The Houthis have defeated the US Navy

Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) was set up in December 2023 in response to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping passing through the southern Red Sea. The aim was to provide a unified international front that would both deter the Houthis from further attacks and reassure the shipping companies who due to reasons of risk and associated insurance costs were already starting to take the long route round the Cape of Good Hope.

The problem was, it didn’t work. The Houthis were not deterred and continued taking pot shots at anyone and everything from ships with the most tenuous links to Israel, to Iranian grain carriers to Russian dark fleet oilers. For relatively little effort and money, they achieved their desired end states of ‘improved local influence’ and ‘challenging international shipping’ almost immediately. Their line that they would stop if there was a ceasefire in Gaza convinced only a few.

This led to Operation Poseidon Archer starting in January 2024, with US and UK counterstrikes on Houthi targets. But as Saudi Arabia proved between 2015 and 2023 (and repeatedly told us) trying to disable the Houthis by kinetic strikes is like punching smoke, and so it proved.

None of these efforts were helped when the EU formed a splinter coalition called Aspides so as not to associate with the US posture in Israel. The West’s inability to agree on how to perform a relatively basic task did not go unnoticed by potential adversaries. It was certainly noticed by the shipping companies we were trying to reassure.

Since January, not only have the attacks steadily increased in number, they have diversified too. Drones and cruise missiles were accompanied by hijackings and ballistic missiles. April saw the first use of a surface drone and there has been a steady increase in this method since.

Recently the Houthis have started following up their attacks with small arms fire from fast boats and the last few weeks have seen the amount of attacks increase above what was an average of 2.5 a week.

Even Russia doesn’t want to risk it at the moment. Earlier this month, Russian tankers Arpus and Arlan, which could have gone through the Suez Canal, instead transferred their oil into the Gold Pearl – too big for the Canal – and she duly went round the Cape.

The Greek flagged tanker Sounion is the latest victim, attacked four times on Wednesday, resulting in a fire on board. A French warship from the Aspides mission came to their aid, destroying an approaching surface drone and then rescuing the crew before taking them to Djibouti. Nice work – except now the ship is now abandoned and according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC) she is between Eritrea and Yemen. If she is attacked again, or runs aground, her 150,000 tons of crude would constitute the fifth largest oil spill in history. It would be Exxon Valdez times four.

That it was an EU ship that came to the rescue isn’t surprising. Despite the EU’s scarce naval resources, they are currently the only ones there. There isn’t a Prosperity Guardian ship within 500 miles. Back in May when the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower was present, the US had 12 warships on station providing a mix of missile picket and escorting duties. Now they have zero. The UK for one brief moment had three. HMS Diamond did some outstanding work as part of OPG but when she left, we left.

From a UK perspective the reason is straightforward, we don’t have enough ships – or specifically we don’t have enough in working order. The US is more complicated because they do have the ships, they’ve just chosen not to send any.

That is not to say they don’t have problems of their own. Yesterday the US Navy announced that it might have to park up 17 auxiliary support ships due to crewing issues. The Western Pacific is without an aircraft carrier for the first time in years (ironically because two of them are in the Middle East area … but not in the Red Sea), the latest US frigate build programme is unravelling, Virginia class submarine build rate is below what’s needed to maintain the existing fleet and the US Coast Guard now has no working ice-breakers. Nonetheless the US could have ships in the Red Sea if it wanted to.

There can only be one conclusion: that the US has given up on Operation Prosperity Guardian. It wasn’t deterring the Houthis and it wasn’t reassuring shipping so they might as well go and do something else.

I understand the desire to not escalate with Iran which is why the Poseidon Archer strikes were focused and quite limited (especially when compared to current Israeli strikes in Yemen) even if I don’t entirely agree with it. I also understand that the shipping market has to an extent settled into a new routine and whilst they are making good money for now, the sustainability implications of the extra mileage means that they would eventually rather go back through Suez. Going round the Cape is only the new normal for now.

Of course the whole industry is driven by money which explains why Delta Tankers keep running the gauntlet despite this being the third attack on one of their ships. Clearly that decision is greedy and dumb in equal measure and I’m pretty sure the crew would agree with me.

Egypt doesn’t want to get involved yet, though as the cost to their economy from lost Canal business approaches two per cent of their GDP, they might not have a choice. Likewise, Saudi Arabia’s relationships with both Iran and Israel were both improving rapidly prior to October 7. The Saudis would rather keep clear for now.

So, as ever, we look to the US to dig us out of this hole. I hope I’ve got this all wrong and that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which has been in the Arabian Gulf for over a month now, is about to move to the Red Sea and pick up where Eisenhower left off. There is no more guarantee that it would work any more than it did before but just giving up while a political or financial solution is pursued is an almost indescribably big deviation from historic US maritime thinking.

Freedom of navigation is in the US Navy’s DNA – now is a bad time for the world’s most powerful navy to abandon that key principle.