Supplying Stalemates: The Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers to Violent Non-State Actors

Thomas C. Kerr

A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Chapel Hill 2021

Approved By: Navin A. Bapat Mark J. Crescenzi Anna Bassi

© 2021 Thomas C. Kerr ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ii ABSTRACT Thomas C. Kerr: Supplying Stalemates: The Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers to Violent Non- State Actors (Under the direction of Navin A. Bapat)

State sponsorship of Violent Non-State Actors (VNSAs) has been shown to prolong intra- state conflicts and increase the probability that intra-state conflicts escalate into inter-state wars.

Previous academic studies have examined the logic underpinning state sponsorship but the study of the varying levels of support to different VNSAs states provide has not been fully explored.

This study adds to the existing literature by demonstrating at what magnitude states will aid

VNSAs under differing circumstances, specifically the lethality of arms supplied. Through the examination of three case studies, I determine that the primary determining factor is the ex-ante probability that the VNSA will be able to perpetuate the conflict. Significant to this study is the finding that VNSAs that are facing elimination may become the most dangerous in terms of weaponry capabilities as state sponsors provide more lethal armaments in an attempt to prolong the conflict.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1

The Logic of State Sponsorship…………………………………………………………. 2

Case Studies………………………………………………………………………….…. 10

Background on Iranian Foreign Policy…………………………….…………… 10

Yemeni Houthis………………………………………………………………… 13

Lebanese …………………………………………………………….. 16

Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah…………………………………………………………. 17

Policy Relevance………………………………………………………………………... 20

Future Research…………………………………………………………………...... 20

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….... 21

References…………………………………………………………………………….… 22

iv

INTRODUCTION

In August 25th, 2019, Yemeni Houthis launched ten ballistic missiles into southern Saudi

Arabia targeting the Jizan airport. The attack killed and wounded dozens, both civilian and military (Heinrich, 2019). The Jizan attack is an indicator of the evolution of the over six-year- old Yemeni conflict being fought by the Houthis and the Saudi led coalition that backs the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Hadi. Over the past three years the

Houthis have begun to target sites within proper, showing a willingness and capacity to take the fight across the Saudi border (Al-Jazeera, 2019). The Jizan attack marked a clear advancement in Houthi long-range targeting capabilities evolving the conflict from an intra-state civil war into a fledgling inter-state conflict.

According to a Security Council report to the United Nations Secretary

General regarding the implementation of Security Council resolution 2231 (2015), which explicitly bans Iranian arms transfers, the weapons used in the August 25th attack where undoubtedly of Iranian origin (UNSC S/2019/934, 2019). is the Houthis’ largest supporter and is the main supplier of sophisticated weaponry to the group (CIA, 2021). Though both Iran and the Houthis are Shia, Iran does not support the Houthis for ideological reasons, rather Iran’s support is part of its regional strategic policy objectives, namely weakening the Saudi regime

(Juneau & Razavi, 2013; Ostovar, 2019). The civil war in has become the front line in a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional dominance in the Middle East with the

Houthis being delegated the role of proxy. In the contestation for regional supremacy, Iran

1 currently does not have the capabilities to effectively confront Saudi Arabia directly; Iran must employ tactics that will weaken its adversary without escalating the conflict into a direct kinetic confrontation hence Iranian support for the Yemeni Houthis.

Beginning in March of 2015 Saudi Arabia began a campaign within Yemen to reestablish the internationally recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Until this point, the Yemeni conflict was a contestation between the legitimate government located in

Salah and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels; Saudi Arabia only limitedly involved itself in the conflict via modest financial and arms transfers to Hadi’s forces (Allen, Burgess, Hubbard,

Marcus, Peçanha, & Lai, 2016). During the initial stage of the conflict Iran was able to achieve its strategic objective of creating unrest in the region through small-scale arms transfers to the

Houthis. Once Saudi Arabia became actively involved, the ability of the Houthis to continue the conflict was jeopardized. Accordingly, Iran began to provide increased arms capabilities to the

Houthis in order to achieve its goal of prolonging the conflict. The relative support provided by

Iran lays at the heart of this study.

This study will examine the strategic logic states employ in deciding whether to, and at what magnitude, support Violent Non-State Actor (VNSA) organizations. The paper will consist of two sections: first a review of the relevant literature on the strategic logic of state sponsorship while the second section examines three case studies that provide a real-world context to the theoretical findings presented in the first section. The case studies: Iranian sponsorship of the

Yemeni Houthis, Iranian sponsorship of Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iranian sponsorship of the

Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah were chosen to allow for continuity of the sponsor thereby limiting variables so that the causal mechanism under study, the ex-ante probability of that VNSA will be able to perpetuate the conflict, can be isolated.

