The Military Role in Yemen's Protests: Civil-Military Relations in the Tribal Republic

Saleh's solution to ‘the civil-military problematic’ (to borrow Peter Feaver's phrase) was to build powerful praetorian units and place his relatives in command of them, a counter-productive approach that ultimately increased the risk that Saleh faced. During Yemen's Arab Spring uprisings, sections of the armed forces not controlled by President Ali Abd'allah Saleh's siblings and cousins sought to ride the wave of popular revolt and emerge as a cohesive power-base in the post-Saleh period. To achieve these aims the military establishment made a conscious effort to let the tribes and civil society activists lead the assault on the Saleh government.