And How It Can Prevent Its Fight With the Group From Escalating
Since the Houthis launched their assault on global shipping in November, the United States and its partners have scrambled for ways to restore calm and commerce to the Red Sea. First, on December 18, Washington assembled a maritime coalition designed to boost the U.S. presence in the area and promote regional security. Then, in January, the United States started intercepting Iranian military shipments bound for the Houthis and issued multiple warnings to the group. Finally, after nearly two months of continuous attacks in the Red Sea, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a barrage of strikes against the Houthis’ facilities. But these attacks have not halted or seemingly slowed the onslaught. The group has continued to lob missiles and drones, prompting continued strikes by Washington and its allies.
That the United States and its partners are now faced with the reality they were hoping to avoid—a conflict with the Houthis—is an unfortunate irony. But it also yields a lesson for the future. By waiting so long to retaliate, issuing warning after warning, and telegraphing their intention to launch strikes far in advance, the United States and its partners emboldened the militia that dominates much of Yemen. They taught the group that it can defy Washington without facing swift retaliation, and they gave it time to prepare for counterattacks.
The United States should, instead, have cut to the chase and immediately struck back. To defeat the Houthis, Washington was always going to need force: the group will not engage in meaningful diplomacy with U.S. officials. But like all military powers, the Houthis have limitations, and the United States can strike the group to the point that it will no longer be able to launch attacks at targets in the Red Sea. If the United States had acted sooner and more decisively, either the Houthis would have been deterred from further escalation or Washington would now be well on its way to degrading the group’s capabilities. The United States would have shortened the duration of this conflict, lessened the toll on global maritime trade, and reassured U.S. partners in the region and beyond. Now, the world will have to wait far longer for normality to return to the Red Sea.
AGENT OF CHAOS
To hear the Houthis tell it, their campaign against ships transiting the Red Sea is an act of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, one designed to force Israel to cease its military operations there. In mid-January, a Houthi spokesperson declared that the group’s attacks on Israeli vessels and ships “heading to ports in occupied Palestine will continue until a cease-fire is achieved and the siege is lifted.” Houthi forces, he continued, would support “our steadfast brothers in Gaza.”
Such statements are not entirely disingenuous. The Houthis’ first target, the Bahamian-flagged Galaxy Leader, is owned by an Israeli-based company—although it was chartered and operated by a Japanese company. (The vessel and its multinational crew are still being held in Yemen.) But the Houthis’ attacks are no longer only or even mostly aimed at ships with direct or indirect Israeli links. The Maersk Gibraltar, sailing under the flag of Hong Kong and attacked by Houthi fighters in mid-December, is operated by a Danish company (Maersk) and, according to the shipping industry’s main trade publication, owned by Canada’s Seaspan. It was sailing from Oman’s port of Salalah for the Saudi Arabian Red Sea port of Jeddah, shipping data shows. The Maltese-flagged CMA CGM Tage, which the Houthis claimed to have targeted, also has no clear links to Israel—or even to the United Kingdom and the United States. Shipping data shows it was scheduled to call at Egyptian and Lebanese ports. The at least 30 vessels that have been confirmed and identified as Houthi targets are tied to states all over the world.
The consequences of the Houthis’ attacks certainly have not been felt only by Israel. Roughly 12 percent of international trade transits the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, according to the Baltic and International Maritime Council. This commerce constitutes more than $1 trillion worth of goods each year and represents approximately 30 percent of all global container traffic. But since the Houthi attacks started, cargo ships have begun to avoid sailing through this corridor. As a result, ocean freight rates have soared. According to one industry analysis, shipping costs from East Asia to Europe increased more than 200 percent during the first 52 days of the Houthi attacks.
To understand why prices have gone up, consider what shipping companies have had to do in response to the Red Sea’s effective closure. To transit between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean or parts of the Pacific, major shipping firms—including Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company—have rerouted their vessels around the African coast, a much longer route that increases voyage costs and delays deliveries. The German-flagged container ship Brussels Express, for example, left Jeddah on December 21 and arrived in Singapore on January 22, taking a month to transit the Mediterranean Sea and around Africa. That journey would typically take about half that time sailing via the Red Sea. Even some ships moving between Arab ports have had to take an absurdly long route. The Cap San Juan, sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands and operated by Maersk, left Egypt’s Port Said on December 18 for Salalah on the Arabian Sea. But instead of transiting the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to reach its destination within a few days, the ship diverted around the Cape of Good Hope. It reached its destination on January 15, almost a month later.
