Tag Archives: Red Sea

How the Houthis Blindsided the U.S. Forces

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Even less-sophisticated adversaries can pose a serious threat to U.S. forces. And fatigue among overworked soldiers, sailors, aircrews and Marines can lead to costly mistakes. Trump launched Operation Rough Rider in March 2025 threatening the Houthis would be “annihilated” if they didn’t halt attacks on shipping in the vital Red Sea trade route. He poured forces into the region including two aircraft carriers, half a dozen B-2 bombers, a squadron of advanced F-35 fighters, and destroyers armed with guided missiles.

The Houthis proved resilient. In addition to nearly shooting down the two F-16s, they knocked more than a half-dozen Reaper drones out of the sky. A missile attack on the USS Harry S. Truman in April 2025 forced the carrier to make a hard turn that sent an F/A-18 rolling into the Red Sea. Another plane slid off the deck in May 2025 when its landing cable snapped, because sailors exhausted by weeks of combat likely left off a washer that held it in place.

The U.S. force had a huge edge over the Houthis. Part of that was the “Wild Weasels,” the name for F-16 units…charged with suppressing enemy air defenses. They were equipped with HARM missiles that lock on to the signal from enemy radars to knock them out…But the Houthis had developed a network to track American warplanes with observers, optics and infrared sensors whose intricacy U.S. officials didn’t entirely understand. That enabled them to flick on their air-defense radars at the last moment, so U.S. pilots would have little time to react—a tactic pilots came to call a “SAMbush.”…

The Pentagon touted the accomplishments of its 53-day fight against the Houthis. The U.S. had hit more than 1,000 targets…but never decapitated the top Houthi leadership. The US operation didn’t defeat the Houthis or degrade them to the point where they are unable to carry out future attacks in the Red Sea.

Excerpt from Michael Gordon et al., F-16 Pilot’s Narrow Escape in Missile Attack Shows Risks of a New Mideast War, WSJ, Feb. 26, 2026

Dirt Poor but Mighty: Somaliland

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By extending diplomatic recognition to the breakaway statelet of Somaliland, on December 26, 2025, Israel has cut a deal aimed at sharing intelligence and securing the strategic waterways of the Red Sea—making the country a player in the Horn of Africa, where Arab countries are jostling for influence…Somaliland, a semidesert territory inside internationally recognized Somali borders, lies just south of the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait that connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean…Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia during a civil war in 1991, is a self-declared nation of 6.2 million people—which, if it were a nation state, would be one of the poorest in the world. Its territory is smaller than Missouri.

Somaliland has an underused port and a long runway at Berbera… Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, operating in Yemen, called the recognition a “hostile and illegitimate act” targeting Somalia, Yemen and the Red Sea and warned that any Israeli presence in Somaliland would be considered a military target. Somaliland has in recent years been monitoring a Houthi buildup of arms trade and training to a Somali al Qaeda affiliate called al-Shabaab.

Excerpt from Benoit Faucon, Israel Flexes New Diplomatic Muscle in Recognition of Somaliland, WSJ, Jan. 4, 2025

Slyly Conquering East Africa

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The rulers of United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of whose components, Dubai, own a majority stake in DP World, one of the world’s largest maritime firms with perations in 40 countries.It is one of several Gulf states trying to gain a strategic foothold in east Africa through ports. Controlling these offers commercial and military advantages but risks exacerbating tensions in the region…

DP World thinks the region from Sudan to Somalia needs 10-12 ports. It has just half that. The firm’s first foray was on Djibouti’s coast. When DP World won its first concessions there in the 1990s, the Emiratis were among the few investors interested in the small and poor former French colony. DP World built and operated a new container terminal, Doraleh,and helped finance roads and other infrastructure. Doraleh is now the country’s largest employer and the government’s biggest source of revenue. It runs at nearly full capacity, handling 800,000 containers a year. Much of its cargo travels along a Chinese-built railway from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

Djibouti’s profile rose further after the terrorist attacks on America of September 11th, 2001, when America opened a military base there. France and China also have bases; other navies patrol off its coast to deter Somali pirates. But when the Emiratis wanted to open their own naval base they were rebuffed, partly because of their close ties to Djibouti’s rival, Eritrea (the two states had a bloody border dispute in 2008). In 2015 the UAE started building a naval base in Assab, in southern Eritrea. The base has been used in the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen….In 2016 DP World won a 30-year concession to operate the port of Berbera in Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991 (though no foreign government recognises it). Critics said the deal would hasten the break-up of Somalia.

The Horn ports all sit near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital choke-point at the mouth of the Red Sea: 4.8m barrels of oil passed through it every day in 2016. Competition is getting fierce, though. Qatar and its ally, Turkey, are building ports in Sudan. Saudi Arabia is in talks to set up a naval base in Djibouti. All three Gulf states are trying to snap up farmland in east Africa, part of a broader effort to secure food supplies for their arid countries. Emirati-built ports could one day export crops from Emirati-owned farms…

Gulf states could also find themselves in competition with China…In February 2018 Djibouti seized the Doraleh port, a concession to the UAE… Shippers believe it took Doraleh as a sop to China, to which it is heavily indebted. In July 2018, Djibouti opened the first phase of a new $3.5bn free-trade zone, set to be the largest in Africa when it is finished. Built mostly by state-owned Chinese firms, it sits next to Doraleh. DP World says the project violates the terms of its concession and is threatening to sue.

