4 ms·

I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable

I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable by the government. How do they get money for arms? Where do the arms come from? Why is the government unable to exert any realistic control within their own borders? I know its a complex political problem, but I still don't get how in 2023 we still have warlords and quasi-states like this. Is the government of Yemen so incompetent they can't exert any control over these areas? I would believe that, to be honest. I'm simply baffled is all.

alephnerd 3y ago
> How do they get money for arms? Where do the arms come from? Why is the government unable to exert any realistic control within their own borders In the Houthi's case, they're a clan. The entire clan pitched in because they were persecuted under Saleh - businessmen, service men, low level govenenent officials, etc. Familial and Clan traditons are still a thing.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Middle East politics have always felt beyond my understanding. I know we (as in western countries, specifically the US and the UK, but also others) contributed greatly to this mess (and still do to this day, in multiple ways). That said, at some point, you expect things to normalize, because fundamentally people should be conflict adverse, however, it seems this region has an unusually high rate of conflicts that aren't strictly due to massive government failing in succession, since it appears Middle Eastern governments have been in power a long time (thus, can establish a relative order) but seem unable to control their own country within their own borders still. Which i suppose is indeed government failure, just of a different nature than one would typically imagine (IE, losing total control)
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Clan dynamics aren't only a Middle Eastern thing. They happen in every culture or society where family ties matter. For example, Guangdong's rise in electronics assembly thanks to Cantonese business families in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore investing in Taiwan and then co-investing in Guangdong. > it appears Middle Eastern governments have been in power a long time Most are stable. Aside from Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen they are humming along. > people should be conflict adverse People are conflict adverse. The issue is a states like Yemen, Syria, and Iraq just straight up imploded and collapsed, so people reverted to family relations. If you ever wondered what the world would look like after the apocalypse, it doesn't look like Fallout or The Last of Us - it looks like Yemen, Syria, Nepal, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      ^ edit to above Cantonese business families (eg. Shiniwatra/Qiu) in Thailand/HK/SG/MY investing in factories in Guangdong Hokkien business families (eg. Tan Kah Kee, like the chem building at UC Berkeley by Evan's Hall) in SG/MY investing in Taiwan and then coinvesting with Taiwanese in Guangdong Teochew business families (eg. Chearavanont/Xie, Li Ka Shing, etc) in TH/SG/MY investing in Guangdong
  - twic 3y ago
    It's not necessarily driven by anything internal. Lots of parts of the Middle East are globally significant, because of oil and gas production and the Suez canal route. That means that they attract a lot of external meddling. For example, Iran is backing the Houthis with weapons, technology, and money. The United States has done various bits of meddling too, both supportive and not. If you pour the means of conflict into a region, you will tend to get more conflict there.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Familial and Clan traditons are still a thing. I think that most W.E.I.R.D. (Western) people don't realize how much the rest of the world (for better or worse) still runs on kin-based rules. Good book going over the strangeness of the 'Western' world in many respects: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-henrich-weird-people/615496/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-... * https://archive.ph/e7DJX https://archive.ph/e7DJX
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    I'd disagree that a relativist argument like Henrich's would hold in this case. Clans as a societal unit was a thing in the West as well. For example, it was a major reason for the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, the Irish independence movement was organized thanks to the clan system in the 19th and early 20th century, etc. Clans as a societal unit disappeared in Western Europe when the Nuclear Family became the primary unit around the 19th-20th century
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - imbnwa 3y ago
      Every aristocracy and top 1% strata in the world is a clan system, the Windsors are a clan, its simply seen as primitive when people who aren’t either of those do it
jltsiren 3y ago
It often happens because the country never made any sense. There used to be two Yemens caught between the Ottomans and the British. The North became an independent kingdom and then a republic, while the South was first a British protectorate and then a communist state. Both had civil wars, and there were at least two wars between the two. When communism fell in Europe, the two Yemens unified and had a civil war. Then there were a couple of decades of uneasy peace before the current war.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  4 Yemens not 2 Aden Colony was it's own thing until the emergency. Basically an middle eastern Hong Kong or Singapore The southern Emirates were their own thing until the late 60s Hadhramut was it's own protectorate until 1967. North Yemen (where the Houthis are from) was in the midst of a civil war between Commies and Zaidis. The Commies won, but the Zaidis got the last laugh by overthrowing Saleh and starting the Houthi movement.
hackerlight 3y ago
> I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable by the government. Every "country" was once like this, it was the norm not the exception. Look at Feudal Japan for example. The nation-state is a modern invention (it's a social construct with associated institutions to enforce it) that requires a bunch of preconditions that obviously aren't going to hold up if you apply enough stress. It doesn't help that the national boundaries of many countries in the Middle East were drawn up arbitrarily after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. These aren't naturally emerging countries. They're arbitrary borders that contain warring tribes within those borders. Such as the Kurds who are split up among 3 countries.
nradov 3y ago
Much of the arms are smuggled in from Iran. The Iranians use the Houthis as proxies to harass their enemies in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Several arms shipments have been intercepted in recent years but others are getting thought; it's impossible to stop and search every vessel in such a busy shipping channel.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
>I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable by the government. How do they get money for arms? Where do the arms come from? Why is the government unable to exert any realistic control within their own borders? The global reality is no government on earth can control a majority of the population without their consent. Every aspect of government control relies humans, and if they refuse to participate, you need other humans to make them.