2 The Logic of State Sponsorship

To understand the strategic logic of state sponsorship of VNSAs one must begin with clearly defining what is meant by state sponsorship. In the existing literature, two definitions have gained prominence. The first was put forth by Hoffman, who writing specifically on state sponsorship of terrorists, defines state sponsorship as “the active and often clandestine support, encouragement and assistance provided by a foreign government to a terrorist group (Hoffman,

1998). The second definition, put forth by Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, and Brannan expands upon Hoffman’s definition by including insurgencies that do not necessary employ as a tactic (Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001). This paper will rely on the second definition due this study’s inclusion of VNSAs that do not employ terrorist tactics.

At the basic level, sponsorship can be viewed through a patron-client understanding. The patron (state sponsor) provides its client (VNSA) with support in exchange for the client’s willingness to act on behalf of the patron (Byman and Kreps, 2010; Salehyan, 2009; Salehyan,

2010; Hughes, 2012; Salehyan, Siroky, & Wood, 2014; Groh, 2019). Clients understand that by solicitating external support they are agreeing to forfeit a certain amount of autonomy (Byman,

Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001; Bapat, 2007; Banks, 2012; Bapat, 2012; Bell,

2018; Groh, 2019). This relationship is understood to be mutually beneficial, the client receives much-needed support in carrying out conflict, while the patron receives an additional instrument in which to use to achieve its foreign policy goals. With respect to strategic geo-political goals, sponsors view clients as a cost-effective tool for waging covert warfare against their enemies

(Laqueur, 1999; Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001; Gleditsch, Salehyan, &

Schultz, 2008; Salehyan, 2009; Salehyan, Gleditsch, & Cunningham, 2011; Karlen, 2019).

Collins claims that sponsors “often view terrorist [VNSA] clients as a force multiplier that can be

3 used to weaken and destabilize neighboring states, to project power into areas beyond the feasible reach of the state’s military forces, to topple rival regimes, and/or to control the opposition in target states” (Collins, 2014).

In most of literature the cooperation between the VNSA and the potential state sponsor is assumed to be voluntary. This assumption has been criticized for oversimplifying interactions observed in the real-world. Young is one such critic who argues that actors face constraints in their decision-making processes stemming from power disparities between actors which can lead to cooperative regimes being “imposed” upon the weaker of the two parties (Young, 1982).

Keohane also warns of the dangers of the volunteer assumption stating that researchers must be

“aware that any agreement resulting from bargaining will be affected by the different opportunity costs of alternatives faced by the actors – that is, by which party has the great need for agreement with the other” (Keohane, 1984). With the disadvantages that VNSA’s face when cooperating with a state sponsor listed below, it becomes apparent that in this dyad the VNSA is the weaker of the two parties and their agreement to join such a relationship may not be purely voluntary.

By delegating the task of engaging in irregular warfare to VNSA proxies, states gain three main benefits: plausible deniability, reduced cost, and the use of the proxy as a “bargaining chip” in their negotiations with their rivals. Plausible deniability is the most significant advantage in the use of proxies in carrying out irregular warfare; strategically states wish to harm their adversaries but rarely desire actual war (Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan,

2001). Engaging in irregular warfare tactics with a state’s own military force will likely escalate the rivalry into a direct inter-state kinetic confrontation, but clandestine support to proxy groups can gain the benefits of irregular warfare with a low probability of escalation, because proving a state’s sponsorship is difficult (Salehyan, 2009; Wilner, 2018). Plausible deniability is eroded

4 when sponsors begin to provide more advanced weaponry to VNSA clients. Unlike small arms, few states have the ability to manufacture advanced armaments thereby allowing these weapons to be more easily tracked back to their source. Intercepted arms transfers or wreckage recovered from impact sites allow for clear identification of the armament source (Gehrke, 2017). Though plausible deniability is eroded with the supply of advanced weaponry, target states are reluctant to initiate full-scale inter-state conflict in retaliation for proxy support because the cost of inter- state conflict is simply too great (Byman, 2018).

At the most basic level, sponsorship incurs financial costs to the sponsor such as the procurement of the weapons, training and equipping soldiers, or the transferring of funds.

Though these financial costs may be significant, they are exponentially less than the cost of inter- state warfare (Groh, 2010; Byman, 2018). It is estimated that Iran provides Lebanese Hezbollah with $700 million USD a year, approximately four percent of Iran’s 2020 defense budget of

$15.8 billion USD (Levitt, 2019; Sheet, 2020). Furthermore, Iranian support to the Houthis has provided the regime with its greatest return on investment; it is estimated that Iran provides the group with $100 million USD a year whereas the Saudi expenditure in the conflict is approximately $6 billion USD a month and American support to the Saudi war effort is estimated to be $10-15 million USD a month (Oakford & Goodman, 2018; Allen & Riedel,

2020). A relatively insignificant expenditure by the sponsor can incur great cost to the target state.

