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How to Stop the Houthi Attacks at Sea
(Bloomberg) Adm. (ret.) James Stavridis - For more than eight months, the Houthis - an Iranian-backed proxy group based in Yemen - have bedeviled the global shipping industry. These attacks have sunk at least two ships and killed several seafarers. They have also deliberately targeted warships from the U.S. and its allies in the Gulf region, nearly hitting several with either land-based ballistic missiles, airborne drones, or sea-skimming unmanned craft packed with explosives. The majority of world shipping suppliers, including both container ships and bulk oil carriers, are routing traffic away from the Red Sea and Suez canal. This is adding expensive additional days at sea to most routes flowing between Asia, Europe and North America. Kinks are developing in the global supply chains. Thus far, the Western response has been anemic, indecisive, and mostly defensive. I commanded NATO's counter-piracy mission for four years in the Red Sea and off the Horn of Africa as Supreme Allied Commander. Over time, we learned that playing defense was necessary but not sufficient. What we learned was that to defeat pirates operating from bases ashore you need to go ashore and neutralize the attacks before they successfully get out to sea. Once the pirates or their weapons - missiles, drones, unmanned high-speed boats - are in the open seaway, the challenges multiply. When we began to strike the pirate bases ashore, capture or kill the pirates and destroy their equipment, the threat gradually reduced. While the Houthis are far better trained, equipped and organized thanks to their masters in Tehran, the same principle applies: Go ashore. A campaign plan against the Houthis must include severing their supply chain back to Iran. Iran is providing not only intelligence but also hardware. This may require striking Iranian assets directly, to include their intelligence-gathering ships in the Red Sea and North Arabian Sea; offshore Iranian intelligence-gathering platforms outside the Arabian Gulf; and Iranian logistic vessels moving weapons and components to Yemen. Some may find direct strikes against Iranian sovereign assets too provocative. I'd invite anyone to reflect on the direct attacks thus far - now numbering in the dozens - of ballistic missiles and drones shot down (fortunately) by U.S. warships. If one of those ballistic missiles were to get through and strike a U.S. destroyer with a tightly packed crew of 350 sailors, we would be very close to a war with Iran. Better to send a strong signal now than to have to react with overwhelming firepower against Tehran after U.S. casualties. With the right campaign plan, we can inflict sufficient damage to the Houthis to cause them to cease and desist. We need the will to do so. The writer is former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.