Commercial carriers and supply chain analysts maintain that the best way to protect Red Sea container shipping is to bolster the government of Yemen so that it can wrest control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait from the Houthis.
Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) Executive Vice President Bud Darr said a military response to Houthi attacks is necessary. However, if the United States and its allies continue doing so without rebuilding the “neighborhood” alliance that throttled Somali piracy a decade ago, they’re “treating a symptom” but not the problem, he said.
“Ultimately, to keep sea lanes peaceful and open requires a strong element of diplomacy that, maybe, we shouldn’t expect to shoulder on the United States Navy or other navies but, rather, on diplomats and government leaders,” Mr. Darr told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation subcommittee on Jan. 30.
David Heindel, president of the Seafarers International Union, and Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, concurred.
The Biden administration must “talk to our allies about the situation because everybody’s being impacted by this,” Mr. Gold said.
Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea’s Bab-el-Mandeb Strait since November 2023 by Houthi terrorists have prompted many carriers, including Denmark-based Maersk and France’s CMA CGM, to avoid it, increasing transit times and costs.
The Gulf of Aden–Red Sea–Suez Canal shipping route accounts for up to 15 percent of global trade and 20 percent of worldwide container trade, according to the U.S. State Department.
During 2024’s first two weeks, because of Houthi attacks, Suez transits were down by 64 percent compared to the same period in 2023, according to London-based Drewry. Over the same span, transits around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip have increased by 168 percent, it reported.
Global shipping was already stressed by abnormally low water in the Panama Canal, which has fostered a 36 percent decrease in ship transits compared to 2023.
As a result, average shipping rates to China have doubled, while average shipping rates to Europe have tripled, according to Container xChange, an online container leasing and trading platform based in Hamburg, Germany.
Commercial shippers also face higher insurance premiums if they brave the Red Sea, with the cost passed along to customers and, eventually, consumers.
The best way to mitigate and eventually eliminate the Houthi threat is for the United States to stop being “the face” of retaliation, which plays into a narrative that benefits the Houthis, according to I.R. Consilium CEO Ian Ralby.
The Story That Needs to Be Told
Mr. Ralby, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and U.S. Naval War College adjunct who founded Maryland-based maritime security firm I.R. Consilium in 2017, emphasized three points.“First, even if the Israel–Gaza situation ended today with a complete resolution that was mutually agreeable to all parties, the Houthis will continue to attack shipping,” he said. “Second, if 100 percent of the ballistic missile capabilities of the Houthis could be taken out, the Houthis would still attack shipping.”
The third point, Mr. Ralby said, is that “if the U.S. continues to be the face of the counter-Houthi narrative, others will be inspired to join in attacking shipping as well” in vulnerable choke points, such as the Malacca Strait that links the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.
“The Houthis do not care about the Palestinian cause,” he said. “They have opportunistically taken advantage of the Palestinian situation and made it a cause that aligned with their own interests, albeit hypocritically. So if we look at that hypocrisy, the Houthis have, over the last 10 years, killed more Muslim Arabs than Israel has in 75 years of its existence.”
That is the story that needs to be told, according to Mr. Ralby.
“By not having divorced the narrative between what is happening in Israel and Gaza and what is happening on the Red Sea, we have allowed the Houthis to gain momentum, gain new members, and inspire others,” he said. “They’re enjoying the fact they can target U.S. ships now.”
The definition of insanity is repeating what doesn’t work, according to Mr. Ralby, and in this case, retaliatory strikes meet that definition.
“They’re loving this situation. They’re loving the fact that we have bombed them,” he said. “For 10 years, they’ve been spouting the narrative they’re at war with the U.S. and U.K. That was one of the ways they motivated people and, particularly, brainwashed some of the youth in Yemen to join their cause.
“Now, the whole world’s media is telling them they’re actually at war with the U.S. and the U.K. And so we’ve given them, inadvertently, credibility, and that credibility has given them relevance.”
‘Playing With Fire’
Republican Reps. Brian Babin (R-Texas), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Jefferson Van Drew (R-N.J.), and Mike Ezell (R-Miss.) said the U.S. Navy should hammer Yemen and directly punish Iran, especially after three U.S. Army soldiers were killed in a Jan. 28 drone attack in Jordan by Iran-backed militants and two Navy SEALs were lost in the Gulf of Aden in a Jan. 11 operation targeting arms trafficking between Iran and Yemen.“It’s high time that the United States retaliate in a way that will make these folks remember, and be aware of, what they’re playing with. And that is playing with fire,” Dr. Babin said.
He and several other GOP committee members said the boldness of adversaries, such as Russia invading Ukraine and Iran-backed groups increasingly attacking U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, can be attributed to the Biden administration’s “weakness” since its botched August 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.
“There needs to be retaliation, but retaliation does not necessarily mean giving them exactly what they want, which is direct confrontation militarily with United States,” Mr. Ralby said. “We need to retaliate by finding ways that will actually persuade them, and they cannot be persuaded in ways we would be persuaded.”
The International Maritime Organization’s Djibouti Code of Conduct and its 2017 Jeddah Amendment, a maritime security compact with 20 signatory states, can be refashioned “in the same way it addressed piracy off the coast of Somalia,” he said.
The United States must reverse decades of failed Yemen policy, according to Mr. Ralby.
“We have, for several administrations, consistently failed to bolster the Yemen government,” he said.
In 2018, according to Mr. Ralby, the Trump administration constrained Yemen from launching an offensive to retake the coast where Houthis now launch attacks.
“That is now a critical strategic failure because if the government of Yemen controlled that sea access, we would, perhaps, not be having the same conversation we’re having today,” he said. “We need to rethink our foreign policy toward Yemen; it has long been a forgotten corner of the Middle East.”
Republicans: ‘Going to Be a Reckoning’
While Mr. Ralby believes that there needs to be retaliation for the Houthis’ attacks, he differs from the Republican congressmen in terms of the response strategy.“We need to strike back, but if we just want to strike back for the sake of striking back, we may find ourselves actually making things worse, and that’s, unfortunately, what seems to be happening right now,” he said.
Mr. Mast said, “We’re Americans. Somebody hits us, there’s going to be a reckoning, and we’re going to hit back. Flat-out. That’s just the American way, and it should always be the American way.”
“It goes without saying that hitting back and hitting back very hard teaches people a lesson,” Mr. Babin said. “I’m sure diplomacy is great, but you cannot project weakness. And that is what we’ve seen with all attacks going on.”
The best way to “hit back” at the Houthis and Iran is to give Yemenis “the backing to actually fight for their own sovereignty,” Mr. Ralby countered, and by “divorcing the narrative between what’s happening in Israel and Gaza and what’s happening in the Red Sea.”
The Biden administration removed the Houthis from the terrorist list, which allowed nearly $3.5 billion in U.S. aid to flow into Yemen, much of it to the Houthis, according to Mr. Mast.
“Past actions by President [Joe] Biden continue to strengthen terrorist organizations and encourage global attacks,” Mr. Ezell said. “It’s clear we must put an end to this Houthi aggression.”
