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How Yemen is Wrecking the Entire Global Economy

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Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, driven by the Gaza conflict and supported by Iran, are escalating regional tensions and severely disrupting global trade, forcing major shipping companies to reroute and impacting the global economy through increased costs and potential inflation.

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as the world's attention is still

largely focused on the brutal War being

waged in Gaza that's already claimed the

lives of tens of thousands of people

something else is happening nearby to

the south in the Red Sea that has the

potential to escalate the war between

Israel and Hamas into a greater Middle

East wide conflict that's already

severely affecting the entire global

economy you see after Israel initiated

its fullscale invasion of Gaza the

houthis a Shia Muslim military

organization in Yemen that's funded and

armed by Iran declared their full

unwavering support for Hamas and the

Palestinian cause against Israel but

geographically located about 1,600 km

away from Israeli territory and more

than 1,800 km away from the main fight

going on in Gaza the houthis were

incapable of participating in the war

happening around Gaza directly and so

they decided to begin intervening on the

side of Hamas Moore indirectly in

November of 2023 the houthis declar that

they would begin attacking every single

ship they could find sailing nearby to

their territory in the Red Sea that was

linked in any way to Israel including

any ships traveling to or from Israeli

ports any ship ship with Israeli

ownership any ship flying an Israeli

flag or any ship with an Israeli crew

and then they further stated that these

attacks on Israeli shipping would

continue indefinitely until Israel fully

withdrew from Gaza and ended its war

against Hamas but there was a slight

problem with the houthi plan you see the

ownership structure of the globalized

21st century Merchant shipping Fleet is

a very complicated business Merchant

ships very often travel between origin

and destination in different countries

the ownership structure of the ship

itself is often divided between multiple

different nationalities that may have

nothing to do with where the ship's

origin or destination is the flag of

call that the ship flies may be

completely different altogether while

The Crew That's operating the ship may

be of completely different nationalities

from everything else as well determining

which Merchant ships operating on the

world's oceans are considered Israeli or

not is not as simple a task as it

appears at first but that didn't

dissuade the houthis from deciding to

intervene Anyway by attacking whatever

ships they determined were Israeli their

attacks began on the 19th of November

2023 with a Brazen hijacking of an empty

car carrier sailing through the Red Sea

that was traveling from Turkey to India

the hthis raided the ship with a

helicopter that transported a heavily

armed Special Forces Squad onto the

ship's deck who quickly managed to

subdue the ship's crew and rerouted it

back to the houthi controlled Port of

Heda in Western Yemen the ship was

called the Galaxy leader and its

registered owner was a company known as

Galaxy Maritime limited that's based in

the Isle of Man a UK dependency the ship

was being chartered by a Japanese

company its flag of call was based on

the Bahamas and its 25 crew members

hailed from the Philippines Romania

Bulgaria Ukraine and Mexico the only

connection that the ship had to Israel

was that the company that owned the ship

Galaxy Maritime limited was further

owned by another company known as Ray

car carriers which is a business that's

co-owned by a well-known Israeli

businessman and billionaire named

Abraham unar who has a current net worth

of approximately $3.25 billion US based

on that the houthis decided that the

ship was fair game to attack and hijack

and it would be far from the last in the

weeks and months that have followed

after that initial attack the houthis

have Unleashed a torrent of hundreds of

missiles and drones and launched further

hijacking attempts against against

dozens of merchant ships caught sailing

through the Red Sea Merchant ships that

have been linked to dozens of countries

from all around the world and the

missiles drones experience and

intelligence that they've received to

launch all of these attacks have largely

all come from a single Source their

biggest Patron the Islamic Republic of

Iran Iran has spent years carefully

cultivating the houthis from a ragtag

group of militia into a legitimately

dangerous state-like military force with

a massive arsenal of guided anti-ship

missiles and swarms of cheap explosive

kamakazi drones that they can use to

overwhelm Maritime anti-air defenses

with through sheer numbers backed by

Iran the houthis have arguably become

the most dangerous and heavily armed

piracy force in modern history and

unlike the Pirates before then they used

to launch out from Somalia and raided

commercial shipping in the Arabian Sea

the Hy Pirates control a significantly

more advantageous geography to wreck the

global economy from they currently

dominate the Northwestern third of

Yemen's territory including most of

Yemen's population and most of Yemen's

