Three sailors dead after Houthis strike ship in Gulf of Aden, US says

The Guardian ^ | 3/6/24 | Patrick Wintour

[hardspunned]

Three sailors have died and others have been injured after a Houthi missile attack on a ship in the Gulf of Aden, US officials have said – the first fatalities of crew of commercial shipping since the Houthis began launching strikes at ships in waters off Yemen last year.

The officials told US news agencies that the crew of the MV True Confidence had abandoned ship after the attack, which was claimed by the Houthis.

The British embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, posted on X: “At least two innocent sailors have died. This was the sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping. They must stop.”

[Theoria]

You left out KSA. Their backyard and they are WAF! They expect US to help with their mess and security. 7uck them, they need a Navy. Perhaps they should invest in securing the area for their products!

[Paul R.]

Well, we COULD pop Iran a good one in the gonads...

[Paul R.]

NO, I didn't "forget" KSA: They don't have any ships with proven effective ballistic missile defense capability. (The crew is an essential ingredient, BTW.) They really should get cracking on that - no disagreement there, but it'd be several years for them to get their 1st ship delivered, most likely. How that helps the PRESENT situation I fail to see. You have some sort of huge time travel machine handy?

Rage foolishly all you want - it does nothing to solve the current problem. KSA could probably help some by increasing petroleum exports that travel out from its western ports through the Suez canal. (I'll caveat that I don't know the export capacities of those ports - they may already be maxed out.) They could probably send ships to help with aid and rescues when cargo ships are hit. Assisting with the blockade sounds nice, but in fact likely gets several of their refineries hit, which doesn't help the situation at all.

Put on your "Spock" cap and try to logically think THROUGH (to likely conclusions) potential solutions to the present problem.

[Paul R.]

Damn. High likelihood a couple Filipinos got killed and others hurt. My Filipina wife is so mad, I may have to restrain her from attempting to go and kill some Houthis. (I need her here, darn it!)

[BobL]

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the cost of being US flagged and taxed is ridiculously high for all circumstances except these. No?”

I suspect it’s more than just taxes. The US would likely impose its labor laws and other regulations, including their requirement to have Drag Queen shows when sailing through hostile waters, for example.

[AndyJackson]

Wow, a rational analysis about what we can and cannot do, and right here on FR too. This just points out the geostrategic mess we have gotten ourselves into. All our expenditures on wars for nothing and yet we cannot protect trade through and importan international strait.

What part of let’s undermine Russia through Ukraine is more important than protecting our maritime SLOCs? The first gets us nothing. Failure to do the second loses everything. Our neocon geniunes forgot all about where our vital national interests lie and where they don’t. This started with the neocons and our unipolar global expansion, when we had a perfect opportunity to take a breather, invest the peace dividend wisely and be prepared for a global scale challenge from a position of strength, not a position that is so overextended and with the wrong force structure we don’t know what to do next except react.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Everyone benefits from international commerce and the right of peaceful navigation. Admittedly the U.S. bears a disproportionate share of the burden. During the Iran-Iraq War a lot of ships were reflagged as U.S. to enjoy the protection of the U.S. Navy, and the Navy was effective in preventing attacks on U.S. Flagged ships, some or which were owned by Kuwaitis.

[Theoria]

I was merely pointing out the realities of the ground, and that KSA and surrounding nations are impotent.

This is a screen shot of Europe toward Russia as well. Threats should create defensive postures and resolve, that hasn't happened there. Even with the rise in international piracy in the 2010's, it was left to the US to subsidize the safety. Those costs continue to add up, and the over whelming benefactor has been China.

Present situations come from failed past policies, the questions should be asked going forward do we continue those expenditures until surrounding nations develop naval security or rely on private merchant securities to handle these safe passages.

[Paul R.]

Well, thanks, although I disagree about Ukraine, because the eventual fallout of a failure by the West there would be incredibly bad: A lot of that doesn't even necessarily include a direct conflict with Russia. History is VERY clear: Weakness invites disaster. Also see my next post (I gotta find a graph...)

I also disagree about "for nothing" because our situation of weakness could be worse. Much worse. Just imagine Gore beating Bush, and Hillary beating Trump, and play THAT out. OMG. But, that's another discussion and I have a busy day ahead...

We still have plenty of capability, and could certainly put several more Arleigh-Burke destroyers in the Gulf of Aden / Red Sea, until a blockade could do its work, although we'd also need to do something to get China backed-off a bit in the South China Sea. A joint land-sea exercise near Thomas Shoal, with every friendly country in the region contributing, sounds pretty good to me.

That said, giving Iran a good kick in the nuts may be a better option. That pushes back on multiple problems, and history is clear there too: For all their bluster and ability to cause problems, Iran has repeatedly demonstrated by its actions that it wants no part of a direct conflict with the USA.

[Paul R.]

Ponder this (data for US Federal gov't):

.

As if the world is less dangerous in 2024...

[AndyJackson]

Weakness invites disaster.

Getting tied down by all the pygmies in the world because your not an empire empire is overextended and you are mired in meaningless skirmishes on the periphery is a disasterous form of weakness. You are not without a coat. It's just 5 sized too small, it's threadbare does not cover the esssentials and you freeze to death. Lose weight, tend to the coat and you will be fine.

[Truthsearcher]

This ship is owned by Barbados, registered in Libya, and carrying goods from China to Saudi Arabia carrying Chinese steels, trucks, etc.

Could this be a case of the US dropping protection of ships carrying Chinese merchandise?

[Paul R.]

