Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy

During the early months of the civil war, Yemen’s mountainous terrain was a particular challenge for the Egyptian army, which was equipped for desert warfare. By the beginning of 1963, Nasser had begun to employ a counterinsurgency strategy against royalist tribal armies that relied on Egypt’s overwhelming advantage in artillery and air power. Between 1963 and 1964, Egypt launched the Ramadan and Haradh offensives in an attempt to conquer northern territories, cut off royalist supply lines from Saudi Arabia, and create a buffer zone protecting the republic’s “strategic triangle” of Sana’a, Ta’iz and Hodeidah, Yemen’s three largest cities. Each Egyptian offensive was followed by internationally orchestrated diplomatic overtures that collectively failed as a consequence of royalist counterattacks that reversed Egyptian territorial successes and placed constraints on Nasser’s bargaining power in Yemen.

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