Coastline along the Red Sea which gives

them Direct access to launching

hijacking ships missiles and drones into

one of the world's most critical

arteries of globalized trade the Red Sea

itself can be thought of as the primary

Maritime passageway between Asia and

Europe and the passageway is bounded by

two narrow Gates on either side of it

that regulate access through it the

babal men Deb straight in the South

between Yemen and jibuti and the Suez

Canal in the north that runs across

Egypt the route between these Gates

across the Red Sea is a part of the

shortest possible Geographic route for

merchant ships to take traveling between

Asia and Europe and so it's the

preferred route of choice for container

ships carrying manufactured goods and

raw materials from places like China

Japan South Korea Taiwan and India to

take when transporting their goods to

the huge European consumer market and

from another perspective this trade

round is also a major artery for the

flow of global energy resources from

origin to Consumer like oil and gas from

places like Russia Kazakhstan and aeran

towards Asia in One Direction and oil

and gas around the Persian Gulf towards

Europe in another Direction as a result

roughly 12% of the entire World's Trade

volume used usually flows through the

Red Sea on an annual basis which

includes nearly a third of the entire

world's containership traffic roughly

10% of the world's Seaborn oil and

roughly 8% of all the world's LNG an

average of 50 Merchant vessels usually

Transit through the sez Canal on a daily

basis in this overall makes the sez

canal and the babelan Deb straight the

second most critical Maritime choke

point for globalized trade anywhere in

the world remaining only behind the

Singapore straight in Southeast Asia in

overall importance and all of this

massive volume of trade and energy that

usually flows through the Red Sea makes

its overall security and stability an

extremely important core interest for

dozens of countries and actors from all

around the world to Russia the Red Sea

is still its most vital artery for

exporting their own crude oil and LG

Resources by sea towards their new

primary consumers China and India well

Kazakhstan and aeran rely on the route

to a lesser extent for their own oil

exports as well from China's perspective

the Red Sea is its most vital artery to

receive energy resources from Russia

through and to transport their own

manufactured products to the European

consumer Market through which is a

similar concern to Japan and largely why

both China and Japan maintain overseas

military bases in Djibouti nearby to

help Safeguard their own trade routes to

Qatar the Red Sea is its primary trade

route to export their LNG supplies to

Europe while to Saudi Arabia the United

Arab Emirates Bahrain Kuwait and Iraq

the Red Sea is their primary trade route

to export their crude oil to Europe

through to the European Union the Red

Sea is their primary trade route for

receiving manufactured goods from Asia

and energy resources from the Persian

Gulf through while to the United States

Washington wants to ensure the

continuous flow of Maritime trade

through the Red Sea to keep the global

economy and globalized system that it

Champions and protects humming along and

Egypt as the controller of the sez Canal

that regulates all of this trade stands

to arguably benefit the most when the

trade is running smoothly and lose out

the most when the trade isn't running

smoothly Egypt Suz Canal Authority is

the guardian of the canal and they

charge various fees and tolls on every

ship that passes through it as ships

usually have no other alternative the

only other possible Geographic Choice

the ships can take to travel between

Asia and Europe is the much much much

longer way all the way around the entire

African continent around the Cape of

Good Hope a route that usually adds

anywhere between 7 and 10 days of travel

time and significantly higher cost for

ships to take under normal circumstances

the tolls and fees that Egypt charges on

ships passing through the SE Canal are

still much cheaper than the alternative

of sailing around the whole of Africa

and it's also usually one of the

Egyptian government's largest sources of

Revenue as the world began recovering

from the logistical supply chain

bottlenecks that were caused by the

covid-19 pandemic an all-time high

record number of ships passed through

the sez Canal during the fiscal year

between June of 2022 and June of 2023

25,8 187 ships took the journey which

also netted Egypt an all-time high

annual revenue from the Suez Canal about

$9.4 billion us about enough to help

fund 10% of the entire Egyptian

government's operating budget and this

is all in addition to to the fact that

many countries can only import their

goods from abroad through the Red Sea

the only Maritime ports that Jordan

Sudan and arrea have are all just

located on the Red Sea while djibouti's

Port nearby to the Red Sea on the Gulf

of Aiden currently supports roughly 95%

of landlocked Ethiopia's trade volume

and so the safe secure and reliable flow

of trade continuing through the Red Sea

is extremely extremely important to all

of these dozens of countries from all

around the world both near and far from

it but unfortunately the Red Sea has

always existed within one of the most

geopolitically turbulent regions in the