States also have the incentive to sponsor VNSAs because these proxy groups can then be used as “bargaining chips” during negotiations with the target state (Byman, Chalk, Hoffman,

Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001; Findley, Piazza, & Young, 2012). While researching the effect of safe havens on terrorist group survival, Carter found that sponsorship can make VNSAs more

5 susceptible to counterterrorism operations carried out by the target state. Carter finds that sponsors routinely aid the target government, either through intelligence sharing, allowing to target to carry out an operation in their territory, or by simply handing over members of the

VNSA to garner goodwill from their rival or to gain diplomatic concessions (Carter, 2012). The sponsorship of VNSAs can also increase a state’s bargaining power through the negotiation technique known as “tying the hands.” By supporting a group to the level that the group in turn becomes a potential threat to the sponsor, a state can demand concession from their rival. The state can demand these concessions because by betraying a well-funded proxy, the sponsor is sure to incur costs; the sponsorship then becomes a “costly signal” that can decrease the commitment problem surrounding negotiations under the auspices of anarchy (Bapat, 2012).

As mentioned above, when VNSAs agree to enter a patron-client relationship with a state sponsor, they are forfeiting some portion of their autonomy of behavior (Byman, Chalk,

Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001; Bapat, 2007; Bapat, 2012; Bell, 2018). Why then do groups agree to submit to such a subservient position? Ninety percent of VNSAs collapse within their first year and groups are aware of this extremely high attrition rate (DeVore & Stähli,

2015). VNSAs understand that sponsorship provides the resources needed to survive and may be their only avenue to prevent collapse (Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001;

Blomberg, Gaibulloev, & Sandler, 2011; Carter, 2012). Along with providing arms, logistics, funding, and safe havens, states can provide organizational support. States have experience with day-to-day management of a bureaucratic entity that most VNSAs are lacking. This organizational support allows VNSAs to gain the administrative knowledge necessary to effectively run an organization thereby increasing the likelihood of survival (Byman, Chalk,

6 Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001; Blomberg, Gaibulloev, & Sandler, 2011; DeVore &

Stähli, 2015).

In addition to the loss of autonomy discussed above, VNSAs may suffer other costs from entering a patron-client relationship with a state sponsor. The inherent clandestine nature of state sponsorship prevents VNSA clients from forming credible commitments with their patrons

(Ritter, 2000; Wilner, 2018). Without warning, a sponsor may decide to no longer support their proxy and, except for attacking the former sponsor, the proxy has little to no recourse.

Additionally, a sponsored VNSA is constantly threatened by the fact that the sponsor may choose to aid the target government in the elimination of the proxy. As detailed above, sponsors have several incentives to renege on their agreements with their proxies in to gain concessions from the rival government. This threat is especially pronounced when the proxy is reliant on the sponsor for a safe haven that acts as a base of operations for the VNSA (Carter, 2012). The fate of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is an oft-cited case study of a sponsor cooperating with the hereunto target government in the elimination of the proxy VNSA. During the 1980s the JKLF waged an intense insurgency against India in the disputed Kashmir region with Pakistan as a prominent state sponsor (Tremblay, 2001; D'Souza & Routray, 2016; Phillips,

2017). In the early 1990s the patron-client relationship began to deteriorate and in 1996, with the aid of information provided by the Pakistani ISI, the JKLF was effectively eliminated (Kanwal,

1999; Carter, 2012; D'Souza & Routray, 2016).

Sponsorship is not without inherent risks, foremost amongst these risks is the loss of complete foreign policy autonomy (Bapat, 2012; Salehyan, 2010; Groh, 2019). Due to the benefits of maintaining plausible deniability in their relationship with the proxy, sponsors are unable to take direct control of the group’s actions, creating the possibility that the proxy will act

7 outside of the wishes of the sponsor. A proxy’s autonomy of action becomes of particular concern for the sponsor when the preferences of the two groups are not perfectly aligned (Groh,

2010; Wilner, 2018; Khan & Zhaoying, 2020). Bapat refers to the phenomenon as “moral hazard” whereas Salehyan categorizes this divergence in preferences once delegation has occurred as “agency slack” (Bapat, 2012; Salehyan, 2010). Agency slack creates two possible scenarios that would produce high costs for the sponsor. The first potential negative outcome resulting from agency slack is that the sponsor may be drawn into an outright conflict with the target state due to the actions of the proxy. The proxy may take actions that are outside of the agreed upon set of behaviors and that are so violent that the target government will have no other option than to punish the sponsor in retribution (Gleditsch, Salehyan, & Schultz, 2008; Salehyan,

2009; Bapat, 2012; Salehyan, Siroky, & Wood, 2014; Groh, 2019; Khan & Zhaoying, 2020).

