L’Express: Since mid-October, the Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack merchant ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. This crisis has taken on an unprecedented scale in recent days, damaging maritime trade and pushing Western states to increase a defense coalition to protect ships navigating in this narrow place. How can the current crisis in the Red Sea evolve?
This is a regionalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a way for the Houthis to use a sort of subsidiary axis to put pressure on the West and indirectly on Israel. At the very beginning of the conflict, in October, the Houthis attempted to fire directly towards Israel, but without much success. For several weeks, they have chosen a plan B, that of taking hostage maritime trade which passes through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, an essential artery of international trade towards the Mediterranean and Europe. The location remains central: the Suez Canal is always implicitly at stake. It had already been closed during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 or during other conflicts. The new thing is these non-state actors who possess state means, missiles, drones, and the capacity to strike the sea from land. Without having a naval force at the level of Western powers, they have a fairly strong capacity for disruption, especially since geography dictates its rules. With the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the Houthis find themselves in a strategic position. We wonder about the depth of their arsenal. How many missiles, how far, to do what? Is this a decoy, a sort of warning shot to have a political effect? Or are they determined to use their arsenal and block the strait in a lasting manner?
How can a small non-state group dictate its law in a region where there are powers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and where international fleets like the French Navy or the US Navy are stationed?
It is the culmination of a number of failures of recent decades. First, that of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to defeat the Houthis in the war in Yemen which began in 2015 and which is more or less status quo today. It is also the failure of Western powers to prevent Iran (close to the Houthi rebels) from disseminating its weapons. Overall, we see the Western failure to prevent the growth of actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, with quasi-state military means and capable of influencing, including international trade in hydrocarbons and goods. This crisis reveals known but emerging trends. This also raises the question of Israel’s attitude towards Hamas: is the response of military crushing a viable solution? Saudi Arabia failed in this strategy with the Houthis.
An international coalition has been set up to try to counter the actions of the Houthis. Concretely, can she stop them?
This is fundamental naval tactics: there is a strait, a confined space on which merchant ships are exposed. Private actors are very careful, they do not want to expose the lives of the crews and their ships. Large container ship owners like CMA CGM or oil companies like BP have suspended the circulation of their ships, or have initiated rerouting around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Interception actions by Western navies and, in particular, by the three major navies, the US Navy, the Royal Navy and the French Navy, took place. The question then arises of what we call “the order of battle”. There are “pre-positioned” means [déjà en position dans des zones réputées risquées] because we thought that something could happen; on the other hand, France has two projection bases, in Djibouti and Abu Dhabi. Then emerge subjects revealed by Ukraine and by the debates on the military programming law in France, namely what resources are available in terms of ships, crew and armament itself. Do we have enough missiles? The Houthis seem to have a number of drones and missiles which are inexpensive, unlike Western equipment, which is much more expensive and rare!
For example, the Aster missile that the French Navy used to shoot down drones costs around 1 million euros, is that right?
In that order. There aren’t many per frigate and there aren’t many frigates. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin condemned the attacks, calling them unprecedented and unacceptable. It was the minimum. The Americans remained extremely cautious, said nothing about the possibility of land strikes to dismantle the Houthi arsenal, which would constitute a sort of regionalization of the Israel-Hamas conflict, with Westerners striking the Arabian Peninsula, in fine in support of Israel. Nobody wants to come to that.
How to stop attacks?
The Houthis have an impact on the sea without having a navy. Without comparing intentions, this is what the Ukrainians are also doing, who are winning the battle of the Black Sea without a navy but with missiles and drones. The decisive action against the Houthis would not be to go on land, but to strike the land from the sea. Again, I don’t think anyone wants to go that far.
In the Strait of Hormuzthe Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who regularly intimidate ships, have other means, such as speedboats… Can we expect the Houthis to have them too?
The Houthi rebels do not yet have all the means available to the Iranians. But we can have surprises. We need to see what happened in Ukraine, in the Black Sea, this ability of the Ukrainians to disrupt the Russians with surface drones, somewhat basic equipment, a boat, a camera, explosives. A way of causing damage without risking the lives of crews and having a real disruptive effect in a so-called asymmetric logic, where the weak have significant means of disruption. It is expensive to defend against it and we are really reluctant to hit people where they are because it can be politically expensive. There is a sort of restraint, which reinforces the desire of the West to obtain a political settlement quickly in Gaza. The current crisis can be contained by military means – which, moreover, we want to spare – but no one wants to go and strike in Yemen.
The Red Sea represents 40% of world maritime trade, 20,000 ships pass there per year…
This represents 40% of container traffic and 12% of global traffic. For Europeans, this is essential for hydrocarbons, gas and oil from the Persian Gulf and for container ships coming from Asia. Access to the Suez Canal is at stake. It allows us to go faster and save on the price of transport. Going around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope is longer and more expensive. This shows the European dependence on maritime transport, which we had already observed at the end of Covid when there was a sort of congestion on maritime lines and an increase in the cost of freight. These are factors of strategic fragility and this has a macroeconomic impact on the price of supplies, namely the price of transport, the price of insurance, a set of price effects which in an inflationary context may not be neutral.
If the situation were to persist, could the economic consequences be major?
There is this dependence and this fragility. But we should not underestimate the resilience and efficiency of the shipping sector, which has rerouting capacity, with all these large shipowners like CMA CGM extremely efficient. We observed this during Covid, in 2020, where there was a very sharp drop, and then the recovery took place in 2021: prices rise, they fall, but they manage to adjust. We have never observed a clear disruption in supply. Once again, this proves the centrality of the Middle East which, whatever is said, particularly at the COP in Dubai, remains essential for the supply of oil and gas to Europe. Despite the declarations on the exit of oil, we remain in considerations very close to the 1970s: the oil must arrive and therefore ensure that the Strait of Hormuz and the others are open. As we buy more or less Russian gas, we are more dependent than ever on this area for our energy supplies. This is 180 degrees from the prevailing discourse on autonomy and decarbonization.
In fact, as this crisis shows, the sea is becoming more than ever a terrain of war?
This will be a strong trend in 2024. There is this issue of Bab-el-Mandeb but also Russia’s naval blockade against Ukraine. The sea is more than ever the infrastructure of globalization, through which raw materials, goods and also data pass, with submarine cables. It is more strategic than ever to control the sea, with this ability to allow ships to circulate – or not –, whether in the Red Sea, the South China Sea or the Black Sea. The novelty lies in the distribution of power: where before there were a few players, grouped under an American umbrella, there are now a whole bunch of players, not only China, but also regional players who have resources. to weigh and exploit these maritime infrastructures.
In this conflict, how does France position itself? She seems to find herself in the first line…
France is not devoid of resources. A frigate fired, which means it was prepositioned in the right place because we thought something could happen. It has bases in Abu Dhabi and Djibouti. There are regionalization logics that we will try to control as much as possible. But we are not safe from the soap slipping away from us!
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