world and ships are also their most

vulnerable when transiting through

either side of the narrow Gates on

either end of it both the Suez Canal in

the North and the babelan Deb Strait in

the South can be blockaded intentionally

or even accidentally and when they are

the Red Sea passageway for global trade

comes to a complete halt this has

happened twice before in fairly recent

history once for a long period of 8

years when the entire suiz canal in the

north was shut down between 1967 and

1975 during the Arab Israeli Wars after

Israel secured control over the entire

Sinai Peninsula and in the process the

suis Canal itself became an active

Frontline war zone dividing Egyptian and

Israeli zones of control for those eight

years until Israel agreed to return the

Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt and

another much shorter time when the canal

be game closed once again much more

recently and much more MD about in 20121

when a container ship known as the everg

given got blinded during a sandstorm

when transiting through the Suz canal

and crashed blocking the Canal's entire

width for 6 days and 7 hours the ship

blocked all Passage through the Suez

Canal like a cork stuck in a bottle and

dramatically slowed down trade between

Europe Asia and the Middle East hundreds

of trade ships carrying nearly 10

billion dollar worth of goods became

bottlenecked many ships decided to give

up and rerouted the long way around

Africa and once it was freed the

Egyptian government initially demanded

more than $1 billion in compensation

from the ever given's owners and then on

the other side of the red see the

babelan Deb street is merely 23 km wide

at its narrowest point and so it

basically functions more like a two-lane

Highway for merchant ships with one

Highway running South and the other

running North a single ship can't really

get stuck and block the street in the

same kind of way that it can in the sus

Canal but the babelan Deb Strait is

located in a far more precarious

neighborhood right now in 2024 there are

still ongoing violent Civil Wars raging

all around the straight in Yemen Sudan

Somalia and Ethiopia the just over the

last few years have likely resulted in

the deaths of more than 1 million people

while arat tra is ruled by a ruthless

dictatorship that is often considered to

be on the same scale of totalitarianism

as North Korea jibuti alone exists as

arguably an island of stability within

this mstom of chaos and that's why

foreign countries from all around the

world maintain significant military

bases in the country to protect their

own national interests from China and

Japan to the United States France and

Italy and probably shortly Saudi Arabia

as well where the United Arab Emirates

maintains another base nearby in the

self- declared state of Somali land and

Russia is attempting to acquire a former

United Arab Emirates military base in

Eritrea here at aab directly adjacent to

the straight for years the biggest

threat that was facing shipping going

through the Babel M Deb straet where the

Somali pirates who raided Merchant

vessels mostly for money hostages and

ransoms in the Gulf of Aiden and in the

Arabian Sea a problem that lasted well

into the 2010s until it finally began

dying down after 2017 as Maritime

patrols from the American UK French

Russian Chinese and other International

navies began conducting better patrols

and better escort missions of merchant

shipping through the region that

dissuaded the pirates from launching any

further attacks that could disrupt the

global economy but now the houthis and

Yemen are the ones launching dozens of

attacks on this critical global trade

artery and it's already been severely

affecting the worldwide economy the

houthi movement which is officially

known as ansar la which translates to

Defenders Of God arose out of Yemen's

zidi Shia Muslim Community who make up

about 1/4 of Yen's overall population

and are native to the hills and

mountains of Yemen's Northwest

immediately opposite of Saudi Arabia's

own largely Shia Muslim Community

immediately across the border formed

with militant opposition to the United

States Israel and the Saudi monarchy's

influence in the Middle East in mind the

houthis sought closer relations with

Iran while their official motto and flag

have never left any doubt as to where

they stand politically and ideologically

it reads from Line to Line translated

into English as God is the greatest

death to America death to Israel a curse

upon the Jews Victory to Islam a decade

ago in 2014 during the midst of the Arab

Spring revolts that were sweeping all

across the Middle East the houthis

managed to organize themselves with

support and funding from Iran and

stormed out from their Hills to capture

the yeni capital from the yeni

government SAA from there the houthis

managed to expand their territorial

control even further across Northwestern

Yemen while the president of Yemen at

the time fled the country towards Saudi

Arabia at his own request for a foreign

intervention to restore his own

authority and Crush the houthi Rebellion

Saudi Arabia decided to militarily

intervene in Yemen Civil War beginning

in 2015 the Saudis along with many other

Arab states all supplied with arms and

finances from the United States then

launched operation decisive storm into

