Foreign Policy Agendas and Participation in Locally Led Informal Security Coalitions: Pakistan, Sudan, and the Yemen War Coalition

Informal multinational security coalitions are established frameworks for temporary military missions. There is an extensive scholarship on the motives of partners in coalitions led by the United States, but such choices by states in locally led coalitions in the Middle East have barely been studied. This article examines the decisions of Pakistan and Sudan to participate in the coalition in Yemen led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, established in March 2015. The findings demonstrate that Pakistan’s and Sudan’s decisions reflected national foreign policy priorities over and above any other factors.