SA has some really unique problems, and has had a couple not so unique, named Obama and Biden. But of the former, they have a large territory with a small population of actual Saudis (cripes, only about 1/3 of the population are actually Saudis), and then of the Saudi population, how many can they trust? (Recall OBL, etc.) And then of that,, how many will do the work to be good soldiers? It's a freaking welfare state where the non-Saudis do almost all the physical work.

KSA has spent an absolute potload on defense, probably making poor choices of what to spend the money on, and perhaps badly advised on what to spent it on. Then Obama and especially Biden have gone and really blown up what at least had been a decent relationship (we defend, you help keep the global economy stable)...

This all beside the question of where KSA and other "surrounding nations" might corkscrew off to if they really were effective military powers. There were some years when KSA was the #4 spender on defense in the world! IIRC maybe even #3 for a year or two. And that was B4 some of the other big spenders had cut back to present day levels (at least as a % of their wealth.) So let's say KSA goes back to that for several years, concentrating on making themselves the 4th largest navy in the world. Big on AI and automation, LOTS of drones... Then they swing away from being a friendly - why not, they don't need us anymore, or, maybe the present royalty gets dumped because big $$ were taken away from the welfare state? They ally with a couple like minded neighbors, maybe China too and now they control the sea in their region? Oh, boy...!

There are NO easy answers, and we've been sloughing off -- see that chart I posted above. But... the world all taking care of their own "security" is likely the worst answer of all.

And in that regard of no easy answers, you asked "do we continue those expenditures until surrounding nations develop naval security or rely on private merchant securities to handle these safe passages."

Well, the problem there is that either way (and I think only the 1st option there is practical and likely to be effective, I mean, what, you want the equivalent of a few Wagners-of-the-Sea equipped with advanced destroyers?? Sheesh!!) -- then if we don't continue and in fact increase those expenditures, much less grow a backbone, we have several years of no security. I highly doubt the West would have much of an economy left after that, to support even our own basic defense, without HUGE sacrifices by our population.

Again I point to that graph I posted - we are not in any rational sense spending appropriately on defense.

All this doesn't mean KSA (for example) can't help in significant ways. One thing they might be able to do is invest in a salvage vessel, if any are available, and have that on hand for assistance. Maybe if their missile defenses (which they've already spent a lot on), can with present US experiences, be much improved, and then they might feel confident in assisting with a blockade, etc. But much beyond that, it gets very, very dicey. :-(

[Paul R.]

Esp. in a case like this we should have the capacity to fight to win decisively (not “forever wars”) and backbone to use that capacity.

This situation around Yemen is NOT peripheral — if it continues and there is a hard winter in Europe next year, the Western and allied economies are likely to crunch very hard. If you can’t grasp that, you just are not very well informed. For starters I suggest you take a look at the GGE-mile (or DGE-mile) calculations for CNG and LNG, and available transport capacity, if those routes around Africa must be used.

In this case, probably the best bet is to give Iran a hard kick in the gonads, and then re-establish the rest of the Trump policies toward Iran and regarding energy. Historically, Iran has proven to have no appetite to take us on directly, and in each case they back off for a while when forcefully reminded of that.

However, that argument of some excessive burden of cost of defense or “empire” (also nonsense) or whatever you want to call it is yet more nonsense. Check that graph I posted above. Where we are killing ourselves is domestically.

[Paul R.]

We are not directly protecting any but US flagged ships, and at no point have been. We do of course render aid to most any vessel in distress, and IIRC in at least a couple instances when we arrived and there was more incoming, we shot it down. If a missile came at a cargo ship near one of our AD destroyers, I’m sure we’d shoot that down too, as the threat obviously might be to our ship and not the cargo ship.

However, at any given time we are “near” maybe, what, 5% of the civilian cargo traffic in the region?

Drones are a different story: We are trying to hit them mainly with fighter jets launching AA missiles, and have done quite well. Because the drones are slow, we can get fighter jets to them over much more area. One of our pilots flying a Harrier off the USS Bataan, prior to it going back to the Med, shot down 7 Houthi (Iranian) drones. :-)

Note: To learn more, spend some time over at the What Is Going On With Shipping channel on You Tube. Very informative, as is his friend, Ward Carroll, on military matters. Ward is where I 1st learned of the pilot with 7 Houthi drones to his credit.

[Paul R.]

What is Going On With Shipping has a new vid up with lots of info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27zG3GNxmdI

Holy shit.

These Houthis need to die. It’s that simple.

[Paul R.]

Kudos to the Indian Navy for great work rescuing the surviving crew!

[AndyJackson]

You utterly missed my point. Defending sea lines of communication is a vital interest. That includes access through the Suez Canal. Had we remained focused on a maritime strategy we wouldn’t be counting ships and discover we don’t have enough. But that would have meant not fighting land wars in Asia/Middle East and we most certainly wouldn’t have started our deep state nonsense in Ukraine. It’s more than on the periphery of our interests. It was a direct and quite intentional policy of antagonizing Russia and it has blown up in our faces spectacularly and shown huge vulnerabilities in our arms posture.

You started off with an excellent analysis of capabilities and issues dealing with the Houthis. Now, clear your head of the propaganda you have ingested from your Zeeper influencers and apply that same analytical brilliance to the balance of our strategic problem.

And as for your budget sheet, yeah sure, but all that domestic spending came at the expense of our staggering national debt. Redirecting future borrowing towards defense spending won’t fix that problem AND the inflation problem at the same time. Furthermore, take away domestic spending that is sort of keeping the peace in the US and the cold civil war we are fight here mano a mano will go hot and we won’t have any ability to fight any war any other place in the world.

[itsahoot]

I’m not a fan of our plan.

People don't get to make plans Gator, most don't even know there is a plan.

[rey]

Lt. O’Bannon knows the region, knows the people, and has demonstrated success in the area. He’s our man.