Yemen the Saudis were terrified that if

the Shia houthis were victorious in

Yemen they could exploit their

Geographic position to blockade the

babelan Deb Strait in unison with their

Shia supporter Iran's ability to

blockade the straight of hor moves a

situation that would immediately crash

Saudi Arabia's entire econom

that's overwhelmingly reliant on

exporting their crude oil to customers

in Asia if both choke points were shut

down the Saudis would be forced into a

situation where they could only continue

selling their oil to their biggest

customers by exporting their oil the

Long Way to the north through the sez

canal and then all the way around Africa

which would make their oil significantly

more expensive for Asian consumers to

buy and would make Saudi oil far less

competitive which would mean that they

would sell a lot less of their oil and

Saudi Arabia finances and government

would each become devastated so the

Saudis wanted to crush the houthis and

restore the authority of the friendly

yeni government before that could ever

happen as did the United States and all

the other Arab states opposed to Iran

over the next few years the Saudi Le a

campaign would drop around 25,000 air

strikes all across hthi control

territory in Yemen that's estimated to

have killed more than 19,000 civilians

while the Saudi Leed Coalition Navy

initiated a maritime blockade of the

houthi controlled Coastline that

intervention ultimately produced an

apocalypse in Yemen with the UN saying

as recently as 2023 that the situation

within Yemen remained the worst ongoing

humanitarian crisis in the world with

more than 380,000 total deaths in the

country happening since the Civil War

began in 2014 resulting from violence

famine and disease all attributable to

the war but the houthis continually

funded and armed by Iran continued

hanging on to power in the territory

they controlled they resisted the Saudis

and the Coalition and even began firing

missiles and drones into saudian UA AE

population centers and retaliation that

killed hundreds of Saudi citizens When

Donald Trump assumed the American

presidency in 2017 he chose to

dramatically expand Washington's support

for the Saudi war effort in Yemen as a

part of his overall policy of maximum

pressure applied on Iran and its proxy

forces across the Middle East adding the

houthis to America's list of designated

terrorist organizations and authorizing

a deal for more than 27 billion dollars

worth of additional us arm sales to

Saudi Arabia including fighter jets and

precision guided bombs all meant to be

used in Yemen against the houthis but as

the intervention in Yemen became

increasingly bloody America's continued

support of the Saudi war effort there

became increasingly politically

controversial in Washington and

increasingly linked to Donald Trump

personally Joe Biden vowed that after

assuming the presidency in 2021 he would

completely reverse Trump's course in

Yemen and end all of America's

involvement in the country which

culminated quickly with Biden's

declaration in February of 2021 that the

United States would be halted in all of

its support for Saudi Arabia and Yemen

and that the houthis would be removed

from America's list of designated Terror

organizations this abrupt end of

America's support for the war in Yemen

under Biden and the fact that the Saudis

had blown through an estimated

265 billion dollars before then just on

arms trying and failing to destroy the

houthis kind of forced the Saudis hand

into beginning to search for an exit

strategy from their war in Yemen a

ceasefire agreement between the houthis

and the Saudi B yeni government was

agreed upon in April of 2022 that's

generally held ever since with only

minor flare-ups of violence as the

Saudis and houthis have continued on

negotiations trying to find a final

peace settlement this relative calmon

Yemen ever since the April 2022

ceasefire has given the hoies time to

consolidate their control over the area

they rule in Northwestern Yemen an area

that represents only about a quarter of

Yemen's total territory but more than

2/3 of Yemen's total population or about

24 million people and Yemen's capital

city City the houthis therefore control

more of what makes Yemen Yemen than the

internationally recognized yemeni

government that's backed by Saudi Arabia

does and the relative peace for the past

2 years during the ceasefire has likely

enabled them to covertly import huge

volumes of additional missiles and

drones from Iran and so now with a

massive ongoing war between Israel and

Hamas having exploded in Gaza Iran has

been seeking ways to assist Hamas by

steadily increasing the pressure being

applied on Israel without directly

attacking them and starting an allout

war and perhaps the best way that Iran

has been able to do this has been by

nudging the houthis to begin launching

their attacks on Merchant shipping

across the Red Sea you see as the houthi

missile and drone attacks on dozens of

merchant ships in the Red Sea began

really accelerating in December of 2023

and became increasingly indiscriminate

after the Galaxy leader hijacking

incident the wartime Risk insurance

premiums that Maritime insurance

companies charge for all ships sailing

through the Red Sea began to Skyrocket

major shipping companies from all around

the world then faced with these rapidly

increasing insurance premiums to cover

