US and allies fail to stem Houthis' high pace of Red Sea attacks

The Iran-backed group has stepped up attacks on shipping in the past two weeks

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Ten months into the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea, industry experts are again asking if the Iran-backed militia has defeated two international naval coalitions trying to keep open the vital shipping route through which about $1 trillion of goods pass every year.

One of those forces is led by the EU and aimed at shooting down Houthi missiles and drones launched at civilian ships and the other is led by the US and UK that has bombed Houthi positions. But the efforts of the US and EU would need to be more robust, said Salvatore Mercogliano, an expert on military and commercial shipping at Campbell University, North Carolina.

The Houthis can expend missiles and drones attacking ships, or lose them in US-led air strikes, but Iran is able to resupply them.

“You would be talking about something akin to the Maritime Interdiction Operations of Iraq from 1991 to 2003. This will require a sizeable naval presence and be another requirement on the world's navies,” Mr Mercogliano said, highlighting how the US navy has also been stretched by Pacific deployments to counter China.

“It would also slow the arrival of cargo into Yemen which could cause a stir from humanitarian groups if it impacts food. This, of course, does not stop shipments by air direct to Yemen from Iran," he told The National.

Iran has used small civilian vessels to move rocket motors and guidance systems into remote, rocky inlets on Yemen’s coast. While some ships have been halted by the US and UK navies, stopping them entirely would be a significant commitment.

The question over which side has “won” was posed last week by Elliot Abrams in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. Mr Abrams, once deputy national security adviser to former US president George Bush, said the US navy hasn’t upheld part of its mission statement to “defend freedom, preserve economic prosperity, and keep the seas open and free".

A crew member signals an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet on the flight deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Southern Red Sea, Middle East. Reuters

The debate is in sharper focus amid a delayed attempt to salvage the stricken MV Sounion oil tanker. The vessel, laden with half a million barrels of oil, was struck by Houthi missiles, boarded and rigged with bombs, and is now smouldering in the Red Sea. Civilian salvage teams are reluctant to mount a recovery operation due to the continuing conflict, the EU’s naval mission said. Several more attacks on shipping followed the August 21 strike on the Soumian.

Mr Mercogliano contends the US could achieve better results by striking Iranian assets, perhaps naval vessels of the group’s key backer, if the Houthis continue attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, transit point for about 30 per cent of the world’s container trade. The Houthis say they are maintaining their campaign, which has sunk two ships, damaged dozens and killed three sailors, until Israel ends its devastating war in Gaza.

So far, the attacks have been effective, although Israeli retaliation for direct Houthi strikes on Israel saw fuel and power infrastructure devastated at the port of Hodeidah on July 20. The group has also been hit with fresh western sanctions.

Global trade damage

Despite these setbacks, the campaign has cut transit through the Red Sea by more than 60 per cent, according to a report last month by shipping giant Maersk, raising the cost of maritime trade and causing billions of dollars in losses for Egypt through declining Suez Canal revenue. Financial losses for Israel are unknown, although the port of Eilat has taken a heavy financial blow after months of no revenue.

Meanwhile, the Houthis seem almost impervious to the US and UK air campaign to bomb its hideouts and missile and drone arsenal. This is not a sustained campaign but instead described by Centcom, the US military headquarters in the Middle East, as acting in “self defence.” Mr Abram’s article contends that the US has not “lost” the conflict, but that Washington is too timid amid fears of wider escalation.

US Rear Admiral Marc Miguez, who led a carrier strike group in the Red Sea, recently told naval veteran and YouTuber Ward Carroll that more "aggressive" action was being considered, without elaborating.

Craig Picken, a former US navy pilot and aviation expert who runs Northstar Group, an executive search firm in aerospace, says the dilemma the US now faces should spur a rethink of its military commitment in the region. The US, he says, is spending billions protecting shipping lanes like the Red Sea.

“If it’s international shipping, it should be everybody's job,” he says, highlighting how countries such as China could do more to protect vessels.

China has escorted some of its ships through the waterway, vessels the Houthis appear to be avoiding with their targeting, although a Chinese tanker was damaged in late march, likely a case of poor intelligence.

US navy under strain

Mr Picken explained to The National the difficulty of a full-scale US naval effort to stop Iranian resupply of the Houthis. Even a prolonged non-combat operation intercepting Iranian smuggling boats to the Houthis would place immense strain on ships and aircraft, dragging on for many months, adding billions in cost to naval deployments. A US aircraft carrier, its aircraft and supporting ships can cost up to $8 million a day to deploy.

The aircraft carriers come with E-2 Hawkeye airborne radar planes, capable of surveying hundreds of vessel over hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ocean in one mission.

Crew members work on the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye AWACS during a Nato vigilance activity in the Mediterranean Sea on May 23, 2022. AFP

The USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier, which was deployed to the Red Sea for nine months, was “ flying the wings off their F-18s, to protect naval assets, to protect their own assets, to shoot down drones.

Millions and millions of dollars in wear and tear on the planes,” said Mr Picker, a veteran E-2 airman. During deployments over Iraq and Somalia in the early 1990s, his squadron “flew 2,000 hours in six months. So that's 500 hours per aeroplane, for a six month cruise,” he said.

Today, 500 hours of flight would cost $20,000,000, at $40,000 per hour, based on US government estimates for the Hawkeye. Add submarine deployments and other assets that could be used to counter other US adversaries, such as satellite reconnaissance, and even action short of war costs billions.

“What’s happening in the Red Sea is unprecedented and it may require a new way of thinking from the western navy forces," said Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

"The Houthis are learning fast and improving their attacks. However, it’s understandable that some western forces like the US may need to be present in different areas in the Middle East at the moment due to the Gaza war," she told The National.

“Meanwhile, some regional Arab countries probably need to start thinking, if they aren’t already about confronting similar maritime threats in the future and under different circumstances. As for vulnerable commercial ships, some are still taking risks and sailing in the region. Others have been forced to take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope,” she said.