The second potential negative consequence of sponsorship due to agency slack is the proxy turning on the hereunto sponsor. Though a rare event, by using the increased capabilities provided by the sponsor the VNSA can inflict high costs to the sponsor. Increasing the risk of sponsorship, the threat of the proxy turning their weapons against their sponsor is not temporarily constrained to the period of active support, at any point in the future the VNSA may attack the former sponsor (Groh, 2019).

In addition to the risks of conflict escalation and proxy ‘backstabbing’, potential costs of

VNSA sponsorship include possible sanctions levied against the sponsor and a loss of international reputation (Groh, 2010; Schultz, 2010). State sponsors are aware that any form of support entails accepting an inherent risk of retaliation and calculate the retaliatory risks sponsorships entails prior entering the patron-client relationship. If a state believes the geo- political gains of sponsorship outweigh the potential reprisal costs, then sponsorship is a rational

8 choice in carrying out foreign policy goals (Byman, 2018). “Many of the possible punishments are accepted in advance; making it less surprising that the application of these punishments often fails to change the sponsor’s behavior” (Bynam, 2005). That said, it is in the strategic interests of the sponsor not to enter a kinetic conflict with their rival state; if that were the case, they would employ their own military capabilities against the target government. State sponsors perform a balancing act between inflicting loss upon their rivals and limiting the probability of a retaliatory attack.

Historically, studies on non-state actor external support have focused primarily on finances (Jonsson, & Brennan, 2014). These studies attempt to discover how rebel groups finance their operations and how they work to evade government interception of such finances

(Aliu, Bektashi, Sahiti, & Sahiti, 2017; Freeman, 2011). Though financing is a vital aspect of

VNSA operations, this research focus does not address they actual mechanics of VNSA success, i.e. kinetic action. When researchers do focus on weapons acquisition, they tend to focus on illicit small arms transfers (Arsovska & Zabyelina, 2014). Byman, Chalk, Hoffman, Rosenau, &

Brannan so far as to say, “Small arms are any insurgency’s defining technology” (Byman, Chalk,

Hoffman, Rosenau, & Brannan, 2001). This focus begins to address the actual mechanics of conflict, but no conflict has been decided using small arms alone (Asal, Conrad, & White, 2014).

Rebel organizations must procure sophisticated weaponry if they are to succeed in fighting against a state military. VNSAs are forced to seek external support when they experience limitations on the procurement of sophisticated arms domestically (Asal, Conrad, & White,

2014). These limitations may arise due to the lack of weapons manufacturing facilities in the territory the VNSA controls or due to government repression. In either case, the VNSA is unable to be self-sufficient in its armament procurement needs. Being that only states possess the

9 sophisticated military equipment that the VNSAs require, to achieve their armament needs they must seek state sponsorship (Asal, Conrad, & White, 2014). Though concentrating on potential transfers of nuclear material to terrorist groups, which is outside the scope of this study, Collins has found that though the number of sponsored VNSAs has decreased, the lethality of weapons supplied to groups that are sponsored has increased dramatically (Collins, 2014).

State sponsors are in the business of selling stalemates. As discussed above, due to agency slack, sponsors do not necessarily wish to see their proxies achieve complete victory over the target government. To both maintain control over their proxy, and to inflict the greatest loss on the target government, state-sponsors provide weapons capabilities as the situation “on the ground” dictates. State-sponsors provide the minimum arms required to keep their proxies in the fight, thereby inflicting addition losses upon the target. If small arms are sufficient to keep the conflict underway, state sponsors will only provide the most basic of weaponry. When a state sponsor’s proxy is in danger of being eliminated by the target state, a sponsor must provide more advanced weaponry to prolong the conflict if they are to achieve the foreign policy goal of inflicting the highest cost possible on their geo-political rival. To further the discipline’s understanding the varying levels of support provided to VNSAs, the below case studies will concentrate on the lethality of weapon systems provided by state sponsors to proxy groups.

Case Studies

In the following section the theoretical concepts explored above will be applied to three case studies centering on the of Iran’s support for VNSAs. Specifically, this study will focus on Iran’s support for Yemeni Houthis, Lebanese Hezbollah, and ’s Kata’ib

Hezbollah. As stated above, the selection of cases studies with Iran as the sponsor of all three groups is intended to provide a consistent baseline to examine theorized behavior. Before

10 examining each conflict individually, an examination of Iran’s strategic goals is in order. Iran’s overall strategic ambitions are three-fold: counter the perceived military encompassment by the

United States, achieve regional dominance over rival Saudi Arabia, and expand the religious/political ideology of the , all of which lend themselves well to the use of proxy VNSAs (Ostovar, 2019).