their ships and cargos operating in the

redc and the accompanying legitimate

risks of seeing their expensive ships

and their caros getting damaged or sunk

or their crew members getting killed

quickly began making announcements one

after the other that they would begin

suspending all of their maritime

operations through the Red Sea and the

Suez Canal until further notice these

announcements have by now come from most

of the world's most significant

container shipping companies like MK MSC

Evergreen CMA CGM Haag Lloyd and Costco

which together represent more than 95%

of all the container volume that usually

travels through the Suez Canal in

addition many major oil and gas

companies have also announced their

indefinite suspensions of sending oil

and gas tiners through the Red Sea or

the Suz Canal including BP and the

Norwegian state-owned Oil Company

Ecuador as a result the world is now

facing a third Suez Crisis after the

1967 and 19751 and after the 20211 just

by the end of December in 2023 more than

300 container ships and many more

tankers car carriers and other Merchant

vessels had already decided to divert

away from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal

and travel the much longer way around

Africa a r that ads on average 7 to 10

days more travel time for ships plying

the trade route between Asia and Europe

and in many cases significantly longer

because this route is a much longer

distance the ships that travel it have

to consume more fuel while the crews

that operate them must be rotated out

more frequently and have to be paid

longer hours which contributes to the

Cape of Good Hope route usually being

about 15% more expensive to take when

compared with the shorter Red Sea and

sez Canal route even after considering

the tolls and fees that Egypt charges

that means that with more and more ships

diverting around the Red Sea those 15%

higher average shipping costs are going

to be gradually getting passed on to

Consumers which if it continues getting

worse and persists will steadily begin

piling on inflationary pressures on just

about every product all around the world

world and even worse the extended length

of time that these ships are going to

have to spend Out on the Ocean traveling

the longer routes between Europe and

Asia is expected to absorb around 20% of

the entire Global Merchant fleet's

capacity which of course is just going

to lead to even more shipping delays and

even higher costs in a worldwide

cascading Avalanche of inflation for

pretty much every single product you can

think of the longer the Red Sea route

remains closed for and there are many

secondary less thought of issues that

can eventually spiral out of control the

longer the Red Sea has shut down

international shipping for like this in

a sense the houthi attacks shutting down

the Red Sea have hurt Israel as they've

effectively managed to completely shut

down the southern Israeli Port of aot

which is Israel's only non-mediterranean

Port that's on the Red Sea but aot is

Tiny from Israel's perspective it

usually only handles a mere 5% of

Israel's total Maritime trade well

Israel's much larger Mediterranean ports

of ashdod and hia handle the

overwhelming majority and remain open

for business the cost of Israeli Imports

are rising as a result but the situation

is hardly putting Israel under a

blockade the situation is very different

for other third-party countries however

as I mentioned previously the only

Maritime ports that Jordan Sudan and

arrea each have are all only located on

the Red Sea and so for however long the

Red Sea remains largely shut down for

all three of these countries will remain

virtually landlocked and all three of

them are already in pretty un stable

conditions that are already either

actively imploding as I speak or on the

precipice of it Sudan is already locked

in the middle of a devastating Civil War

that has likely killed tens of thousands

of people and displaced Millions more

just since 2023 Jordan is facing the

danger of increased instability in the

neighboring Israeli occupied West Bank

while arria is facing two ongoing Civil

Wars happening immediately across their

borders in both Sudan and in Ethiopia if

these countries and especially if Sudan

remained blocked off from most of their

Maritime Imports of resources for long

their own instability levels could also

increase overall by attacking whatever

Merchant shipping they can find within

the Red Sea the houthis are generating a

worldwide level of pain that can maybe

be tolerated for a few weeks to a few

months but it's a situation that likely

cannot be tolerated for very much longer

as the houthi attacks continue worldwide

shipping will continue diverting the

long way away from the Red Sea and

around Africa products raw materials and

energy resources will continue to get

more expensive as a result and glob

inflation will begin ratcheting up again

which means that Iran and the houthis

are probably both hoping that their

attacks and the economic consequences

they cause here will eventually begin

increasing Western pressures on Israel

to end its war in Gaza and to keep Hamas

still intact without them having to

escalate all the way to full-blown War

the houthis have claimed that if Israel

withdraws from Gaza and makes peace with

Hamas then their attacks in the Red Sea

