disengagement

Aerospace Studies Institute

Notes

1. On 10 June 1962 Izvestia published a map showing a proposed air route from India to Madagascar via the Yemen.

2. Guinea refused permission to land planes en route to Cuba with personnel and supplies. This action helped the U.S. naval quarantine of Cuba. Guinea, Algeria, and Morocco were pressured to let the Soviet commercial airline Aeroflot land on flights to Havana. Ethiopia and Somalia had been urged to permit Soviet planes to land and proceed along the east coast of Africa. Sudan, which permits Soviet planes to land and fly westward, had been asked to let planes fly south from Khartoum. None of these states has acceded to the Soviet request.

3. Oil and strategic real estate in South Arabia brought Great Britain and the Yemen and the U.A.R. to a confrontation in the spring of 1964. A long series of incidents on the frontier between the Yemen and the South Arabian Federation, characterized by frequent Yemeni incursions into Federal territory, led to a British air attack on Harib fort (28 March 1964) just inside the Yemen frontier in retaliation for a series of raids on Beihan State, a member of the South Arabian Federation. Similarly, throughout 1964 and 1965 military operations continued at intervals against dissident tribesmen in Jebel Radfan area of Dhala State, who were alleged by the Federal authorities to be receiving arms and support from the Yemeni republican authorities. British military operations succeeded in securing the main 90-mile Dhala-Aden trade route, but at the same time diplomatic and political efforts were made to speed measures to advance South Arabia’s independence.

4. Letter to Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, Congressional Record, Senate, July 30, 1965, p.12902.

5. Philip Horton, “Our Yemen Policy: Pursuit of a Mirage,” The Reporter, October 24, 1963, pp. 29-34.

6. Successful Baathist Socialist coups in Iraq (8 February) and Syria (8 March), both of which countries appeared favorably disposed to unity with U.A.R., were of considerable importance and required a settlement of the Yemen crisis. The coups in Baghdad and Damascus were the first successful seizures of power by the Baath party in the Arab world, and that party was Nasser’s first ally outside Egypt. In addition, on 28 March 1968 the Jordanian premier Wasfi al-Tal submitted his resignation to King Hussein; this was considered Jordan’s first step toward disengagement from the royalist cause. On 17 April, Iraq, Syria, and the U.A.R. signed an agreement in Cairo which provided for the establishment of a new tripartite federation to be known as the United Arab Republic, which other “independent Arab republics” would be able to join. Three days later, in the wake of violent pro-Nasser rioting throughout Jordan demanding union with U.A.R., Premier Samir al-Rifai failing to win a vote of confidence, resigned. The Israeli position (stated earlier on 30 November 1962) that a pro-Nasser regime in Amman would be considered a casus belli no doubt restrained Nasser, who, with 28,000 troops in Yemen, did not press the Jordan insurrection to its successful conclusion. Thus by April. when the disengagement agreement was initiated and the Soviet Union had given its tacit consent to the U Thant formula, the republican cause in the Yemen appeared to be favored.

7. Official Records of the Security Council, Eighteenth Year, Document S. 5447.

8. New York Times, September 15, 1964; The Economist, London, September19, 1964.

9. The ex-Imam’s family and the Zaidi tribes of northern Yemen, like the Iranians, are Shi’ite Muslims, whereas the Shafi’is of southern Yemen are Sunni Muslims like the Egyptians.

10. The “national charter” demanded withdrawal of U.A.R. forces and promised to establish a constitutional monarch. After the death of the present Imam, future Imams would be elected, and there would be a Council of Ministers with executive powers and a nominated Consultative Assembly. The charter also promised a general amnesty, equality before the law, and freedom of speech within the limits of the law and Islamic belief.

11. Resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the “Free Egypt” movement headquartered in Switzerland were of serious concern in the summer and fall of 1965. Armed attacks against police stations took place simultaneously in widely spaced districts. On the night of 1 September Brotherhood units attacked the Cairo Broadcasting Station, the headquarters of the Egyptian High Command, the Central Telegraph Office, and the Helwan Experimental Workshops--the center for Egypt’s missile construction since January 1965. Some 2867 Egyptians belonging to the Brotherhood, the Free officers, and members of the Liberation Movement had been arrested. This figure includes 417 officers arrested in the Yemen for meeting and brought to the U.A.R. for trial.

12. Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, September 3 and October 27, 1965.

13. In the spring of 1965, the newly formed Noman cabinet moved quickly to assert its independence from the U.A.R. by making peace overtures with Arabia and the British in South Arabia. Without checking with Cairo, the Norman government sent a delegation to Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon to make indirect contact with the Saudi government. In a gesture of conciliation with Great Britain, it dropped the portfolio of  “Minister for the Occupied South Yemen Affairs,” and U.A.R. advisors no longer attended cabinet meetings. In seeking a reconciliation with Arabia and Great Britain, the Noman government obviously sought an independent course from the U.A.R. In a showdown with the U. A. R. and President Salal, the Noman government resigned on 1 July. The Guardian (Manchester), April 19 and May 31,1965. New York Times, June 1, 1965.

14. Al-Ahram, August 2, 1967.

15. New York Times, August 24,1967.

16. Interview with Agence France Presse, August 16, 1967.

17.  “Egypt’s Problems in the Yemen,” New Outlook, Vol. 6, No.6 (52), pp.12-14.

Dr. Joseph Churba (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a member of the Documentary Research Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, and of the faculty, Air University. He was formerly Senior Middle East Specialist for the Office of National Security Studies and has served as Professor of Government at both the University of Winnipeg, Canada, and Adelphi University. Dr. Churba has contributed articles to Military Review and Ideas and is coauthor of The Jewish Stake in Vietnam (1967). His book entitled Egypt and Israel in Africa will be published in 1969.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.