For over six months, Yemen’s Houthi insurgents have severely disrupted shipping in the Red Sea, causing delays, higher costs, and chaos in global trade. Despite the efforts of U.S., British, and European navies, these rebels continue to outmaneuver the world’s most powerful sea forces, raising troubling questions about naval strength and strategy. The situation has led to skyrocketing shipping costs, insurance premiums, and a significant rerouting of ships, revealing a dire need for better maritime security and strategy. The struggle to control these waters highlights the surprising might of the Houthis and the vulnerabilities of even the most advanced naval forces.
As reported by Foreign Policy, more than six months after the Houthi insurgent group in Yemen began substantially interrupting marine commerce in the Red Sea, global shipping has been forced to accept a new normal in which delays, disruptions, and increased expenses are only worsening.
That is despite the efforts of the US, British, and European navies, which have been stationed the entire time, unsuccessfully seeking to neutralize the Houthi threat and restore commercial shipping security.
The fact that the world’s top warships appear to be failing to subjugate a band of insurgents raises serious concerns about the utility of sea power and the competence of Western navies, which are expected to bear the brunt of any future confrontation with a strong adversary such as China. The United States Navy confesses that it is fighting the most intense battle it has encountered since World War II.
“The Houthis have proven to be quite the formidable force. Sebastian Bruns, a naval expert at Kiel University’s Center for Maritime Strategy and Security and Institute for Security Policy in Germany, stated, “This is a nonstate actor that fields a larger arsenal and is able to give a headache to the Western coalition.” “This is as high-end as it gets for now, and when navies are having a problem with sustainment at this level, it is really worrisome.”
Since late last year, the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group, now Yemen’s nominal ruler, has been attacking civilian and naval ships from its deadly perch on the shipping chokepoint of the Bab el-Mandeb, the gateway to the Suez Canal, ostensibly as part of a campaign to put pressure on Israel over its war with Hamas. Commercial ships, particularly large cargo ships, bulk carriers, and oil and gas tankers, swiftly abandoned the Red Sea, preferring the longer but safer route around Africa’s bottom.
However, those interruptions were not expected to continue long, especially with Western fleets being on the scene to restore security; shippers’ insurance premiums were reduced significantly when the joint US-British deployment was announced. Shipping costs have calmed down in the spring, despite the ongoing campaign.
However, eight months later, the shipping disruption has worsened significantly. In late June, Houthi attacks sank one ship, the second since they launched their attacks, and injured another. The number of attempted and successful strikes is a year-long litany, and U.S. Central Command’s public messaging is a near-daily cadence of stories of US vessels batting away drones, missiles, and unmanned surface vessels. The Houthis, who have previously deployed anti-ship missiles to great effect, are now increasingly relying on surface drones, particularly the so-called Houthi Blowfish.
Not all of the effects are as evident as the blasts that wrecked the Transworld Navigator late last month, but they are nevertheless unpleasant. Transits through the Suez Canal, an essential source of revenue for Egypt, are down by at least half, with tonnage falling even further. Ships taking the long route add time and money, ultimately hurting everyone by tying up hulls in the process.
As a result, S&P Global Commodity Insights reports that the average cost of a shipping container has risen from roughly $1,600 to well over $5,000. Rates are currently greater than they were during the Red Sea crisis earlier this year. Big shipping corporations that were warning a few months ago that the normal excess of ships would hurt revenues are now making money; Maersk’s profit outlook has grown as a result of the Houthi-assisted market tightening.
According to Chris Rogers, head of supply chain research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, diverting a container ship around Africa raises the direct cost of transportation by 10 days, a lot of miles, and a lot of fuel. “But the big issue is that it effectively reduces the available capacity on the entire system” by around 6%, he explained.
And the Houthis are not the only issue. The Panama Canal ran out of water for a period. Ports from Asia to Europe to the United States’ West Coast have become overcrowded, resulting in massive backlogs for waiting ships. Freight forwarders and retailers are unknowingly exacerbating the problem by front-loading larger orders for the holiday season to ensure they receive their goods, further straining an already overburdened transportation sector.
“Supply chains heal over time, but the events don’t disappear overnight. That bullwhip effect could take six months to a year to play out,” Rogers said.
But how has a group of marine terrorists in Yemen, a small, destitute country, managed to rattle the global economy and perplex some of the world’s most powerful navies? Fighting bandits who attacked trade ships was the very reason the United States Navy was founded.
The navies—the United States, the United Kingdom, and a rotating group of European ships—have been attempting to restore normal shipping since nearly the start of the Houthi campaign, with little success, as evidenced by the fact that war-cover insurance rates for vessels risking the dangerous passage are reportedly still nearly 1,000 percent higher than pre-conflict levels. One insurer even established a special, first-of-its-kind war insurance policy this spring for shippers who couldn’t acquire coverage elsewhere, indicating that the Western naval presence hasn’t calmed the markets.
