Sealed gate

How Yemen’s Houthis disrupted global maritime trade

The conflict in the Middle East continues to expand and have a growing impact on global politics and economics. By mid-December, the situation in the Red Sea had significantly worsened, where the Yemeni group Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, was waging a large-scale campaign against civilian ships traveling along the southern logistics route from Asia and Australia to Europe.

Red Sea corsairs

The movement announced its support for Hamas's actions during the October 7th raid on Israel just five days after the attack, and began to carry out its threats on October 19th. At the first stage, the Yemenis tried to hit targets in the Israeli port of Eilat with missiles and kamikaze UAVs , but the Jewish state's air defence systems successfully repulsed these attacks.
The second stage of Houthi military activity started on November 19 with a spectacular operation to seize a car carrier. Galaxy Leader, owned by Israeli businessman Abraham Ungar.
Galaxy Leader so far remains the only ship that the Houthis managed to board. The remaining civilian vessels attacked in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait area were fired upon by anti-ship cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones . Relative to the total number of ships passing through the ‘Gate of Sorrow’ (as the name of the strait is translated from Arabic), the number of damaged container ships and tankers is quite small, but the threat of loss of cargo and death of crews is forcing international companies to change logistics routes leading through the Red Sea.
The 32-kilometre bottleneck between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea on the African coast passes through 17,000 ships every year, accounting for 10 percent of global trade, 30 percent of container traffic and 5 percent of oil transport.

Logistics collapse

The intensification of attacks by the Houthis, who in recent weeks alone have shot down a dozen ships that refused to change their route at their request, has caused a crisis in shipping.
The largest ship-owning companies are massively refusing to use the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The route from Singapore to Rotterdam via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is about 8,840 nautical miles (15,550 kilometres). If the bottleneck is completely closed, carriers will have to finally switch to using the second branch of the southern route, going around Africa. It is almost 40 percent longer than the currently operating sea route (11,720 nautical miles, or 21,700 kilometers) and increases the delivery time of goods by 9–14 days. With Maersk alone accounting for 14.8 percent of global trade, an economic crisis in Israel and Europe could erupt soon if Houthi attacks continue unabated.
Intermediate losses to the global economy due to the actual closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have not yet been calculated, but even from fragmentary regional data it is clear that the Houthis were able to create a very problematic situation using a minimum of military resources.


The 32-kilometer bottleneck between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea on the African coast handles 17,000 ships every year,representing 10 percent of global trade, 30 percent of container traffic and 5 percent of volumes.

New crusade

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, while visiting the Middle East, announced the launch of a new multinational operation to ensure safe navigation in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, code-named Prosperity. Guardian (‘Guardian of Prosperity’). The anti-Houthi coalition, according to the head of the Pentagon, included many countries, including the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain. It is significant that by a civilised society, Americans again mean only about 50 states.
There is no point in expecting an immediate crushing of the Houthis and the unblocking of the ‘Gates of Sorrow’. The coalition so far looks impressive only on paper; in fact, it lacks everything: motivation, personnel, warships.
Canada will send to participate in Prosperity Guardian of three staff officers. Dutch Minister of Defence Kaisa Ollongren also said that her country would only provide a group of naval staff officers.
The group of warships in close proximity to the coast of Yemen includes the American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower, cruiser Philippine Sea, destroyers Carney, Laboon and Mason, and French frigate Languedoc, combined into Task Force Combined Maritime Forces-153. So far, only the Italians have promised to join her, who will send the frigate Virginio Fasan.
However, this is not all the forces that the new coalition could potentially have at its disposal. There is, for example, still another strike group in the region, led by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford. To the north of the site of the proposed operation there are two universal landing ships under the Stars and Stripes, and to the south there is the British destroyer Diamond. In total, according to experts, the waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the Gulf of Aden are plying 43 ships of the fleets of Israel and Western countries.
In addition to the Houthis , Somali pirates have become more active in the region and decided to fish in troubled waters. However, so far they have not had success: the only captured ship was quickly recaptured by American Marines.
Interestingly, Bahrain is the only Arab country in the coalition so far. Neither Saudi Arabia, nor the UAE, nor Egypt are taking part.

Demonstration of powerlessness

At the moment, there is no clear plan of action for the new coalition. Judging by the composition of the group, the maximum that it can do is organize an escort of ships, protecting them from Houthi missiles of its own air defence, or demonstratively strike with cruise missiles at places where Ansarallah members are likely to be located. In order to inflict serious losses on the group and force it to end the blockade of Bab el- Mandeb, a full-fledged ground operation is needed, which the United States is unlikely to dare now.
Houthi officials have already promised to attack ships of countries that join the American operation.
Western strategists should be careful: Ansarallah has an impressive arsenal of anti-ship weapons, which the Houthis use masterfully.
A furor in the expert community was recently caused by the confirmed fact that the Palatium III container ship of the Swiss company MSC was hit by a ballistic missile. Previously, no one in the world was able to hit a moving ship with this type of ammunition in a combat situation.
The growing tension in the Middle East is a direct consequence of the destructive US policy in the region. After Iran’s ties with the Arab world began to improve, with the active assistance of China, the Yemeni conflict practically disappeared.
However, the decrepit hegemon’s brutal intervention and saber-rattling, coupled with Biden’s bumbling handling of the Gaza war, have jeopardised the entire peace accord. As a result, one of the world’s most important logistics routes was under attack, and the European economy, which has not really recovered from the last blow from its American ‘partners’, will suffer again.

By Stanislav Fedoruk