imo the current oil price has little to do with invading Yemen... it's a lot simpler than such a conspiratorial theory, that they attacked Yemen JUST to drum up nationalist feelings in Saudis.

KSA has/had massive, absolutely obscene foreign reserves before the oil crash but they've overestimating their ability to float numerous consecutive years of GDP deficits. A costly and not-very-successful war to "distract" the population from the looming budget cuts seems pretty far fetched when the government is much less beholden to public opinion than other governments and threats against royal stability tend to come from within, not without. If the royal family is so worried that low oil prices will threaten their position, why would they flush money down the war drain joining a civil war in a dirt poor country? What is that going to change?

I believe it's just about preventing a Shia faction that's backed by your arch nemesis from taking over the government of your next door neighbor, simple as that.

It's about seeing your bodyguard withdraw from the region and knowing you're about to be surrounded by hostile countries, the most powerful of which is going to probably going to be negotiating defense contracts with China, Russia, and with EU countries like France in the next 20 years.

I also think it's about Salman being a much more confrontational and aggressive King than Abdullah. He has been been very iron fisted with his own government and I believe his personality is part of why he put a 29 year old with zero military, diplomatic, or foreign policy experience in charge of the military. I think the personalities of the new Saudi leaders have a lot to do with this.

Oil prices will rise again. That's just a certainty. And I think a bunch of people here are forgetting that KSA is allowing the price to free fall for now, which also goes against the theory of a government being in such a "price panic" it would go to war.