By whipping up the frenzy surrounding the Red Sea woes, the US administration seeks to stoke new military games intended to provide the much-needed entertainment value for their voters. Over the couple of decades following the end of the Cold War, they have developed a deep-rooted idea of their ability to meddle in any regional conflict
One of the biggest challenges international policies seem riddled with is the countries’ inability to take perspectives and recalibrate their self-image to the way they are viewed on the outside. It comes to the fore whenever the might and clout a certain state has do not go down in flames in the wake of a lost battle but rather seep away, and what would otherwise be felt like a tragedy suddenly takes on a tragicomic undertone.
Even if the Americans and their unfortunate allies end up striking Yemen and making the locals suffer again, no one will get scared. What could have looked like a dominant power play on the part of the US and the West a couple of years ago may now turn into a yet another display of their mismatched capabilities.
Above all, building a naval coalition against the Houthis is the US attempt to show that the crumbling superpower still exerts some level of authority rather solve any problem. Let us hope, anyway, that Operation Prosperity Guardian is merely a load of blah-blah that will not result in civilian deaths in Yemen.
To begin with, the Ansar Allah (Houthis’) attacks on the ship that are either associated with Israel and or headed into the area pose no direct threat to the US. These attacks using rockets and naval drones started after the gruesome conflict erupted in Gaza in October. The Red Sea tensions have by now only affected the routes of a fraction of the ships navigating in the water space between Alexandria (Egypt) and Somalia. No more than five per cent of them have rerouted around the southern tip of Africa on their way to Europe. To be fair, though, if things remain tense, global carriers will, most likely, be increasingly diverting from the Suez Canal.
But there is more. According to Alexei Bezborodov, a pundit at Infranews, the woes afflicting this part of the globe only affect a paltry 1% to 2% of the US trade with its Asian partners. Most of their commercial itineraries do not go beyond the Pacific Ocean. Their major trade routes with China and Southeast Asia are therefore not threatened by the Houthis’ military outings. That is why, by the way, the US did not respond to Malaysia’s decision to ban Israel-flagged ships from using its ports: there is no way it is affecting the US trade interests. What it does, though, is show the growing independence of the Global Majority countries that is inflicting political damage on the US.
The Americans are using Transatlantic routes to trade with the EU and ship their fossil fuels that have taken over the Russian exports. Europeans are the ones who may bear the brunt of maritime rerouting, but fret you not: that is exactly what they are supposed to do in the current international climate. Europe has sustained way more damage from severing its fuel supply cooperation with Russia than the US has. It is spending fortunes to keep the Kiev regime afloat and has to practise austerity. But again, the EU’s international plight does not seem to bother anyone else.
The EU states would have never authorised the use of force if it had not been for the US support and guidance. First, they lack the military resources to do so. Second, they will be hampered by the US. The shakier the Western flagship feels when navigating the choppy waters, the closer of an eye it keeps on others as it makes sure it still protagonises all of the processes.
Importantly, the topsy-turvy surrounding the situation in the Bab-el-Mandeb is hurting Saudi Arabia. It uses the Red Sea to ship fossil fuels to the EU. But one would have a hard time imagining the US stirring up a new regional war to protect the interests of its allies, much less the one that is about to join BRICS in January 2024. Besides, a hot war would severely inconvenience the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf. After all, the Houthis have so far been attacking the ships associated with Israel. If a war breaks out, they may start firing at any ships within reach. That is, just as is the case with the Palestinian disaster, the Arab monarchies do not want to blow it out of proportion. Instead, they would rather sort things out on their own.
Given the above, there are no real stakeholders interested in the West’s military build-up and escalation in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Despite this, the US looks determined to scrap it out as they have announced Operation Prosperity Guardian and spearheaded a naval coalition capable of waging a small-scale remote-controlled war. The US naval ships have been joined by those from France, Spain, Norway, the UK, Italy, Canada, and the Netherlands. They may use the naval bases offered by Bahrein and the Seychelles.
In previous epochs, we would have surely witnessed yet another bout of military aggression with a generous spin aimed at showing the world that the US might can reach any far-flung barn out in the boondocks. But now, as the naval experts point out, a raid against the Houthis may well miss the intended target of stopping the attacks on the Israeli ships and restoring peaceful maritime prosperity. As for the ground offensive, we have already mentioned its pointlessness for the West.
Why then are they stirring it all up? The odds are, the US is just acting on impulse. They do not have a thought-out plan. First, Washington is eager to conjure up a new plot that would distract the public opinion in Western countries from the Ukraine controversy. It is quite obvious that the recent achievements in the allied bid to suppress Russia have been uninspiring, to say the least. It does not mean to say that the ramblings about Russia’s possible win and Kiev’s ever-deteriorating predicament spewed by Western media are an earnest take on the situation. But given the current military and economic circumstances as they stand, their despair is definitely on the rise.
It means they should stoke new military games intended to provide the much-needed entertainment value for their voters. This line of reasoning can be supported by a hawkish headline in a US magazine claiming that the Houthi attacks on commercial ships can potentially rob the residents of the European ‘Garden of Eden’ of their Christmas gifts. It does not matter a little bit that the gifts had been delivered to the chain stores back in October and had been sold out by the time the article saw the light of day.
Second, the US acts mechanistically. Over the couple of decades following the end of the Cold War, they have developed a deep-rooted idea of their ability to meddle anywhere in the world without any need for international cooperation. They were successful for quite a while. The fate of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya would be a prime example. Yet, by now, the West has run out of many of its resources. Their people are not particularly enthusiastic about a new costly military misadventure either. Worse still, the world is becoming harder to control through violence alone. But their behavioural patterns have not gone anywhere and are hard to reconsider.
Truth be told, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Secretary Austin along with the US administration’s other top guns clearly realise the pointlessness of their restless moves. Sometimes it can be read on their faces. But the self-image they have been projecting both domestically and across Europe does not really mesh well with the reality and the way they are viewed by the rest of the world.
This mechanistic urge will keep making the US leaders fake real actions behind the smokescreen of ostentation. It will take some time and more events that will be forcing this self-realisation on the US before these two mismatched images can finally overlap. But as for the upcoming developments, wait for that raging frenzy in Western media outlets, brazen public statements and updates on the downed Houthi missiles.