The Missile War in Yemen

JUNE 2020

The Missile War in Yemen

AUTHORS

Ian Williams Shaan Shaikh A Report of the CSIS Missile Defense Project

JUNE 2020

e Missile War in Yemen

AUTHORS

Ian Williams Shaan Shaikh A Report of the CSIS Missile Defense Project

About CSIS

e Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world's greatest challenges.

omas J. Pritzker was named chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 2015, succeeding former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA). Founded in 1962, CSIS is led by John J. Hamre, who has served as president and chief executive officer since 2000.

CSIS's purpose is to define the future of national security. We are guided by a distinct set of values--nonpartisanship, independent thought, innovative thinking, cross-disciplinary scholarship, integrity and professionalism, and talent development. CSIS's values work in concert toward the goal of making real-world impact.

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CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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Acknowledgments

e authors would like to thank all CSIS Missile Defense Project team members, past and present, who have supported e Missile War in Yemen research effort over the past five years, including Wes Rumbaugh, Masao Dahlgren, Mike Dyer, Phil Heaver, Brittany Pohl, and Jenevieve Molenda. We would also like to thank all those who reviewed this work for their invaluable insights and feedback and give a special thank you to Tom Karako for his long-standing support. is report is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this report.

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Methodology

e foundation of this study is the CSIS Missile Defense Project's running effort to track and classify missile and missile defense-related incidents in the Yemen conflict. CSIS has continuously monitored these events since the Arab coalition's intervention in March 2015.1

e CSIS data set for e Missile War in Yemen is primarily curated from open-source media reports. e most common sources include the Saudi Press Agency, Kuwait News Agency, Emirates News Agency, and Al-Arabiya as well as Houthi sources such as AlMasirah and Saba News. ese sources are subject to biases and distortions, requiring the research team's judgment for classification.

International news outlets such as Reuters, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal occasionally report on missile activity in Yemen. In general, these reports rely on coalition statements rather than independent field reporters.

e research team has drawn data from other institutions that track events in Yemen. e United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen was given access to Saudi radar data in 2017 that helped confirm some (but not all) missile events up to and including that year. e American Enterprise Institute's Critical reats Project provides compilations of Yemen news updates, and their analysis often includes missile events gathered from local media. Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8 were produced using SMARTset, a modeling and simulations tool for air and missile defense analysis.

Terminology

is study generally classifies missile events in two ways: strikes and intercepts. Strikes include incidents in which a rocket, ballistic missile, cruise missile, or unmanned aerial vehicle completes its flight and lands on or in the vicinity of its apparent target. ese include incidents that may not have resulted in a loss of life or property damage. Intercepts refer to events in which a defensive system prevents an enemy missile from completing its flight. In some cases, an intercepted missile can still cause damage due to falling debris. Failed launches of projectiles are not included in the data set.

is report uses the term "engagement" to refer to when a defense system acts against an enemy projectile, regardless of whether that action resulted in a successful intercept.

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