According to Audun Halvorsen, director of security and contingency planning for the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association and former deputy foreign minister of Norway, these additional premiums amount to around 1% of the value of the massive cargo ships involved in the perilous voyage. But the ships that are truly in the crosshairs are those related to Israel, the United States, or other countries perceived to assist Israel. “What we’re seeing is that shipping associated with China, Iran, Russia, and India to a much lesser extent has been targeted,” Halvorsen told the conference.
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the two naval forces—the US and British “Prosperity Guardian” and the European Union’s “Aspides”—have distinct missions. The Anglo-American force intends to intercept threats and strike them on land, whilst the Europeans have opted for a straight escort mission to safeguard commerce vessels without engaging the Houthis. Neither works.
The US-UK campaign to “degrade” the Houthis’ ability to target shipping has turned into a pricey game of whack-a-mole. The Houthis have proven to be more mobile and well-supplied by Iran than previously anticipated, rendering accidental victories by the US Navy—such as the destruction of a Houthi radar site last week—insignificant.
“The Houthis have a truly astonishing level of depth in their magazines, of missiles and rockets and ballistic anti-ship missiles. It is truly something,” said Bruns, the naval expert. As long as the Israel-Hamas war continues, “the Houthis have a reason and an opportunity to be a nuisance.”
The deployments and numerous interceptions have depleted the US Navy’s magazines. According to congressional aides, the US is not producing nearly enough of the basic air defense missiles deployed by US escort ships in the Red Sea to shoot down Houthi drones and missiles. “As long as the burn rate remains as precipitously high as it has been over there, we’re in a bit more of a precarious position,” one aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. munitions deficiencies.
It’s also pricey. The Navy and suppliers such as Raytheon are exploring older, less expensive alternatives to combat the Houthis’ low-tech weaponry while maintaining the high-end missiles for use in a potential future fight with China.
“With some cruise and ballistic missiles or hypersonics, you’re going to want sophisticated capabilities,” said Seth Jones, senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But for drones, you’re not going to want to waste a million-plus-dollar U.S. munition on it.” (Some European ships in the Red Sea are doing exactly that, shooting down Houthi drones and missiles using low-cost naval guns rather than expensive air defense missiles.)
According to the results—ships continue to divert, and insurance prices remain high—the US method has failed to achieve its objectives. “After months of doing that, if the Houthis haven’t changed their behavior, their stockpiles are still there, they’re mobile, and they have support from Iran, it’s time to ask, ‘Should we be doing this?'” said Alessio Patalano, a naval expert at King’s College London.
That task was hampered by the departure last week of the US fleet carrier, the USS Eisenhower, which was scheduled to return home after a twice-extended deployment. Its place will eventually be taken by the USS Theodore Roosevelt, but only at the expense of removing that aircraft carrier from the South China Sea, where it was demonstrating US power amid a very serious standoff between China and the Philippines, a US ally.
“Insisting on a mission we can’t define, how does that justify pulling out a carrier from a place where there is genuine maritime tension?” Patalano said.
However, this type of maneuver highlights the second issue, which is particularly felt by European navies who have openly defended the freedom of travel in and around the Red Sea: they do not have enough ships to complete even the limited objective they have set out to undertake. Germany’s “gold-standard” frigate spent a few months in the Red Sea before limping away, where it attempted (but failed) to take down a US drone. Other European ships have performed better, but there aren’t enough of them to provide continuous coverage from the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal, which is required to make the commerce escort affordable.
“There is a real-time problem of not enough ships for the Europeans to deploy on a truly rotational basis, so you have these gaps” in the escort mission, Bruns said.
The seeming failure of the US and European operations to control the Red Sea does not necessarily put into doubt the utility of naval strength for high-end tasks, such as great-power battles, which concern policymakers across the world today. Despite a relentless operational pace, US, British, and European ships have intercepted and destroyed a massive amount of Houthi rockets without taking any hits themselves. They just haven’t been able to convince commercial ships to return to those perilous areas.
“This isn’t a failure of maritime security or sea power or naval power. The Eisenhower and its strike group escorts have performed brilliantly. This is about a disconnect between the policy and how you use that naval power,” Patalano said. “If we are trying to secure freedom of navigation, we are not achieving it.”
However, the entire incident highlights the extent to which Europe and most of the world have taken for granted the maritime security that enabled globalization but did not arise out of thin air.
“Collectively, we take maritime security for granted. But maritime insecurity is the norm, and security is only underwritten by Western navies patrolling the seas,” Bruns said. “We always think things will work out, and it is a unique kind of sea blindness.”
To reclaim that level of maritime security, as the Europeans discovered, needs a persistent investment in naval capacity that hasn’t been made in decades and won’t be made anytime soon. Underwriting security, according to Bruns, has an obvious cost in increasing defense resources. So does the alternative, if events such as the months-long disruption in the Red Sea become the new standard.
“We have to ask ourselves: What level of maritime insecurity can we live with, and who is going to pick up the cost?”
Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that chaos in the Red Sea has escalated as Houthi rebels sank the dry-bulk freighter Tutor using a kamikaze drone boat, sending commercial shipping costs soaring. Insurance rates for vessels now reach 6% of their value, impacting global containerized freight and port operations.
