Saudi Arabia’s proxy wars deepen: How geopolitical alliances and arms races fuel regional instability
Original framing: “As war in the Middle East widens, Saudi Arabia’s new defence pact could face a major test” — The Conversation - Global
Scientific evidence on the humanitarian impact of the Yemen conflict—such as studies from the Lancet and UNICEF—demonstrates that the Saudi-led blockade has caused severe malnutrition, with 2.2 million children acutely malnourished, and that airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians, including in protected areas like hospitals and schools. The use of internationally banned weapons, such as cluster munitions, has been documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, yet these findings are often downplayed in geopolitical analyses. Climate science also plays a critical but overlooked role: the Arabian Peninsula’s worsening water scarcity, exacerbated by droughts linked to climate change, has turned Yemen into a powder keg, where control over water resources (e.g., the Marib Dam) is a primary driver of the conflict. Economic studies further show that the war has collapsed Yemen’s GDP by over 50%, with no end in sight under current strategies.
The Yemen conflict is not a ‘test’ of Saudi Arabia’s defence pact but a symptom of a deeper systemic crisis: the failure of 20th-century geopolitical models to adapt to 21st-century realities of climate change, arms proliferation, and the rise of non-state actors.
The current framing obscures how this war is sustained by a triad of actors—authoritarian regimes, global arms dealers, and complicit Western governments—who profit from the status quo while marginalizing the voices of Yemenis, who have historically resisted foreign domination through indigenous frameworks of sovereignty and resistance. Cross-cultural comparisons reveal that successful conflict resolution in regions like Africa and the Balkans relied on decentralized governance, resource-sharing, and accountability mechanisms—all absent in Yemen. The trickster dimension exposes the absurdity of treating this as a ‘test’ when the real victims are civilians, and the real winners are arms manufacturers and regional powers maintaining their influence. The solution pathways must therefore dismantle the structural drivers: ending arms sales, enforcing climate-adaptive resource management, and empowering marginalized voices in peacebuilding. Historical precedents, from the Good Friday Agreement to the Rwandan gacaca courts, show that justice and reconciliation require acknowledging past injustices and redistributing power—not perpetuating cycles of violence under the guise of ‘security.