U.S. Dooms Its Red Sea Mission by Denying Gaza Link

The commander of U.S. Naval forces in the Mideast can't define an end-state for his mission. It's staring him in the face

Edited by Sam Thielman

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THIS IS A STORY about what you’re left with—the routes you're forced to take—when you refuse to do the one thing that will work. It's about the U.S.-led mission to combat the Houthi attacks on shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. The Houthis do this, they have repeatedly declared, to compel a ceasefire that withdraws Israel from Gaza. 

The naval mission began in February. And in a briefing convened by two think tanks on Wednesday morning, Vice Admiral George Wikoff, the commander of the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet and thus U.S. naval forces in the Mideast, struggled to explain what that mission has achieved so far, what it could achieve, or how it could end. "We're tactically performing magnificently," was the best Wikoff could offer, whistling past the operational and strategic graveyard. 

Yes, the U.S.-led maritime coalition comprising Operation Prosperity Guardian has "degraded" Houthi capabilities. And something like 1,000 ships a month now transit the Bab al-Mandeb, which apparently is up from January. But when asked how effective the mission has been, Wikoff replied, "It's a struggle we have every day just to figure out where we are on the meter." Houthi attacks on both commercial ships and even U.S. naval assets in the region continue. Wikoff lamented the fundamental mission mismatch: The U.S. must prevent every Houthi attack while the Houthis need only get lucky once, "and they got lucky more than once." Such is the nature of these policing missions—which are also missions of imperial choice. 

Most ominously, Wikoff said that when it came to the Houthis, who control much of northern and western Yemen, it's "hard to find a center of gravity to hold at risk over time." That is quite an admission from a commander. However Wikoff meant it, it's a concession that the U.S. doesn't know how it can compel a strategic change in its adversary's fortunes. If the U.S. can't identify and hold at risk an adversary center of gravity, then it can only ever be reactive. The U.S. can blow the Houthis' shit up, but they can resupply, and the set piece repeats itself, with the Houthis holding out against the strongest navy on earth. Wikoff described the naval presence in the Red Sea as a "shock absorber," and it's hard to see from his briefing how it could be anything more. 

For this, sailors are being put into harm's way. Wikoff cited without challenge the recent observation that the waters off Yemen represent the longest "sustained combat" by the U.S. Navy since World War II. He referred to himself as the rare commander who "put a fleet into a position where they know they will be engaged." That is what it means to be a shock absorber.

How does this end? "Maybe more steel in the water would be helpful," Wikoff said when asked if other nations needed to add to their coalition contributions, "but what we need is a diplomatic solution." What does that mean? "To enable some kind of diplomacy at some point." Currently, the effort is to "preserve where we are"—which he emphasized is "not an acceptable solution"—to buy time for "other levers of government and the international community to pressure the Houthis to stop what they're doing in the maritime." 

Now: there is a solution staring Wikoff and everyone in the face. It's one the Houthis have made extremely clear. I bet you can guess what I'm going to suggest. 

But Wikoff instead denied linkage between the Houthi maritime attacks and the Israeli rampage in Gaza. Usually Wikoff talked around Gaza entirely, referring only to "the current situation." In his telling, the Houthis are merely opportunistic, "a weapon looking for a reason to use it." He cited, as often happens for those who deny linkage, the 25 vessels that the Houthis shot at between 2016 and October 7. Now, to me that looks like quite a low level of maritime attacks, but also enough maritime attacks to have developed a capability that is now being brought to bear as a point of leverage on what Wikoff correctly identifies as a major global economic transit route. A center of gravity, if you will.

If the Houthis are merely opportunistic, then a great way to call their bluff would be to impose a ceasefire on Israel. Either the U.S. would immediately achieve its regional and its Red Sea objectives or the Houthis would expose and isolate themselves by continuing attacks amid a ceasefire, which would vindicate Wikoff. That sure seems worth trying. But no. 

More fundamentally, Wikoff's denial of the linkage between Gaza and the Red Sea attacks blocks the pathway to the diplomatic solution that Wikoff wants… someone somewhere to come up with. The Houthis have a clear, articulated and deliverable demand: an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. If the U.S. and its coalition allies do not structure their diplomacy to address it, diplomacy will not resolve the crisis. The U.S. Navy will remain a shock absorber along 1,100 nautical miles of coast. Palestinians will continue to die in huge and preventable numbers, and Yemenis in smaller but also preventable numbers. 

The only diplomatic solution entails imposing a ceasefire on Israel, since Israel just assassinated the head of Hamas who had been negotiating the ceasefire. It would save the lives of Palestinians and deescalate a regional war. 

Or the U.S. could continue to abet the genocide of Palestinians, contribute to the dynamics that escalate the regional war while claiming to seek deescalation, and continue to watch the world's most sophisticated and capable Navy lose a protracted conflict it has no way to win in an economically critical waterway, all while assuring itself of its magnificent tactical performance. 

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