Whether or not the United States was wise to strike the Houthis militarily is now an irrelevant question. For good or ill, President Joe Biden concluded that something, anything, was needed to be done to degrade the group's military capabilities, and get them to the point where they view further attacks against ships in the Red Sea as a costly endeavor not worth pursuing.
On Jan. 16, the U.S. struck four Houthi-operated anti-ship missiles that a U.S. military official said presented an imminent threat to merchant and U.S. Navy ships off Yemen's coastline. The latest strikes occurred less than a week after U.S. fighter planes, submarines, and surface ships launched two rounds of strikes against more than 70 Houthi targets inside Yemen, encompassing everything from drone and missile production facilities to radar stations. A day later, the U.S. hit another Houthi radar site. Biden has stated that he won't hesitate to take more military action if attacks by the group continue.
Unfortunately for the U.S. and its partners, the Houthis don't appear to have any interest in ending them. This week, a Houthi missile struck a U.S.-owned civilian ship, the Gibraltar Eagle, about three days after the initial U.S and U.K. conducted joint strikes. Hours after the U.S. engaged in another round of air attacks, the Houthis responded by launching an anti-ship ballistic missile toward the M/V Zografia, a bulk carrier that reported minor damage as it was transiting the Red Sea.
Biden called last week's operation in Yemen a "success," arguing that it sent a message to the group that threatening international shipping is unacceptable behavior that will have consequences. But his assessment isn't as cut-and-dry as he makes it out to be. Tactically speaking, yes, the strikes were a success because they destroyed a lot of targets and marginally impacted the Houthis' military capacity. Their fighters woke up the next morning with less materiel than they had the previous day. Two U.S. officials claimed to The New York Times that somewhere between 20 percent to 30 percent of the Houthis' offensive capability was destroyed in the first night of bombing.
Strategically, however, the operation can't be called a success since the Houthis haven't decided to cease their attacks. Deterrence is not yet established and we simply don't know how much force will be required to get to that point—if we can get there at all. If the Houthis have shown anything over the last week, it's that they don't shy away from a fight and may even relish one. Fighting and killing comes a lot easier to them than governing, paying salaries, providing services to the Yemeni population, or running an efficient bureaucracy. The Houthis are great fighters, having outlasted every opponent they've had to face over the years (successive Yemeni governments, pro-government tribal fighters, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and a Saudi-backed military coalition). But they are terrible administrators. Coincidently, the U.S. attacks in Yemen give the Houthis a reprieve from those duties and allow them an opportunity to burnish their resistance credentials to the region as a whole.
U.S. officials insist they don't want escalation in the Middle East. "We're not interested in a conflict of any kind here," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One on Jan. 12 "In fact, everything the president has been doing has been trying to prevent any escalation of conflict."
Yet by green-lighting even a limited U.S. bombing operation, Biden has now set a precedent and put himself in a difficult position. The pressure on him to respond to each and every Houthi attack with yet more airstrikes will increase, and in an election year, the president may just cave to spare himself from being castigated as weak. If this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Biden is experiencing the same dynamics in Iraq and Syria, where the U.S. and Iranian-backed militias, some technically part of the official Iraqi security forces, have been taking shots at each other. There have been 130 drone and rocket attacks on U.S. bases in both countries since mid-October and a few round of U.S. airstrikes in retaliation. Does the U.S. really want to follow the same playbook in Yemen?
U.S. strikes on the Houthis might feel good on an emotional level, but they won't solve the problem. In fact, they might just create new ones in the process.
What will solve the problem, then? It's hard to say. The Houthis have stated repeatedly that the Red Sea will remain under threat as long as the war in Gaza persists and the more than 2 million Palestinians who live there remain deprived of the humanitarian aid they so crucially need. The U.S. obviously can't take the Houthis word for it; to do so would be the height of naïveté. Yet it costs the U.S. next to nothing to at least explore the prospect of a ceasefire. At the very least, the U.S. should invest more time in accelerating U.N.-facilitated humanitarian aid into Gaza and eliminating some of the needless obstacles that slow down those shipments. This stands a better chance of safeguarding the Middle East's waters than another bombing mission.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
U.S. Bombings in Yemen Don't Solve the Houthi Problem
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17.01.2024
Whether or not the United States was wise to strike the Houthis militarily is now an irrelevant question. For good or ill, President Joe Biden concluded that something, anything, was needed to be done to degrade the group's military capabilities, and get them to the point where they view further attacks against ships in the Red Sea as a costly endeavor not worth pursuing.
On Jan. 16, the U.S. struck four Houthi-operated anti-ship missiles that a U.S. military official said presented an imminent threat to merchant and U.S. Navy ships off Yemen's coastline. The latest strikes occurred less than a week after U.S. fighter planes, submarines, and surface ships launched two rounds of strikes against more than 70 Houthi targets inside Yemen, encompassing everything from drone and missile production facilities to radar stations. A day later, the U.S. hit another Houthi radar site. Biden has stated that he won't hesitate to take more military action if attacks by the group continue.
Unfortunately for the U.S. and its partners, the Houthis don't appear to have any interest in ending them. This week, a Houthi missile struck a U.S.-owned civilian ship, the Gibraltar Eagle, about three days after the initial U.S and U.K. conducted joint strikes. Hours after the U.S. engaged in another round of air attacks, the Houthis responded by........
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