THE PRICE OF PATIENCE
When the Red Sea crisis erupted, Washington had two options. The first was to respond to the Houthis’ attacks not only by repelling the group’s raids and barrages but also by rapidly striking the Houthis’ military infrastructure. To do so, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration could have authorized U.S. military ships already in the Red Sea to target the Houthis’ ammunition depots, weapons stockpiles, training facilities, missile launch sites, and potentially even their command-and-control centers. Many analysts called for such a response. On December 18, for example, the Baltic and International Maritime Council said it believed countries must, “if necessary, neutralize the threat by military means within the boundaries of international law.”
But instead, U.S. officials chose the passive option—bolstering its presence, rallying an international coalition, and calling on the Houthis to stop. This decision was fueled by two desires: to maintain the 2022 cease-fire that had paused Yemen’s civil war and to prevent the conflict in Gaza from spreading across the region. The administration’s choice was also driven by an assumption that by boosting the maritime forces in Yemen’s vicinity, Washington could prevent or at least blunt the Houthis’ damage to commerce. The United States, after all, has a powerful naval infrastructure in the region on which to build. Washington heads the Combined Maritime Forces, a maritime security group that includes over 40 countries and is divided into multiple combined task forces, one of which patrols the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Yet Washington’s blend of restraint and messaging failed. Even as the United States massed forces in the Red Sea and issued repeated warnings, the Houthis amped up their attacks. Finally, on January 11, the United Kingdom and the United States decided they had no choice but to strike Houthi military targets.
The Houthis’ attacks are no longer only or even mostly aimed at ships with Israeli links.
The Houthis’ persistence makes clear that Washington should have more strongly considered the first route. If the United States had responded to the Houthis’ attacks in November by immediately going after weapons stockpiles, missile launchers, and radar stations, it would have demonstrated U.S. resolve while seriously degrading the Houthis’ ability to continue their assault. Admittedly, Washington would have given the group the fight it wanted: the Houthis derive legitimacy from standing up to the United States and, by extension, Israel. But a quicker, more decisive strike against the Houthis’ military infrastructure would have had the practical effect of making it difficult for the group to conduct a prolonged campaign, regardless of its ambitions.
If the United States had struck earlier, the current U.S.-Houthi conflict might have looked more like an episode between the two states from seven years earlier. On October 1, 2016, the Houthis fired a missile at a United Arab Emirates vessel in the Red Sea. Two days later, the U.S. military dispatched three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to the area. The Houthis responded by firing cruise missiles at two of the U.S. ships, which prompted Washington to quickly launch Tomahawk missiles from another ship at three Houthi radar installations. A few days later, following intense fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi coalition–backed Yemeni government around Yemen’s capital and its border with Saudi Arabia, the United Nations announced a 72-hour cease-fire. The Houthi attacks against the United States then largely subsided, although the broader cease-fire did not hold.
The current situation is, of course, different. The truce Yemen’s parties struck in April 2022 is still intact, and the Houthis’ escalation is against international shippers, not other domestic groups. But U.S. power remains just as prevalent now as it was then. A quick American response against key Houthi military infrastructure in 2023, as in 2016, would have given the group reason to pause.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
So far, Washington’s attacks have not stopped the Houthis from striking targets in the Red Sea. Since the start of the U.S. campaign, the Houthis have targeted at least ten ships between January 12 and January 31, mainly aiming at vessels with links to the United States and United Kingdom. They have vowed to keep going, no matter the costs. “Any new aggression will not go unpunished,” a Houthi spokesperson tweeted shortly after the first set of Western attacks.
In order to put more pressure on the Houthis, the United States has complemented its military strikes with other coercive tools, including sanctioning several entities that facilitate Iranian support to the group, interdicting Iranian shipments to the militia, and relabeling the group as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. The United States could consider additional steps, such as redesignating the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization—a tag that would subject it to more stringent economic and political restrictions than does an SDGT designation. The United States could also send new military aid to the Houthis’ enemies in Yemen, as some rival groups have called for.
These steps may deter the Houthis from a future assault on the Red Sea. Still, they are unlikely to stop the Houthis’ current barrage. To put a halt to that, the Biden administration will have to continue striking the group’s military infrastructure until it loses either the capability or the will to continue its campaign—a task that will not be easy. The Houthis are committed to this fight, a fact that Biden knows well. As the president noted on January 18, when talking about the strikes: “Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”
Biden should have appreciated the Houthis’ dedication in November. Had Washington responded then, it would at least be further along in defeating them, and ships would be closer to again transiting a central global trade path. The next time the Houthis threaten the Red Sea, the United States and its partners would do well to remember today’s lesson.