• Research
  • Strategic Europe
  • About
  • Experts
Carnegie Europe logoCarnegie lettermark logo
EUNATO
  • Donate
{
  "authors": [
    "Richard Sokolsky",
    "Jeremy Shapiro"
  ],
  "type": "legacyinthemedia",
  "centerAffiliationAll": "",
  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
  ],
  "collections": [],
  "englishNewsletterAll": "",
  "nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
  "primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
  "programAffiliation": "",
  "programs": [],
  "projects": [],
  "regions": [
    "North America",
    "United States",
    "Middle East",
    "Saudi Arabia",
    "Yemen"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Security",
    "Foreign Policy"
  ]
}

Source: Getty

In The Media

What a Real Review of U.S. Military Assistance to Saudi Arabia Would Say

The United States should understand that it holds most of the cards and that it can use military assistance, among other tools, to push Saudi policy in a direction that favorable to U.S. interests.

Link Copied
By Richard Sokolsky and Jeremy Shapiro
Published on Oct 26, 2016

Source: War on the Rocks

Americans have not paid much attention to the war In Yemen. With all eyes on Syria and the neo-Cold War rivalry there with Russia, Yemen did not come up at all in the presidential debates. Yet according to UN figures, the war has left 10,000 dead and 900,000 civilians displaced — and it arguably implicates the United States even more than the Syrian conflict.

The Saudi Arabian intervention in Yemen, which began in March 2015, has been aided and abetted from the beginning by the United States. U.S.-supplied military aircraft, refueled by U.S. tanker planes and directed by U.S. intelligence assets, are bombing Yemen almost daily with U.S.-made weapons....

This article was originally published by War on the Rocks.

Read the full article

About the Authors

Richard Sokolsky

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program

Richard Sokolsky is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. His work focuses on U.S. policy toward Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.

Jeremy Shapiro

Brookings Institution

Jeremy Shapiro is the research director and U.S. program director of ECFR. His areas of focus include U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations. Shapiro was previously a fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy and the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, where he edited the Foreign Policy program’s blog Order from Chaos. Prior to Brookings, he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, where he advised the secretary of state on U.S. policy in North Africa and the Levant. He was also the senior adviser to then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Philip Gordon, providing strategic guidance on a wide variety of U.S.-European foreign policy issues.

Authors

Richard Sokolsky
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program
Richard Sokolsky
Jeremy Shapiro
Brookings Institution
Jeremy Shapiro
SecurityForeign PolicyNorth AmericaUnited StatesMiddle EastSaudi ArabiaYemen

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

More Work from Carnegie Europe

  • Commentary
    Strategic Europe
    Trump Turns NATO into a Tool of Coercion

    The full list of humiliations Europe has endured since Donald Trump returned to the White House makes for grim reading. But Washington’s adversarial approach to its allies undermines its own power base.

      • Rym Momtaz

      Rym Momtaz

  • Climate desalination plant Saudi Arabia
    Paper
    Ecological Statecraft in the Midst of War: Water, Regeneration, and the Future of Gulf Security

    The U.S.-Iran war has crossed a dangerous threshold: water infrastructure in the Gulf is now a target. Ecological statecraft is no longer peripheral to security, it's part of its foundations.

      • Ali Bin Shahid

      Olivia Lazard, Ali Bin Shahid

  • Commentary
    Strategic Europe
    How the EU Can Become Energy Independent

    The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered a global energy crisis, but Europe is stuck in reaction mode. Without more strategic foresight, the EU will remain dependent on fossil fuels and will never be truly secure.

      Milo McBride, Pauline Gerard

  • Commentary
    Deciphering Europe’s Relationship with Turkey

    Debate is heating up on how Turkey could be integrated into a common European defense framework. Commercial and industrial deals offer a better chance at alignment than sweeping political efforts.

      Marc Pierini

  • Commentary
    Strategic Europe
    Taking the Pulse: Is it Worth it for Europeans to Placate Trump?

    After spending much of 2025 trying to placate Donald Trump, some European leaders are starting to change posture. But is even a hostile Washington still so important to Europe that the U.S. president’s outbursts are worth putting up with?

      • Rym Momtaz

      Rym Momtaz, ed.

Get more news and analysis from
Carnegie Europe
Carnegie Europe logo, white
Rue du Congrès, 151000 Brussels, Belgium
  • Research
  • Strategic Europe
  • About
  • Experts
  • Projects
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Privacy
  • For Media
  • Gender Equality Plan
Get more news and analysis from
Carnegie Europe
© 2026 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved.