Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and cofounder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to Iran-backed militias.
Articles & Testimony
President Saleh's solution to Yemen's "civil-military problematic" (to borrow Peter Feaver's phrase) was to build powerful praetorian units and place his relatives in command of them, a counterproductive approach that ultimately increased the risk that Saleh faced. During Yemen's Arab Spring uprisings, sections of the armed forces not controlled by his 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...