Iran’s foremost foreign policy goal is to counter the perceived encirclement of Iran by

American military forces. To counter the , Iran has instituted a foreign policy goal of creating what it has characterized as the “” (Alsulami and Elghonemi, 2016).

This expansion of regional influence is primarily achieved via the use of proxy forces to act as a buffer against US encroachment; Iran perceives these regional proxies as their first line of defense against the United States (Byman, 2012; Byman, 2015; Negahban, 2017; Al Mahmood,

2017). “… clients are the only tool Iran has for extending its strategic footprint and directly countering its adversaries through armed force. For that reason, they have become the centerpiece of Iranian grand strategy…” (Ostovar, 2019).

Iran’s second major foreign policy priority, which is closely related to its first, is Iran’s ongoing competition with Saudi Arabia to achieve regional dominance. This rivalry goes beyond the Sunni-Shia divide, and is primarily centered around economic, military, and political interests. Militaristically, Iran is ill suited to compete with Saudi Arabia. As a prime beneficiary of the United States, along with its position as the foremost oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has access to and the means to pay for, the most sophisticated military equipment on the global market. In contrast, Iran has been mostly cut-off from acquiring modern weaponry through the imposition of sanctions aimed at curbing Iranian military might, most notably Iran’s nuclear program. Iran must rely primarily on domestic production of military hardware which simply cannot compete

11 with technologies produced by the United States (Ostovar, 2019). To close this gap in conventional military capabilities, Iran employs its cadre of VNSAs as a cost-efficient means of projecting its military influence throughout the region (Ostovar, 2019; Kagan, Kagan, & Pletka,

2008).

Iran’s third strategic foreign policy initiative, which can be considered to encapsulate all its foreign policy, is the spread of the religious and political ideology of the Iranian Revolution

(Al Mahmood, 2017). According to Alsulami and Elghonemi, “Iran has adopted the principle of

Lebensraum used by Hitler in the Second World War” (Alsulami and Elghonemi, 2016). This principle, which relies on spreading ideology to the region’s Shia population as a primary means of expanding political and military influence, is best witnessed through Iranian support of

VNSAs to create the aforementioned “Shia Crescent” (Al Mahmood, 2017). Through the spread of the ideology of the Revolution, Iran creates clients that are not only dependent on Iranian military support but are also indoctrinated to use their operations to spread Iranian ideology

(Ostovar, 2019). In creating proxies that are dedicated to the same ideological foundations of

Iran itself, Iran is attempting to reduce the risk of experiencing the above-mentioned inherent risk in state sponsorship known as agency slack or moral hazard (Negahban, 2017). Lebanese

Hezbollah, which was created by Iran for the specific goal of acting as a bastion of the

Revolution the in the Levant, is Iran’s foremost success in this endeavor (Kagan, Kagan, &

Pletka, 2008). Kata’ib Hezbollah is less ideologically oriented that Lebanese Hezbollah but is fervently dedicated to the Iranian regime (Hussein, Jedinia, & Lipin, 2019; Knights, Smith, &

Malik, 2021). The Yemini Houthis are an exception to this policy, Iran has spent little effort in indoctrinating the Yemeni Houthis as it recognizes such efforts are unnecessary to achieve its goals (Ostovar, 2019).

12 Yemeni Houthis

Before the current civil war, Iran had limited influence in Yemen (Kleemann, 2019).

Though both the Iranian regime and the Houthis are Shiite, each adheres to a different subsect of the religion which has resulted in the Houthi denial of Iran’s Supreme Leader as their religious and political authority (Ostovar, 2019). Unlike Lebanese Hezbollah, where Iran holds nearly absolute influence, the patron-client relationship between Iran and the Houthis is tenuous.

Throughout the conflict the Houthis have been known to attack targets that do not directly correspond with Iranian objectives (Kajo, Jedinia, & Ahn, 2019). This agency slack is a result of the non-voluntarist nature of the relationship; the Houthis do not have an alternative source of arms procurement. If an alternative source presented itself, especially if the source is closer in ideology, the Houthis would readily break the patron-client relationship with Iran (Ostovar,

2019).

Strategic interests bring Iran and the Houthis together, despite their religious differences; both are staunch opponents of Saudi Arabia, and both hold strong anti-American sentiments

(Ostovar, 2019; IISS, 2020). Since the beginning of the Yemen Civil War, Iran has been providing increasingly sophisticated weaponry to the Houthis (Gehrke, 2017; Kleemann, 2019).

