The Houthis
Indigenous rebel group? Far-right paramilitary? Iranian proxy? Threat to global trade? Or all of the above?
The most commonly known thing about the Houthis are that they are one of the warring sides in the Yemeni Civil War (2014-Present). Recently however, the Houthis have been in the news for something that at first glance is unrelated to the war in Yemen. The Houthi geographic stronghold in Yemen includes a large swth of coastline along the Red Sea, which is one of the most strategically important trade routes in the world. The following shows areas of Houthi Control (Green), The Government of Yemen (Red), and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (Yellow) as of December 2023:
Since the October 7 war began between Israel and Gaza, the Houthi army has begun military activities nominally directed towards Israel, but which has also included attacks on shipping through the Red Sea, which lies off the coast of the Houthi-controlled (Green) section of the map above.
The Houthis have targeted ships that are Israeli-linked, but have also recently attacked ships flagged to countries like Norway and Liberia. About 10% of global trade passes between the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the two chokepoints of the Red Sea. Recently, massive shipping companies such as Maersk and BP have announced a pause on all shipping through the Red Sea, which caused spikes in the prices of goods and fossil fuels and increased economic risk worldwide.
In addition to growing concern amongst large shipping companies, nations that heavily rely on the flow of trade through the red sea, particularly the flow of fossil fuels are increasingly concerned. China for instance, a heavily export-oriented economy, and an economy that imports the vast majority of its oil from the Middle-East, is very interested in maintaining the stability of the Middle-Eastern sea lanes. The Chinese strategic interest in the flow of goods through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf was a major reason behind the Chinese-brokered peace deal between Saudi-Arabia and Iran in early 2023. By brokering a peace between the two nations, China reduced their energy risk profile by stabilizing the flow of one of their key energy sources.
This brings us to the importance of the Houthis on the international stage. The Houthis themselves are not a threat to the world, so much as their geographic position and allies are. The Houthis are effectively a proxy army of the Islamo-Fascist dictatorship of Iran, and over the last 9 years, have carved out a position in Yemen which allows them to threaten the shipping in the Red Sea. This geographic positioning was not a coincidence. The Houthi people are indigenous to the region they currently occupy, and their military capabilities allowing them to seize and maintain their region was largely supported by Iran, which has an interest in maintaining a proxy capable of striking shipping in the Red Sea.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a major regional power struggle, the effects of which are visible in tensions and wars across the middle-east. Libya, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, and to a certain extent, Egypt and Iraq are all battlegrounds where the two regional juggernauts fight it out. While wars rage all around Saudi-Arabia, the House of Saud has it’s eyes fixed on two geographical regions above all else: The Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and namely, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Strait of Hormuz. Both Straits are narrow enough so military intervention could cut off all trade going through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, respectively. This accounts for most of the world’s natural gas and oil trade, and would be crippling to the global economy.
The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are not mere pot-shots at Israel as part of Palestinian Liberation, but part of the Saudi-Iranian cold war, which implicates all global shipping and trade. Recently, the Saudi Government has announced a peace deal with the Houthis, an apparent move in the direction of attempting to once again stabilize the Red Sea, through which the overwhelming majority of Saudi oil flows.
While Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza goes on, and the aftershocks of those events follow, it will be incumbent upon responsible world powers to stabilize the Red Sea, and keep the Iranian-Saudi war from spiraling out of control.
American Social Democrats strongly urge the United States to work with regional partners like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to ensure that shipping through the Red Sea is protected. Spikes in food and basic goods prices from a blockage of the Red Sea would devastate the global economy and cause untold ripple effects. War is not the way, so American Social Democrats urge the United States to secure a sustainable peace in Yemen, not only for the Yemeni people, but for the good of the world.