Excerpts from Red Sea Scamble: Ports on the Horn, Economist, July 21, 2018, at 33

Red-Dead: water crisis in the Middle East

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The Dead Sea is dying. Half a century ago its hyper-salty, super-pungent waters stretched 80km from north to south. That has shrunk to just 48km at its longest point. The water level is falling by more than a meter per year. All but a trickle from its source, the Jordan River, is now used up before it reaches the sea. “It will never disappear, because it has underground supplies, but it will be like a small pond in a very big hole,” says Munqeth Mehyar of EcoPeace, an NGO.

Until the summer of 2017 Israel and Jordan, which share the sea, were trying to slow the decline. The “Red-Dead project”, as it is called, would desalinate seawater at the Jordanian port of Aqaba and pump 200m cubic metres of leftover brine into the Dead Sea each year. That would not be enough to stabilise the sea, which needs at least 800m cubic metres to stay at current levels. Still, it would help—and the project has a much more important benefit.

The World Bank defines water scarcity as less than 1,000 cubic metres per person annually. Jordan can provide less than 15% of that. The Aqaba plant would send fresh water to southern towns in both Jordan and Israel. In return for its share, Israel agreed to pump an equal amount to parched northern Jordan, where most of the population lives.

But the project was now on hold due a dispute between Jordan and Israel. On July 23rd, 2017 a Jordanian teenager delivering furniture to the Israeli embassy stabbed a security guard. The guard opened fire, killing both his assailant and an innocent bystander….

Jordan is already one of the world’s most arid countries. Climate change will make matters worse. By the end of the century, say scientists from Stanford University, Jordan could be 4°C hotter, with about a third less rain. It needs to rationalise water consumption. And Israel, which wants a stable neighbour to its east, has an interest in getting water projects back on track.

Excerpts from Jordan’s Water Crisis: Diplomatic Drought: Economist, Dec. 2, 2017

Global Oil Chokepoints and War in Yemen

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Fighters from Yemen’s Houthi militia entered  on March 31, 2015 a coastal military base overlooking the Red Sea’s strategic Bab el-Mandeb strait, local officials told Reuters.  Soldiers of the 17th Armored Division in the Dabab district in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province opened the gates to the Houthis, whose military advance has been challenged by six days of Saudi-led air strikes. This means that Houthi rebels have a foothold along one of the world’s crucial oil chokepoints.    According to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) fact-sheet on global oil chokepoints, 3.8 million barrels of oil and “refined petroleum products” passed through the Bab el-Mandeb each day on its way to Europe, Asia, and the US, making it the world’s fourth-busiest chokepoint.  The strait controls access to multiple oil terminals and to a oil pipeline co-owned by state companies from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that transits oil between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, called the Suez-Mediterranean or SUMED pipeline.  The Bab el-Mandeb is 18 miles wide at its narrowest point, “limiting tanker traffic to two 2-mile-wide channels for inbound and outbound shipments,” according to the Energy Information Administration.

“Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal or SUMED Pipeline, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa, adding to transit time and cost,” the EIA fact-sheet explains. “In addition, European and North African southbound oil flows could no longer take the most direct route to Asian markets via the Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb.”

Recent events in Yemen, where a Saudi-led Arab military coalition is fighting to restore president Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi against an Iranian-backed insurgent movement, have already jolted global oil prices.

Excerpt from ARMIN ROSEN,  Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen just captured a military base along one of the world’s major oil lanes, Reuters, Mar. 31, 2015

More from wikipedia: On February 22, 2008, it was revealed that a company owned by Tarek bin Laden is planning to build a bridge  across the Bab el-Mandeb strait, linking Yemen with Djibouti.  Middle East Development LLC, a Dubai company owned by Tarek bin Laden, would build the bridge. The project has been assigned to engineering company COWI in collaboration with architect studio Dissing+Weitling, both from Denmark.

Water Sharing Agreement – Middle East

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Drained by farms along its banks, the River Jordan is barely a trickle by the time it dribbles into the Dead Sea, and most of that is sewage coming out of Jerusalem and West Bank settlements. Israeli and Jordanian factories also use the water to recover potash.So fast are the Dead Sea’s briny waters shrinking that it has already shed its southern half. Much of the seabed is now as crusty as the pillar of salt that Lot’s wife turned into after fleeing Gomorrah. Hotels built on the shores in the 1980s have a cliff-top view today. Arthritic pensioners keen on the sea’s therapeutic powers are reduced to swimming in saline hotel pools. By 2050, say Friends of the Earth, a conservation group, the sea will be little more than a pond the size of two football fields.

After years of regional squabbling, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian ministers signed a deal ( a Memorandum of Understanding)* on December 9th, 2013 to slow desiccation. Backed by the World Bank, they plan to build a desalination plant on the Red Sea and pipe the run-off 180km (112 miles) north to the Dead Sea.  Some see advantages in diluting the Dead Sea’s nose-twitchingly sulphurous tides with ocean water. But there are drawbacks. Mucky algae might spread, turning the sea red. “It’s playing with an entire ecosystem,” says Mira Edelstein of Friends of the Earth.

The Dead Sea: Emptying out, Economist, Dec. 14, 2013, at 58

*The MoU outlines in broad language three major regional water sharing initiatives that will be pursued over the coming months by the cooperating parties. These initiatives include the development of a desalination plant in Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea, where the water produced will be shared between Israel and Jordan; increased releases of water by Israel from Lake Tiberias for use in Jordan; and the sale of about 20-30 million m3/year of desalinated water from Mekorot (the Israeli water utility) to the Palestinian Water Authority for use in the West Bank. In addition, a pipeline from the desalination plant at Aqaba would convey brine to the Dead Sea to study the effects of mixing the brine with Dead Sea water. In order to proceed with these actions, especially the desalination plant at Aqaba, technical work and studies will need to be undertaken.  See World Bank