alephnerd 3y ago

> How do they get money for arms? Where do the arms come from? Why is the government unable to exert any realistic control within their own borders In the Houthi's case, they're a clan. The entire clan pitched in because they were persecuted under Saleh - businessmen, service men, low level govenenent officials, etc. Familial and Clan traditons are still a thing.

no_wizard 3y ago
Middle East politics have always felt beyond my understanding. I know we (as in western countries, specifically the US and the UK, but also others) contributed greatly to this mess (and still do to this day, in multiple ways). That said, at some point, you expect things to normalize, because fundamentally people should be conflict adverse, however, it seems this region has an unusually high rate of conflicts that aren't strictly due to massive government failing in succession, since it appears Middle Eastern governments have been in power a long time (thus, can establish a relative order) but seem unable to control their own country within their own borders still. Which i suppose is indeed government failure, just of a different nature than one would typically imagine (IE, losing total control)
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Clan dynamics aren't only a Middle Eastern thing. They happen in every culture or society where family ties matter. For example, Guangdong's rise in electronics assembly thanks to Cantonese business families in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore investing in Taiwan and then co-investing in Guangdong. > it appears Middle Eastern governments have been in power a long time Most are stable. Aside from Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen they are humming along. > people should be conflict adverse People are conflict adverse. The issue is a states like Yemen, Syria, and Iraq just straight up imploded and collapsed, so people reverted to family relations. If you ever wondered what the world would look like after the apocalypse, it doesn't look like Fallout or The Last of Us - it looks like Yemen, Syria, Nepal, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    ^ edit to above Cantonese business families (eg. Shiniwatra/Qiu) in Thailand/HK/SG/MY investing in factories in Guangdong Hokkien business families (eg. Tan Kah Kee, like the chem building at UC Berkeley by Evan's Hall) in SG/MY investing in Taiwan and then coinvesting with Taiwanese in Guangdong Teochew business families (eg. Chearavanont/Xie, Li Ka Shing, etc) in TH/SG/MY investing in Guangdong
- twic 3y ago
  It's not necessarily driven by anything internal. Lots of parts of the Middle East are globally significant, because of oil and gas production and the Suez canal route. That means that they attract a lot of external meddling. For example, Iran is backing the Houthis with weapons, technology, and money. The United States has done various bits of meddling too, both supportive and not. If you pour the means of conflict into a region, you will tend to get more conflict there.
throw0101b 3y ago
> Familial and Clan traditons are still a thing. I think that most W.E.I.R.D. (Western) people don't realize how much the rest of the world (for better or worse) still runs on kin-based rules. Good book going over the strangeness of the 'Western' world in many respects: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-henrich-weird-people/615496/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-... * https://archive.ph/e7DJX https://archive.ph/e7DJX
- alephnerd 3y ago
  I'd disagree that a relativist argument like Henrich's would hold in this case. Clans as a societal unit was a thing in the West as well. For example, it was a major reason for the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, the Irish independence movement was organized thanks to the clan system in the 19th and early 20th century, etc. Clans as a societal unit disappeared in Western Europe when the Nuclear Family became the primary unit around the 19th-20th century
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - imbnwa 3y ago
    Every aristocracy and top 1% strata in the world is a clan system, the Windsors are a clan, its simply seen as primitive when people who aren’t either of those do it

jltsiren 3y ago

It often happens because the country never made any sense. There used to be two Yemens caught between the Ottomans and the British. The North became an independent kingdom and then a republic, while the South was first a British protectorate and then a communist state. Both had civil wars, and there were at least two wars between the two. When communism fell in Europe, the two Yemens unified and had a civil war. Then there were a couple of decades of uneasy peace before the current war.

alephnerd 3y ago
4 Yemens not 2 Aden Colony was it's own thing until the emergency. Basically an middle eastern Hong Kong or Singapore The southern Emirates were their own thing until the late 60s Hadhramut was it's own protectorate until 1967. North Yemen (where the Houthis are from) was in the midst of a civil war between Commies and Zaidis. The Commies won, but the Zaidis got the last laugh by overthrowing Saleh and starting the Houthi movement.

hackerlight 3y ago

> I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable by the government. Every "country" was once like this, it was the norm not the exception. Look at Feudal Japan for example. The nation-state is a modern invention (it's a social construct with associated institutions to enforce it) that requires a bunch of preconditions that obviously aren't going to hold up if you apply enough stress. It doesn't help that the national boundaries of many countries in the Middle East were drawn up arbitrarily after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. These aren't naturally emerging countries. They're arbitrary borders that contain warring tribes within those borders. Such as the Kurds who are split up among 3 countries.

nradov 3y ago

Much of the arms are smuggled in from Iran. The Iranians use the Houthis as proxies to harass their enemies in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Several arms shipments have been intercepted in recent years but others are getting thought; it's impossible to stop and search every vessel in such a busy shipping channel.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

>I for the life of me can't figure out how countries end up in situations where a large subset of said population is not only armed by effectively uncontrollable by the government. How do they get money for arms? Where do the arms come from? Why is the government unable to exert any realistic control within their own borders? The global reality is no government on earth can control a majority of the population without their consent. Every aspect of government control relies humans, and if they refuse to participate, you need other humans to make them.