Joe Biden's Failed Strategy Against the Houthi Threat in the Red Sea

Michael Rubin

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With their increasing attacks on shipping passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, the Houthis, an Iranian-backed tribal group from the Saada region of Yemen who seized power a decade ago, continue to endanger freedom of navigation and trade. The Biden administration initially used the U.S. Navy to counter the threat, but this was, at best, whack-a-mole and, at worst, military virtue signaling that wasted tremendous resources for little result. The Biden administration has quietly acknowledged failure by withdrawing the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group from the Red Sea to the eastern Mediterranean should fighting escalate between Israel and Hezbollah.

From the very beginning, a far better military strategy to counter the Houthi threat might have been to use the Somaliland airport at Berbera to run operations to counter Houthi threats and protect shipping. While it takes 4,000 men to crew an aircraft carrier, it takes only four to crew an Osprey or two to fly and fight in an F-16. President Joe Biden’s team, however, often downplays military strategies in favor of the belief that diplomacy alone can end threats posed by ideological and aggressive adversaries.

Here, too, though, a lack of creativity and attention to local dynamics lead the White House and State Department to miss opportunities to end the Houthi threat and bring stability and prosperity to the Yemeni people.