will also stop immediately afterwards

but the Israeli government of Benjamin

Netanyahu here has has repeatedly

stressed that regardless of any

International pressure their War aims

against Hamas remain unchanged they will

continue fighting until Hamas as an

organization and government in Gaza is

completely dismantled and destroyed with

Netanyahu himself saying in early

January of 2024 that Israelis and the

world should expect the war to be a long

one that will continue on for at least

several more months to come and

consequently the world should expect the

houthis to continue launching their own

attacks and raids on Merchant shipping

in the Red Sea for just as long in an

attempt to try and restore worldwide

faith in merchant shipping through the

Red Sea the United States announced the

creation of a brand new international

military Coalition called operation

Prosperity Guardian on December the 18th

that aims to defend all Merchant ships

in the Red Sea and Israeli ports from

houthi missile and drone attacks the

operation at least so far has been

strictly limited to only intercepting

houthi missiles and drones flying over

the Red Sea and safely escorting

Merchant ships through the Red Sea with

warship ships without directly attacking

the houthis themselves in Yemen the

United States committed one of its own

aircraft carriers to the Red Sea for

this operation along with four of their

own destroyers while the British also

committed one of their destroyers and

both Denmark and Greece have agreed to

each send a frigate while the French and

Italian navies have remained separate

from the operation but have deployed

their own frigs to the Red Sea to

operate independently other countries

have technically signed on to the

operation but with extremely minimal

commitments compared to the Americans

British Danes and Greeks 10 other

countries have signed on to the

operation anonymously and two of them

are almost certainly Egypt and Saudi

Arabia two countries whose National

Security both utterly depends on the Red

Sea remaining open and accessible Egypt

so they can keep earning revenue on

ships passing through the SE canal and

Saudi Arabia so they can continue

exporting oil quickly to Europe but

there are also two Muslim majority

countries who don't exactly want to be

publicly viewed by their own people

right now as assisting the United States

fighting against an organization that

proclaims it is fighting for the

Palestinians against Israel they don't

want to be viewed in any way as

assisting Israel even if it's in the

name of their own national interests

since going into operation the warships

of prosperity Guardian operating within

the red SE have already shot down dozens

of houy drones and missiles fired in

merchant vessels and encouraged by the

progress both meis and hapag Lloyd

cautiously announced on the 24th of

December that they would begin resuming

their shipping operations through the

Red Sea and the sez Canal again but then

just 9 days later disaster struck again

on the 2nd of January 2024 AER container

ship traveling through the Red Sea was

struck by a houy missile before four

small houthi ships sailed towards them

and attempted another hijacking the MK

ship radio to distress call and the US

aircraft carrier in the region responded

by dispatching helicopter gunships to

intercept the houthi Pirates once they

arrived the American helicopters opened

fire on the houthi boats and sank three

of them killing 10 of the houthi Pirates

Who were on board and marking the first

time that the Americans and the houthis

engag directly in combat the same day

both marisk and hapag Lloyd announced

that they were once again suspending all

of their travels through the Red Sea and

the Suez Canal and they would begin only

taking the longer and more expensive

route around Africa Furious on the

following day on the 3rd of January the

White House released an ominous joint

statement with many other governments

from all around the world that at the

end reads quote let our message now be

clear we call for the immediate end of

these illegal attacks and release of

unlawfully detained vessels and Crews

the houthis will bear the responsibility

of the consequences should they continue

to threaten lives the global economy and

free flow of Commerce in the Region's

critical waterways we remain committed

to the international rules-based order

and are determined to hold malign actors

accountable for unlawful seizures and

attacks end quote as it stands now

America and the Biden Administration

arguably have only four possible options

for how to proceed with this dangerous

situation one America could choose to

Simply do nothing let the houthi attacks

on Merchant shipping in the Red Sea

continue as long as Israel's war in Gaza

continues news and suffer the worldwide

negative Economic Consequences and

pressures that will follow during a

critical presidential election year two

the United States can begin applying

tougher pressures on Israel to begin

winding down its war in Gaza and hope

that that ends the houthi attacks on

Merchant shipping diplomatically Israel

however will probably not accept this

piece unless the pressures from

Washington begin growing significantly

tougher which could strain Israel us

relations three America can increase the

number of Warships that has deployed to

the Red Sea as a part of operation

