Ramon Marks
The Yemeni Houthis refuse to go away. Despite the efforts of the U.S. Navy and allies, a ragtag, rebel insurgent group has managed to keep one of the world’s most strategic waterways—the Red Sea—blocked for almost two years. The majority of maritime traffic has been forced to take the longer, more circuitous and expensive Cape of Good Hope route around the tip of Africa. Washington has failed to maintain maritime freedom in one of the world’s key maritime chokepoints.
The technological revolution in naval warfare brought by anti-ship missile systems and drones has handed a small rebel group the ability to cut off the Red Sea’s strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This continuing standoff carries dangerous implications for the United States as a global maritime power.
The first lesson is obviously technology. Drones and land-based missile systems can now take out surface warships hundreds or even thousands of miles away from littoral coastlines. The Houthis’ Red Sea attacks underscore the challenging situation in which the U.S. Navy finds itself. Already no longer the world’s largest navy—having ceded that position to China’s—the Navy is searching for new approaches to deal with drones and antiship missiles. Its legacy aircraft carriers and other warships, equipped with expensive and sophisticated manned aircraft and missile systems, have proven to be less than ideally suited for this new age of warfare. Evolving to counter these weapons is a process that could take years for the Navy and Congress to develop and refine.
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