Interdictions against Iranian arms shipments to Yemen have seized weaponry including assault rifles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rocket launchers, rocket propelled grenades, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned surface vessels (CAR, 2016; CAR, 2017; Kajo, Jedinia, & Ahn,

2019; Shay, 2017). As the conflict escalated and the Saudi response became more robust, Iran began providing more lethal weaponry. These weapon systems provide a relative increase in capability allowing the Houthis to continue their fight against Saudi Arabia. On September 14th,

2019, a spokesman for the Yemeni Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on the Saudi

13 Aramco oil refineries of Abqaiq and Khurais (Jaffe, 2019). The attack temporarily caused a nearly fifty percent decrease in Saudi oil exports, over five million barrels a day (Said,

Malsin, & Donati, 2019). The attack also generated the largest price jump in crude trade futures on record (Jaffe, 2019). The 2019 attack on Saudi oil refineries indicates a dramatic increase in the level of support Iran is willing to provide to the Houthis. Though Iran is supplying increasingly sophisticated weapons to the Houthis, Iran’s strategic goal is to act as a

“spoiler” and prolong the conflict to extract as much cost out of its rival Saudi Arabia, not to aid the Houthis to achieve a complete victory (Kajo, Jedinia, & Ahn, 2019; IISS, 2020).

Due to strategic interests in the conflict zone, the United States has been actively engaged in the Houthi-Saudi conflict. Two vital and interconnected interests compel the United States to become involved in the conflict: US reliance on Saudi oil exports and the importance of the Bab al-Mendeb to international shipping. Saudi Arabia possess a fourth of the worlds proven oil reserves and has the lowest extraction costs of any OPEC member (Bahgat, 2003). The United

States averages an importation of 450,000 barrels of Saudi crude oil a month, by far the most of any OPEC country and only surpassed by for sales to the United States (EIA, 2020).

Under the current U.S. energy policy, the United States has no viable alternatives to its reliance on Saudi oil (Bahgat, 2004; Aarts, & van Duijne, 2009). Noel characterizes U.S. policy towards

Saudi Arabia as having the objective to “sanctuarize” the petro-monarchy against any external threat and “to prevent the heart of the world oil system from being caught up into the regional political instability” (Noel, 2007). In exchange for a consistent supply of inexpensive oil, the

Saudi regime can rely on Washington to serve as its ultimate guarantor of its security (Aarts, & van Duijne, 2009; Shay, 2017).

14 The strait of Bab al-Mandeb is a strategic chokepoint for global maritime shipping. It is the third most traveled waterway for oil transportation with over 3.3 million barrels of crude oil passing through the strait each day. Additionally, nearly 12 percent of the international trade passes through the Bab al-Mandeb (al-Suheimy, 2018). Since the commencement of the Yemeni conflict in 2015, most of Yemen's Red Sea coastline, including the Bab al-Mandeb, has been under Houthi control (Shay, 2017; IISS, 2020). In September and October 2016, two US warships, the USS Mason and USS Ponce, were targeted by missiles fired from Houthi controlled territory. In response, the USS Nitze launched Tomahawk missiles at Houthi targets north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (Slavin, 2016; Shay, 2017; Ostovar, 2019). Following the cruise missile strikes, Vice Admiral Scott A. Stearney, Commander US Naval Forces Central

Command, went on record to say, “We will counter any threats to protect our interest and safeguard maritime trade within the Bab al-Mandeb” (Baswaid, 2018).

The United States has been providing both direct and indirect aid to the Saudi regime since nearly day one of its six-year struggle with the Houthis. US aid primarily takes the form of military hardware sales, including precision-guided bombs, Black Hawk helicopters, and the anti-missile system THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) (Zavis & Ahmed, 2017).

THAAD is of special significance due to the system’s ability to detect and neutralize Iranian supplied ballistic missiles launched from Yemen. The US also provides intelligence sharing that is vital to arms shipment interdictions as well as providing mid-air refueling support to Saudi fighter jets (Zavis & Ahmed, 2017). The United States is also actively engaged in arms transfer interdictions independent of its coordination with the Saudi regime (Shay, 2017). U.S. warships routinely patrol off the coast of Yemen in an attempt to prevent Iranian arms from reaching the

Houthis.