Prosperity Guardian in order to cover a

larger area and escort more Merchant

vessels unfortunately this option has a

lot of cons from Washington's

perspective many countries for a variety

of reasons have refused to send warships

to the Red Sea even after being

requested to do so by Washington like

Australia America itself has few Surplus

warships to spare right now here to the

Red Sea while it's trying to maintain a

permanently large Naval presence in the

Western Pacific around Taiwan to

dissuade a potential Chinese amphibious

in Invasion from ever happening and the

warships that America already has

deployed to the Red Sea Fire Advanced

guided missiles that cost millions of

dollars each to intercept the clouds of

cheap Iranian manufactured drones that

only cost a few thousand to build if the

Iranians and the houthis continue

maintaining their heavy pace of Cheaper

drone and missile attacks on the

merchant ships and the American Navy

continues shooting them down with their

much more expensive missiles the costs

that will be borne on the US defense

department will likely rise into the

tens of billions of dollars with only a

matter of months a tough pill to swallow

while Washington is simultaneously

struggling to provide more funding and

arms directly to both Israel's war

against Hamas and Ukraine's war against

Russia and then there's option four the

most dangerous option of all but the one

that's appearing increasingly likely to

happen by the day ordering a direct US

Air campaign to bomb the houthi bases in

Yemen to try and Destroy or

deter their ability to continue

launching attacks on Merchant shipping

in the future but this option carries

with it a series of extremely high risks

that need to be considered beforehand

first of all American bombing campaign

against the houth greatly risks

shattering The Fragile ceasefire across

Yemen that's been in place ever since

April of 2022 would the houthi political

enemies that are still on the ground in

Yemen like the Saudi backed government

or the United Arab Emirates backed

separatist Southern government really

all be expected to just sit back and do

nothing while the houthis get blasted

from the air by the United States there

would become an enormous incentive for

them to renage on the ceasefire and

begin launching renewed ground

offensives against the houthis again and

if the situation got worse for the

houthis from there and they seemed like

they were imminently about to collapse

would their primary backer Iran then be

expected to also just sit back and watch

them collapse without doing anything

Iran could and likely would then choose

to escalate the pressure on the United

States and Israel even further by

ordering their militias in Syria to

attack Israel in the Golan Heights or

even order healon Lebanon to open up a

massive second front line for the

Israelis in the north of their country

that the United States would be forced

to divert attention away from Yemen and

the houthis to deal with and then of

course bombing the houthis without

attacking the source of where they're

actually getting their weapons from does

nothing to prevent them from Simply

acquiring even more weapons over and

over again that will keep having to be

destroyed over and over again Iran can

and likely will just choose to continue

sending weapons to the houthis even if

the United States is bombing them but if

America decides to attack Iran supply

lines that are running to the houthis

then it risks escalating the US bombing

campaign on the houthis into a direct us

Iran War that both sides almost

assuredly truly want to avoid and

partially for those reasons the United

States might choose to carry on with the

same cautious approach towards the

houthis that they've so far been

maintaining a cautious approach that is

no doubt being championed by Saudi

Arabia ever since the Biden

Administration ended America's support

for the Saudi intervention in and Yemen

back in 2021 the Saudis have been

desperately trying to find a way to pull

themselves out of their costly War peace

negotiations between the Saudis and the

houthis have been ongoing ever since

with the Saudis reportedly offering

concessions such as allowing more direct

flights to open up to the houthi

controlled Capital an easing or even

ending of the still ongoing Saudi Naval

blockade and perhaps most critically an

offer by the Saudis to help facilitate

payments and salaries of yeni public

sector employees working within the

houthi controlled territory but as

American officials in the US Congress

openly demand that the houthis be

readded back to the list of designated

terrorist organizations and as the US

and British militaries are each

apparently considering launching air

strikes the Saudis are worried that

their peace negotiations will fall apart

how after all could the Saudis help to

facilitate payments to the houthis if

they become a US recognized terrorist

organization once again and become

suffocated underneath American economic

sanctions and if the United States does

end up to deciding to militarily

intervene more forcefully against the

houthis there is fairly recent

historical precedent for such an

operation throughout the 1980s during

the Iran Iraq war both the Iraqi and

Iranian militaries began opening fire on

Merchant vessels operating across the

Persian Gulf with missiles Iran and

