RED SEA SIEGEThe Siege of the Red Sea
With the degradation of Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis stand out as one of Iran’s proxies that continues to pose a serious threat to U.S. interests in the region. But with Iran on its back foot and Trump’s determination to bring the full capabilities of the U.S. military to bear against the Houthis, the group’s days running roughshod in the Red Sea may be numbered.
In 1781, President George Washington proclaimed that “without a decisive Naval force we can do nothing definitive. And with it, everything honorable and glorious.”
Today, an Iran-backed terrorist organization in Yemen, Ansar Allah, known colloquially as the Houthis, poses the toughest challenge to U.S. and allied maritime hegemony since we faced off against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” Trump also added a warning to Iran, saying that support for the Houthis needs to end now: “America will hold you fully accountable, and we won’t be nice about it!”
Since then, the U.S. military has conducted large-scale strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, targeting the group’s senior leadership, training sites, command centers, and weapons facilities, and killing at least fifty-three people, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
Even amid Trump’s claims that “they will be completely annihilated,” the Houthis remain defiant. The militant group’s foreign minister told Reuters that they now see themselves at war with the United States, meaning they’ll defend themselves “with all possible means, so escalation is likely.”
The once marginal group gained its international notoriety during the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war, which began in 2014. Fighting under the banner of “God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,” the Houthis emerged after October 7, 2023, as one of the Middle East’s most influential non-state actors—first firing cruise missiles at Israel, then declaring any Israel-linked ship a target.
In a bid to show solidarity with Hamas and bring an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza, the Houthis launched one-way attack drones and missiles almost daily at U.S. Navy vessels and other countries’ civilian ships transiting the Red Sea. The Houthis’ strikes ushered in a crisis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden’s Bab al-Mandeb Strait, dramatically disrupting business as usual in the passage. There was a brief pause in attacks in January of this year, which coincided with the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