15 Lebanese Hezbollah

Lebanese Hezbollah is Iran’s most well-known and hereunto effective Iranian proxy group. Most analysts agree that of Iran’s proxies, “none is more important to Tehran than

Lebanese Hizballah” (Byman, 2005). Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran and so closely associated that some analysts remove the proxy term from the group and categorize Lebanese Hezbollah as a foreign deployed wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, henceforth referred to as the

IRGC (Kagan, Kagan, & Pletka, 2008; Lucic, 2009; DeVore & Stähli, 2015; Negahban, 2017;

Levitt, 2019). This intrinsic relationship showcases Keohane’s critique of the voluntary association assumption in theoretical models (Keohane, 1984). The argument can be made the

Lebanese Hezbollah’s cooperative regime with Iran was imposed upon the group rather than entered voluntarily. “Tehran exercises almost complete control over the organization. This relationship allows Iran to use Lebanese Hizballah as it would its military and at the same time, maintain a level of deniability when confronted with international pressure over the group’s actions” (Manni, 2012). Iran’s almost completely control the decision-making process within

Lebanese Hezbollah has effectively removed any threat of agency slack.

Iranian financial aid and arms transfers are estimated to be worth $700 million USD annually (Levitt, 2019; Ostovar, 2019). The Middle East Media Research Institute has published reports that it believes that Iran has transferred to Lebanese Hezbollah approximately 11,500 missiles and rockets, short and medium-range pieces , SA-7 anti-aircraft systems, and C-

802 anti-ship cruise missiles (Kagan, Kagan, & Pletka, 2008). Though Iran has transferred some of its most advance weaponry to Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran recognizes the group cannot win an outright kinetic confrontation with , its primary opponent. The United States has sold Israel advanced weaponry worth billions of dollars including anti-missile technology and F-16 fighter

16 jets (Berrigan & Hartung, 2002). But a complete Lebanese Hezbollah victory is not Iran’s goal; rather Iran strives to create a stalemate between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah (Lucic, 2009;

Manni, 2012; Khan & Zhaoying, 2020). The simmering conflict between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel allows Iran to extract costs from Israel while minimizing the risk of a conventional inter-state kinetic confrontation. Iran’s strategy hereunto has been a resounding success; though

Israel has warred repeatedly with Lebanese Hezbollah, Israel has not engaged in an overt conventional conflict with Iran despite Tehran’s proven massive financial and military support for Lebanese Hezbollah (Byman, 2018).

Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah

Kata’ib Hezbollah (Brigades of the Party of God) was formed in 2007 as an Iran- sponsored Shiite group in Iraq primarily tasked with engaging U.S., Iraqi, and allied forces (Hussein, Jedinia, & Lipin, 2019; Knights, Smith, & Malik, 2021). In 2009 the U.S. State

Department designated the group as a terrorist organization and named the Islamic Revolutionary

Guard Corps (IRGC-QF) as the group’s sponsor (Hussein, Jedinia, & Lipin, 2019;

BBC, 2021; Knights, Smith, & Malik, 2021). The U.S. Military Academy's Combating

Terrorism Center estimates that the group controls nearly 10,000 fighters (Hussein, Jedinia, &

Lipin, 2019; Alaaldin, 2020).

Kata’ib Hezbollah was Iran’s primary militant group in Iraq from its formation but temporarily declined in 2020 following the killing of the group’s leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the American strike that also killed IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani (Jahanbani,

2020; Knights, 2020). Additionally, during this same timeframe the United States and Iraqi forces initiated a new campaign of increased counterterrorism operations in the region where

Kata’ib Hezbollah is most active (Alaaldin, 2020; Knights, 2020; Jahanbani, 2020; Knights,

17 Smith, & Malik, 2021). The combination of the killing of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and the increase in counterterrorism operations reduced Kata’ib Hezbollah’s ability to protract the conflict with the United States. This decrease elicited a corresponding increase in the amount and lethality Iran provided to the group. With the increased lethality of the weapons available to the group, coupled with the reorganization of the group’s chain of command following the death of al-Muhandis, Kata’ib Hezbollah is again Iran’s primary asset in operations against the U.S. in

Iraq and is at the forefront of American threat assessments (Knights, 2020).

Evidence of increased Iranian support for the group, as shown by Kata’ib Hezbollah suspected involvement in the May 2019 drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, shows that the group is once again Iran’s primary asset in Iraq and is now expanding its area of operations to support other Iranian foreign policy goals (Knights, 2020). Kata’ib Hezbollah’s modus operandi is rocket attacks on U.S. installations such as the March 2020, attack on Camp Taji, which killed two

American troops and one British soldier (Alaaldin, 2020 Knights, 2020; Lopez, 2020; Loveluck,

2020; Davison, 2021).

Iran provides both financial and armament support to Kata’ib Hezbollah. Since the formation of the group, estimates place Iranian financial transfers to the group at more than $100 million USD (Hussein, Jedinia, & Lipin, 2019; Knights, Smith, & Malik, 2021). Though the financial support is substantial, Iranian support for Kata’ib Hezbollah is primarily through arms transfers. Since 2019, confirmed arms shipments include rockets of ranging from 107mm- to

240mm-caliber, Manportable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), and anti-materiel rifles

(Knights, 2020; Lopez, 2020). Though when compared to American weapon systems this armament is rudimentary, as the above analysis shows these systems can be employed to inflict substantial causalities.

