Can a US-led naval force protect ships and oil in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf?

By James Stavridis

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced a new military effort in the Middle East: Operation Prosperity Guardian. It will bring together a coalition of countries to protect the dangerous waters of the Red Sea, the North Arabian Sea and the western Indian Ocean from surprisingly sophisticated attacks by Iranian-sponsored terrorists from Yemen's Houthi insurgency.

In recent weeks, the Houthis have carried out an escalating series of attacks on merchant shipping using drones, ballistic missiles and commandos on helicopters and speedboats. As a video from the Houthis shows, these well-equipped teams move with military precision.

U.S. warships already patrol the waters, and two of them — the guided-missile destroyers USS Mason and USS Carney — are under attack more or less daily, with dozens of drones shot down and several commercial ships rescued. In mid-November, the Houthis successfully captured one private ship, a vehicle carrier called the Galaxy Leader, and are holding it hostage along with 25 sailors in a Red Sea port. Tensions and attacks are likely to continue to escalate, largely at the behest of the Iranian theocracy.

I know these waters well. In addition to numerous stints as captain of a guided missile destroyer and commodore of a destroyer squadron, I led an aircraft carrier strike group in the region as a one-star rear admiral. When I was NATO military commander in early 2010, we put together a task force to fight Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa. Those experiences lead me to believe that this new mission will ultimately be successful – if the force follows some basic principles.

First, we need to fully understand what is driving this wave of attacks. The Houthi rebels are supplied, organized, trained and encouraged by Tehran. They claim their attacks are in response to Israeli counterattacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but a more likely explanation is that they are looking for weaknesses to set up future attacks by Iran against Western interests. The attacks are also likely to cause oil prices to rise, benefiting the Iranians, and perhaps increase Western pressure on Israel to reduce its attacks in Gaza.

So the US and its partners may have to do more than deploy additional warships on defensive patrols. We must be prepared to go on the offensive: to launch offensive strikes against land targets, perhaps using Tomahawk missiles and attack aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower, now patrolling the Gulf of Oman. Such attacks would be legitimate and proportionate under the laws of war, i.e. against Houthi infrastructure in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

If this does not have a calming effect on Houthi activities, it would be entirely appropriate to attack the sponsor – Iran – especially its maritime infrastructure in the North Indian Ocean and the Gulf. This includes oil and gas platforms, port facilities and patrol vessels of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Of course, we must do our utmost to prevent further escalation, but both the Houthis and Tehran must recognize that there is a real price to pay.

A second element of Operation Prosperity Guardian must be a fully integrated intelligence picture. The sea space that maritime operators have to cover is remarkably large. The Red Sea – from the Suez Canal to the Bab el Mandeb in the Horn of Africa – is the size of California. To cover the rest of the North Arabian Sea and the entrance to the Red Sea, you can add another stretch almost twice the size of Alaska. Even if you had twenty warships on patrol – a very high number for a maritime mission – it would be the same as twenty police cruisers trying to cover the entire Pacific coast of America.

The key here is wide area surveillance. This can be achieved using satellite information and drones that have been in use for a long time. Most signatory countries operate such vessels. But the key will be coordination between the new partners: All this data will have to be entered into the task force's command center, which will likely be located at the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. I've been there many times and it's a state-of-the-art facility with not only drone and satellite intelligence capabilities, but also human intelligence, cell phone monitoring, open source analytics and lots of allied data streams all together. getting together.

The U.S. and coalition partners had ample practice in such cooperation during the height of Somali piracy operations, although it was admittedly a much easier opponent than the Houthis.

Third, the US must work hard to expand its circle of allies and partners. The Saudis are not yet formally involved in Operation Prosperity Guardian, but they could be crucial members given their extensive network of naval bases on the Red Sea. The United Arab Emirates, which is also not currently on board, has capable warships and solid intelligence gathering capabilities. The catch is that the two Gulf Arab countries have different views on how to tackle the Houthi problem: the UAE calls for strong military action against the rebels, while Riyadh wants a more measured approach. They need to be convinced to put this argument aside and address the immediate crisis.

There could also be direct European Union participation in the task force: it has had an active anti-piracy mission since 2008, Operation Atalanta.

Finally, given that the targets are largely commercial shipping, the US will need to work more intensively with the private sector. This can best be done by working with the largest shipping companies – Maersk, MSC and British Petroleum have all suspended operations in the Red Sea – through the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency headquartered in London. During anti-piracy operations a decade ago, the IMO was a key organizer of private-public cooperation. For example, security teams on board will have to be considered, and this can only be done by the shipping companies themselves.

It will be difficult to counter well-trained, well-armed Houthi rebels led by Iran. But Operation Prosperity Guardian, which takes the lessons of Somali counterpiracy and adapts it to new threats, is a step in the right direction.

First print: December 20, 2023 | 6:48 am IST