A New Combined Task Force Builds in the Red Sea

..."Prosperity Guardian" ... bleh

Piracy from the southern end of the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa has ramped up significantly over the last couple of weeks, especially over the weekend.

There are a lot of solid updates on the late-breaking tactical developments that I won’t be replicating here. If you are on Twitter/X, there are a few of our favorite accounts that are doing a great job tracking this aspect of this challenge and you really should be following; Sal Mercogliano, John Konrad, Charlie B., and numerous others. I especially like primary source information from industry, and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) is invaluable in this regard. Their alerts are clicking off faster than you can track over at X/Ttitter or their webpage.

Let’s just spend some time today doing a back-of-the-cocktail napkin review of the larger things in play, but before we do this - let’s set the table on what is causing the recent spot of bother.

Iran’s proxy in the area, the “Houthi” (officially known as Ansar Allah, AKA “Supporters of God”) is a Shia Islamist rebellion organization that evolved from the Saada Governorate of Yemen in the 1990s. They have been a pest off the part of the coast of the Red Sea they control for years, with some success - but generally were not an impediment to trade on the high seas.

After the attacks from Gaza on October 7th, the Houthi decided to support their fellow Iranian proxy Hamas by starting to attack Israel with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long-range drones. History may reveal their actual goals, but they are from just doing some supporting fires to trying to force a wider war in the area. If they can humiliate Big Satan or Little Satan along the way, all the better.

That is where the USN got involved, indirectly getting involved in the conflict by intercepting what could be heading towards Israel. That quickly progressed to going after Israeli-related shipping passing by their shores, and now it is open season.

The crews of our Arleigh Burke destroyers are doing simply a superb job and the Royal Navy and French Navy have joined the efforts.

The attacks have reached the point that it is starting to impact Suez traffic and international trade - not to mention the physical danger to shipping and the merchant mariners of dozens of nations who transit the Red Sea.

So, there is where we stand as of Monday AM as we await some details on the following;

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will announce a new maritime protection force during his visit to the Middle East, according to British newspaper the Guardian, after repeated attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on commercial ships traversing the Red Sea.

The report says the naval task force will initially be called Operation Prosperity Guardian and work to ensure the Red Sea is safe for shipping.

In The Guardian article linked above, the Iranians and their Houthi proxies have some entertaining comments:

The Iranian defence minister, Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani, said any multinational taskforce would face extraordinary problems trying to protect shipping in the Red Sea. He said: “If the US makes such an irrational move, they will be faced with extraordinary problems. Nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance.”

The Yemeni military spokesperson said: “If the US succeeds in establishing an international alliance, it will be the dirtiest alliance in history. The world has not forgotten the shame of remaining silent about previous genocidal crimes.”

The leader of the Houthi movement, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, has also warned that he will retaliate if red lines are crossed, one of which is direct intervention by the US in Gaza.

I’m looking forward to some details on the - let’s talk like adults here - horribly named “Prosperity Guardian,” but this is already looking to suffer, I’m afraid, with some of the challenges we faced with building and then operating the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, unironically call on occasion, “I Saw Americans Fight.”

There will be an attempt to build an international coalition, which is right, but everyone needs to be clear-headed about it.

We are already seeing some in the international community getting a bit wobbly;

Australia’s left-wing Labor government continues to dither over a direct U.S. request to join the expanding multi-national naval force patrolling the Red Sea to keep one of the world’s major trade arteries open.

…

Defence Minister Richard Marles said last Wednesday the federal government had yet to respond to the U.S. request, as Breitbart News reported.

“We’ll consider this request in due course, but I would note that the focus of our naval efforts right now are on our immediate region,” he told reporters in Darwin.

So much ISAF’n going on here.

Let’s do some quick math. Being that we’re being so “international” here, I’ll use kilometers.

Roughly using great circle routes (some from the USA go over the North Pole) what exactly is the benchmark of concern Marles has here? Is “Distance from Darwin” the reference? OK, what is the distance from Darwin to the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea?

• Darwin to Bab al-Mandab: 10,000 kilometers.

Hmmm, how does that look from the USA?

• San Diego to Bab al-Mandab: 14,600 km.

• Norfolk to Bab al-Mandab: 11,700 km.

Does that mean the USA should shrug?

How about our European allies? How are they looking?

• Toulon to Bab al-Mandab: 5,000 km.

• Portsmouth to Bab al-Mandab: 5,800 km.

• Taranto to Bab al-Mandab: 4,020 km.

What about those nations besides Europe that are most impacted by piracy? (NB: the People’s Republic of China is not on this list for a reason):

• Bombay (Mumbai for your touchy types) to Bab al-Mandab: 3,000 km.

• Tokyo to Bab al-Mandab: 9,780 km.

• Seoul to Bab al-Mandab: 8,590 km.

Again, who is coming to our party and what are their national caveats?

Things that will be interesting to try to glean from open-source as this unfolds:

• What, exactly, is the mission?

  • Just guard shipping from attack?

  • Eliminate the ability of the Houthi to conduct piracy, AKA direct action against their safe havens and launching facilities? We have a few thousand years of a successful track record of eliminating piracy. Modern technology can enable much to all of that to be done feet-wet.

  • Will targets be engaged that are only a threat to individual warships, or any ship? Will all members engage targets that appear not to be a threat to shipping, but are heading towards Israel?

• What tasks inside the larger mission will participating nations’ national caveats prevent them from executing?

• Will the Saudis and the Gulf nations be let off the leash to get back to work in Yemen against the Houthi?

• Will there be any change in Biden Administration policy towards Iran?

• How do you deal with this without giving what the Iranians seem to want - a larger conflict?

This is expanding much further than whatever the Iranians wanted a few weeks ago. Heck, it looks like the Somali pirates are joining the party.

Each day, in the absence of order, the world’s shipping traffic is taking on the appearance of a herd of wildebeests surrounded by lions. The victimized are left to the side, but the herd must continue.

Power may hate a vacuum, but anarchy loves one.

UPDATE:

We have the nations who will be joining, “Prosperity Guardian.”

“Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.”

There are nations that are not on this list who absolutely should be. Shame on them.

Noted.