Operation Prosperity Guardian

A bit on the nose

Image credit: Damien Symon on Twitter: https://x.com/detresfa_/status/1735979072126423252?s=20

It looks like next week the administration will announce the formation of a coalition to defend commercial shipping from the Houthis who have been stepping up their attacks in the Red Sea area. Apparently it will be called Operation Prosperity Guardian.

It comes as the crisis is clearly worsening. US Navy ships are already escorting US-flagged commercial ships, but the US Navy and allies need to be escorting all merchant shipping. Shipping companies are already suspending traffic through the Red Sea area, and around 55 ships have already opted to take the much longer trip around the Cape of Good Hope instead. It’s not yet a global crisis, but the problem quite predictably got worse and would have continued to do so without intervention.

Despite this Reuters report, this is not Somali piracy. Although the Somali pirate groups may see an opportunity to get in on the fun as navies in the area focus on the Houthis. No, this is definitely Iran-supplied Houthis causing trouble in the only way they can to protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. If you’re confused about how Houthi pirates making money helps Palestinians, don’t be feel bad because it actually doesn’t help them at all. These aren’t smart people. Piracy actually makes the stock of shipping companies, including Israeli ones, increase. The Gaza connection is merely an excuse.

However, the Somali piracy connection is apt because this operation is basically a re-run of Task Force 153, the effort to combat Somali piracy in and around the Horn of Africa. Really, what should be done, is combining the two under CJTF-Horn of Africa at Camp Lemmonier. Allegedly things like this are what standing task forces are for, but administrations tend to create new things instead of using what is already available. This crisis is also an opportunity for the US Navy and US Coast Guard to develop some of the local partnered navies and coast guards in the region to secure their own backyard, a mission well within the CJTF-HOA remit. Securing the sea lanes in this area is a continuous mission, which should be handled by a standing staff.

But because CENTCOM will want in on the action, we’ll probably get two task forces addressing the same problem in two different ways for two different Geographic Combatant Commands. All because we can’t stop fighting over resources even when there’s an actual fight. The disadvantage of standing combatant commands based on land is that they’re wholly unprepared to handle maritime and aerospace focused tasks especially in and around the seams between the commands. This is another intentional weighting of the budgetary dice towards land power at the expense of flexible and appropriate command relationships.

Maybe the real strategic competition is all the money we made along the way.

The other issue is that this will get worse before it gets better. Since the USS Carney and others have been defending ships in the region, more and more drones have launched towards the vicinity, with fully 14 in a recent wave. And while this is providing the US Navy with excellent data on how to defeat drones in the maritime space, the Houthis (and their Iranian sponsor) are also gathering data on how to employ them. Both sides are learning. These are neither sophisticated attacks nor sophisticated weapons. But while the US Navy’s defensive systems are the best in the world, it is just a matter of time before something gets through.

People are already calling for punitive strikes in Yemen, which are not unwarranted, but there are no good options for actually making that happen. Moving the Ford from the Eastern Med leaves no ability to respond to threats to Americans in and around Israel from the ongoing war. And the Ford had to be extended again. Moving the Ike from the Persian Gulf will leave commercial shipping there uncovered. That leaves the Bataan ARG with the embarked 26th MEU. It’s more than capable of doing the job, but by committing it to do so you’re betting that there won’t be a large-scale non-combatant evacuation from Lebanon and you won’t need those amphibs. It was also already protecting ships in the Persian Gulf region. The caveat for the above is I’m not aware of what USAF assets are currently in Qatar nor what the Qataris would let us do from there.

This is what we’re stuck with, a world that has largely left the job of securing the global economy to the U.S. Navy for going on eighty years. And in a world where the U.S. Navy is overstretched and under resourced by a nation grown rich on its efforts. The US Navy simply isn’t big enough. Period. It already looks like the platform crunch I wrote about months ago is here.

I’m also ignoring the munitions issue. Modern munitions are complex and not easily replaced. They’re not particularly well-funded by Congress who would rather invest in shiny new platforms than magazine depth. They’re also difficult to fund through continuing resolutions instead of a steady budget process. They’re also difficult to keep funded and supplied when important issues are continually held hostage so politicians can posture about shutting down the government if they don’t get their way. The ammunition that the US Navy is expending defending itself and commercial shipping, and the ammunition that would be expended in offensive strikes, is not easily replaced when all of the above is happening simultaneously.

There’s a lot of negativity in the above but I’m not actually pessimistic about the effort. The maritime services and probably the USAF in some way shape or form are going into harm’s way again to defend freedom (this time of the seas). Again they’ll do so with what they have instead of what they need. Again, they’ll do so successfully.