particular began firing missiles at

Kuwaiti oil tankers and retaliation for

Kuwait support and financing of Saddam

Hussein's Iraq in 1986 the US Navy

decided to intervene in the conflict and

begin sending their warships to safely

escort Kuwaiti oil Tinkers through the

gulf and out past the straight of Hormuz

in 1988 one of these American warships

impacted an Iranian Naval mine within

international waters that severely

damaged and nearly sank it in

retaliation the US Navy decided to

launch operation praying mantis within

Iran's own territorial Waters the

American Navy attacked and sank five

Iranian ships including a frigate

severely damaged another frigate and

blew up two Iranian offshore oil

platforms killing dozens in the process

an action that today State represents

the US Navy's largest surface engagement

since the second world war that American

attack put pressure on Iran to se peace

with Iraq just a few months later but

unlike then an American attack on the

houthis now in 2024 is fairly

unpalatable for the Biden Administration

to consider for two very big reasons one

the Biden Administration doesn't want to

be viewed as expanding the war between

Israel and Hamas and Gaza into a

Regional Middle East Wide War and an

American bombing campaign against the

houthis in Yemen would inevitably become

widely viewed as an American declaration

of war against the houthis in support of

Israel which would carry further risks

of the war escalating even further to

potentially include Hezbollah in Lebanon

or Iran itself and second Biden's entire

foreign policy stance ever since taking

over as president in 2021 has revolved

around ending America's presence and

forever wars in the Middle East in order

to Pivot towards facing the perceived

greater threat threats of China in the

Indo Pacific and Russia in Europe almost

immediately after Biden took office he

ended America's support for the Saudi

war in Yemen he removed the houthis from

the list of designated terrorist

organizations he finally withdrew All

American forces from Afghanistan after

20 years and he's been continually

attempting to mediate a normalization

agreement between Israel and Saudi

Arabia to make them begin cooperating

together in the Middle East in America's

absence deciding to open up another

American war in the Middle East by

bombing and attacking the houthis and

Yemen after all that previous effort

would be a serious reversal of policy

for the Biden Administration to consider

and it has the risk of dragging the

United States back into yet another war

in the Middle East again with an

uncertain time frame and with major

risks of even further escalation and

unexpected consequences in the future

and for those reasons the situation in

the Red Sea is an incredibly dangerous

one and there's no telling where it will

all end up going from

here now over the past 3 months since

the crisis in the Red Sea began the

houthi attacks have been covered

extensively by hundreds of different

news sources and articles the story of

the US Navy helicopters opening fire on

and sinking the houthi boats has been

covered by more than 208 different

sources and the reporting on it has been

fairly split along partisan lines with

28% of the reporting coming from the

left and 30% coming from the right and

if you compare the headlines you start

seeing something pretty interesting in

some of the framing from this far left

Source you have an article referring to

the houthis as the deao government of

Yemen and from this far right Source you

have an article referring to the houthis

as an iran-backed militant group and

this is why I've been using this video

sponsor ground news to research

important issues like this in a way that

lets me see past these kinds of partisan

spins it's a website and app designed by

a former NASA engineer on a mission to

give readers an easy data driven

objective way to read and parse through

the news every story comes with a quick

visual breakdown of the political bias

factuality and ownership of the sources

that are reporting all backed by ratings

from three Independent News monitoring

organizations and you can directly

compare related articles from different

sources to see what details are being

emphasized exaggerated or left out I

also really really like the blind spot

feed which highlights stories that are

being disproportionately covered by one

side of the political Spectrum this

feature showed me that if you lean left

you likely would have missed out on this

story about Maris culting all of their

shipping through the Red Seas since only

6% of the sources that were covering it

have come from the left and if you

leaned right you likely would have

missed out on this story about house

Democrat Jamie Rasin demanding Trump

return the 7.8 million dollar that

foreign governments paid his companies

while he was President I personally

believe that it's very important we

understand how our current partisan

media environment operates and the

impact that it might have on our

politics so that we can engage in

constructive dialogue break out from

unproductive Echo Chambers and maybe

even challenge some of our own

assumptions in the process you can go to

ground. newsreal lifel right now to get

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YouTube Transcript:How Yemen is Wrecking the Entire Global Economy