Events in Yemen remain too fast to give you a rundown, especially since my graduate research has my head mostly stuck in the operations of 16th century Royal Navy right now.1 What you need to know is that Operation Prosperity Guardian, launched in response to Houthi attacks on civilian shipping including both ballistic missiles launches, drone attacks, and straight up piracy, now exists alongside Operation Poseidon Archer. Both are multinational operations, one formed to defend shipping, and the latter to continue disrupting and degrading Houthi capability. Operation Poseidon Archer is both a much, much cooler name and a signal that the beatings will continue until the flow of civilian shipping improves.
The commentary on Yemen is infected with Outlierism. What’s Outlierism? It’s an American disease where the patient expects every military action to be as clear cut and decisive as World War II, most people’s only frame of reference for war. But World War II was the outlier of all outliers in every measure, the most unlimited war in history. Most wars are not so. They are limited wars in terms of policy objective. Ultimate decisiveness is not the aim. Most are like what we see now in Yemen: intended to change a situation without existential ends and means on either side.
But there’s also an aspect of intervention fatigue, which is way more understandable. So far this century, the United States has intervened so much in areas and for reasons outside its core interests (think Syria and Iraq) that now that it has to defend what is definitely a core interest (freedom of the seas) no one wants to do it.
The other thing is American seablindness. Intervening with landpower is one thing, intervening with seapower is another thing entirely. Throwing Army forces around is a great way to get stuck in a quagmire (again, Syria and Iraq). But maritime forces are ephemeral by nature. The real comparison is Combined Task Force-151 which formed in 2009 to fight Somali piracy. And… it worked. It also didn’t lead to quagmire. It’s been a longtime since Alfred Thayer Mahan articulated how important seapower is to the United States, but it hasn’t gotten less important. Only more important.
Outlierism. Intervention fatigue. Seablindness. Plagues for which we need a vaccine.
The need to do something about the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping is clear. And it is about the commercial shipping: Houthi ballistic missile attacks against Israel drew no American response. But what strategic effect can be achieved by the ongoing strikes is not clear at all.
Is the strategic goal here compellence or deterrence? I would argue that it is compellence even though the word deterrence is very much in fashion. Victory and defeat, offense and defense are tactical terms. When talking strategy, we should talk compellence and deterrence and whether or not a campaign or war meets its intended policy objective. The stated U.S. objective is “disrupt and degrade” the Houthi’s capabilities. This is also an unfortunate use of tactical terms in what should be a strategic statement, but it is what it is. A valid limited war objective for which a compellence strategy is a natural response.
I’m going to treat the stated objectives of the Houthis (protest the Gaza War) with the exact amount of credulity that they should be treated with: none. Whether instigated by their Iranian handlers or not is immaterial; engaging in piracy and attacking shipping is simply an opportunistic seizing of a geopolitical moment where attention is elsewhere. It should also be made clear that the Operation Prosperity Guardian/Operation Poseidon Archer coalitions did not attack Yemen: they attacked the Houthi terrorist and rebel group operating in Yemen that is currently at war with the legitimate government of Yemen (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).
By stated objective and doctrinal definitions, the US has achieved its tactical objectives in regards to the Houthis. The strategic effect remains to be seen, along with just how disrupted and degraded the policymakers are comfortable with.
It’s also not clear exactly what could achieve a long-term strategic effect where Houthi attacks on shipping are rare or non-existent. Absent a diplomatic solution through Iran, that would likely require a blockade as Houthi materiel comes from overseas via shipment from Iran. The Navy already interdicts weapon shipments from Iran to Yemen, but now a more persistent effort to do so may be necessary.2 This would put the ball back in Iran’s court: they would either have to stop shipping supplies via clandestine means or ship them via Iranian Navy ships in the hopes that the Coalition wouldn’t sink them. Or tell the Houthis to cool it.
Most commentators assume that the next stop on the Coalition’s escalation ladder has to be boots on the ground, but that’s nonsense. The Coalition has maritime options that do not require that kind of effort. But again, seablindness. It’s past time to start flexing our maritime muscles again.
You’ll see a lot of commentary stating that the US has no strategy, that the strikes failed, and such. Strategy does not work this way: it is a long-term process of bargaining and communication and the outcome simply cannot be known yet. Just because other operations with similar tactics (air and surface-to-surface missile strikes) have failed to meet objectives does not mean that the same tactics serving a different strategy in a different strategic context will also fail. And while American strategy has been uniformly bad so far in the 21st century, it’s not true that it lacks a strategy.
Weekly Links:
A Conversation with Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Allvin (podcast).
Ship shortage forces Marines to consider alternate deployments.
Phoenix Cast- Return of the Carl (podcast).
Although one might say that the Spanish Empire’s failure to protect its sea lines of communication and its resultant decline is a great lesson to apply right now.
And all weapons seized should be diverted to Ukraine.