by ASHOK KUMAR
A month after Israel began its brutal war on Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis launched a blockade of shipping routes in the Red Sea. The US-led attempt to restore safe navigation was a disaster that has exposed deep fragilities in the global maritime trading system.
On May 12, a New York Times article titled “Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia” inadvertently revealed the truth about the US-led coalition’s failure in Yemen. The piece noted that while the United States was burning through munitions, Yemen’s Houthis, or Ansar Allah, continued firing at ships and shooting down drones with impunity.
In other words: Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, successfully imposed a blockade on the Red Sea — one of the most critical shipping lanes in the world — while the US and its allies floundered, wasting billions in missile defense against an opponent that outmaneuvered them at every turn.
US military operations in Yemen have resulted in significant civilian casualties, with starkly conflicting estimates. Airwars, a UK-based conflict monitor, documents hundreds of Yemeni civilian deaths across 181 US military actions since 2002. These figures stand in dramatic contrast to Pentagon reports acknowledging just thirteen civilian fatalities. The broader Yemeni civil war, ongoing since 2014, has proven even more devastating. Independent experts estimate the Saudi-led coalition’s US-backed bombing campaign and blockade have contributed to over 150,000 deaths — part of a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni lives overall.
How did it end? Three key factors explain the Houthis’ ability to maintain a blockade despite Western opposition: their control of a vital geographic choke point, their domestically produced missile and drone arsenal, and the inherent vulnerabilities of a hyperconsolidated global shipping industry.
The Blockade That Shook the World
On November 19, 2023, Houthi fighters boarded the Israeli-linked Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea, marking the first naval blockade in history imposed by a force without its own navy. From that moment, Yemen effectively corked one of the world’s most vital trade routes, disrupting a third of global container traffic and nearly a quarter of all maritime trade between non-neighboring countries. The economic shock waves were immediate. Shipping giants rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope for the first time in over 150 years, sending transit times, costs, and insurance premiums soaring.
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