18 Iran’s is cognizant of the fact that Kata’ib Hezbollah has no hope in achieving an outright victory over American and Iraqi forces; and indeed, that is not the Iranian goal. The purpose of

Iran’s support to Kata’ib Hezbollah is sustaining the instability status quo within Iraq to increase costs to the American war effort (Alaaldin, 2020). Kata’ib Hezbollah attacks on the U.S. create a situation where American military decisionmakers believe that American forces must remain within Iraq to prevent a security void from forming and to prevent further increases in Iranian influence in the region (Hussein, Jedinia, & Lipin, 2019; Alaaldin, 2020; Knights, Smith, &

Malik, 2021). Iran’s support of Kata’ib Hezbollah is remarkably effective in achieving this goal.

Following the attack on Camp Taji, the United States announced that two carrier strike groups that were scheduled to depart the area of operations would remain on station (Lopez, 2020).

Operating a carrier strike group is extremely expensive, calculating the cost of an associated carrier air wing, five surface combatants and one fast-attack submarine, and the approximately

6,700 sailors to crew them, it costs an estimated $6.5 million USD per day to operate each strike group (Hendrix, 2013). By forcing the United States to keep the carrier strike groups on station, within two weeks Iran has caused the United States to spend more on its naval deployment alone than Iran has spent in fourteen years of supporting Kata’ib Hezbollah.

In addition to combating American and Iraqi forces, Iran employs Kata’ib Hezbollah to achieve other foreign policy goals. Recently the group has been operating primarily in the Qa’im and Bukamal regions which are vital to maintaining Iran’s land corridor to the Syrian border which Iran uses to transfer personnel and materials to reinforce Iranian forces operating in and its client Lebanese Hezbollah (Khaddour & Hasan, 2020; Knights, 2020). This land corridor is an integral component to Iran’s strategic goal of creating the “Shia Crescent” referenced above

(Alsulami and Elghonemi, 2016; Al Mahmood, 2017).

19 Policy Relevance

The above findings have significant policy relevance with regards to and conflict resolution efforts. The analysis shows that VNSAs that are threatened with elimination may become significantly more lethal in their capabilities if the group’s sponsor is dedicated to preserving their proxy. Military decisionmakers and localized commanders need to take this fact into account when conducting their final offensives. Additionally, the monitoring and interdiction of arms transfers at the end-stage of conflicts takes on added significance. If the advanced weaponry the sponsor attempts to transfer in the late stage of the conflict is intercepted the probability of reaching a settlement to the conflict increases being that the VNSA will no longer have to ability to sustain operations; policymakers must not reduce interdiction efforts prematurely.

Further Research

The theoretically findings of this study require empirical testing. This empirical testing will require the creation of a “lethality index” of the weapons that have been supplied to Violent

Non-State Actors. Some work has been done in this regard but the current databases report on the weapons systems employed by various groups, but the datasets do not provide a measure of lethality. In addition to the lethality index, a system of measurement on the probability of a Non-

State Actor’s survival will need to be created. The survival probability is vital to understanding the level of support that will be offered to the group.

Finally, a closer examination of the causal mechanisms that allow Non-State Actors to succeed without state sponsorship will need to be conducted. As referenced above, a great deal of literature has been written explaining why Non-State Actors seek state sponsorship even when

20 the negative effects of such a relationship are known. Little research has been devoted to understanding the decision-making process of Non-State Actors when considering accepting sponsorship or not, though it has been suggested that groups consider the credibility of the potential sponsor (Kydd 2005; Lake, 1999).

Conclusion

This study has added to the existing literature on state-sponsorship of VNSAs by determining the theoretical levels of support that states will provide to proxy groups. Through the above case studies, I have found that state-sponsorship support levels are primarily driven by the perceived likelihood that the state proxy will be successful in maintaining combat operations against the target government; groups facing elimination will receive more advanced weaponry while groups with higher probabilities of success eliciting lower levels of support. This finding conforms to the existing literature on state sponsorship in that within the patron-client relationship the sponsor’s preference is to prolong the conflict to extract as much cost from their rivals as possible.

The three case studies above provide insights into Iranian strategic calculations regarding the lethality level of the armaments it supplies to its proxies. I have shown that an integral component of this strategic calculus is the perceived probability that the VNSA will be able to sustain combat operations against the target government. As the analysis shows, Iran’s sponsorship of proxies throughout the Middle East and Central Asia is aimed at maintaining continued low-level kinetic conflicts. Iran is supplying stalemates, not successes.

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