Over the past two months, international attention has been increasingly drawn to the waters around Yemen, where Houthi militants have been expanding their attacks on merchant shipping in the vicinity of the Bab el Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. As international military forces set out to respond, they would do well to draw lessons from other operations in recent years that have similarly sought to protect maritime trade, specifically against pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea.
Combined Task Force 153
Prominent among the Houthi attacks was the seizure of the car carrier Galaxy Leader in November by an armed team delivered via helicopter. More recent Houthi small boat attacks on merchant traffic, while thwarted, suggest a desire to continue such hijacking. Other Houthi attacks have seen the use of land-based missile and drone strikes. In response, the United States announced the formation of an international operation in December, Prosperity Guardian, that will be managed by the already-existing Combined Task Force 153 (CTF-153) that has defense responsibilities for the affected area of the sea; at least eight other nations have stated they will join the effort.
The move is reminiscent of the 2009 creation of CTF-153’s counterpart, CTF-151, which was tasked with countering Somali piracy. CTF-151’s operations resulted in a near elimination of hijackings in the region over the ensuing years, some recent attacks notwithstanding. To replicate that success, CTF-153 has already begun to adopt, to some extent, a similar approach to its predecessor, designating a command ship to coordinate the activities of all participating warships, rotating that command between countries on a routine basis, promulgating no-go or high-risk zones for private vessels, establishing a specific transit corridor for merchant ships, and concentrating naval protection along that route.
Lessons can also be taken from the Gulf of Guinea, which had become the world’s piracy hotspot by 2020, with some 80 attacks occurring and a staggering 130 hostages taken that year. The international community came together to confront the threat, this time under a regional leadership construct known as the Yaoundé Architecture. In 2022, the region saw a mere 20 attacks and two hostages taken. Notably, the Yaoundé Architecture model lacked the command-and-control function of CTF-151, opting instead for a zone system that sectioned off areas of responsibility for local states, while also creating a collaboration forum for international forces from outside the region. This forum provided awareness to local leaders and allowed international participants to deconflict the timing and location of patrols, thereby maximizing coverage. As the process matured, the forum developed standard communication and incident reporting procedures with shipping industry participation, further streamlining operations. CTF-153 should bring in regional leaders, establish force deconfliction mechanisms, and adopt standardized reporting procedures (likely by endorsing and promulgating already-existing schemes) as soon as possible.
As in any scenario with ship hijackings, CTF-153 must consider what do with hijackers or pirates once they are apprehended. Under the Yaoundé Architecture in the Gulf of Guinea, this question was never really answered; a Danish frigate that detained four suspected pirates in November 2021 after a fierce and fatal firefight could not find a regional state willing to take the detainees for prosecution and so let them go without punishment. CTF-151 fared much better on this issue, with Kenya and then Seychelles offering to try suspects detained by international forces. Seychelles has stated that it will participate in CTF-153, which is potentially promising on the legal front. That said, there are important legal distinctions between a Somali pirate and a Houthi combatant. Any confusion or complication on this front should be clarified immediately by CTF-153 participants, lest they find themselves in a situation in which hijackers are detained without any options for their ultimate disposition.
Of course, the new task force faces an array of challenges that have not been previously encountered in counterpiracy efforts, such as the use of land-based missiles and drones to attack shipping. While the measures adopted to counter these threats will involve different tactics and technologies from anything employed in previous piracy missions, the establishment of designated and protected shipping corridors, patrol deconfliction to maximize detection and coverage, and communication standardization by CTF-153 participants will nonetheless be key to success.
As the task force ramps up, it is important to also remember that the Galaxy Leader remains detained off the Yemeni coast. The resolution of that case will inevitably resemble previous piracy cases in some way—either in the release of the ship after payment by a shipping company or a takedown of the ship by a force that will then need to determine the disposition of any detained hijackers.
Ultimately, perhaps CTF-153’s greatest strength—and one that counterpiracy forces in CTF-151 and the Gulf of Guinea also possessed—is the global nature and economic importance of the maritime shipping industry. By threatening that industry, the Houthis—and their Iranian backers—risk diplomatic isolation. Iran’s sometime-allies Russia and China both rely on robust international maritime trade. Russia actively participated in both the Somali and Gulf of Guinea counterpiracy missions, and China supported the fight against the Somali pirates to the extent that it established its first-ever overseas military base in Djibouti. While neither country has signaled a willingness or intention to deploy assets to stop Houthi shipping attacks, both their naval asset movements and political statements about the issue will be closely monitored by decision-makers from Washington to Tehran.
Looking Forward
Ownership, economic benefit, and national interests in the realm of maritime trade can be complex and difficult to trace under the best of circumstances. The Galaxy Leader is no exception in this regard: Its crewmembers (now all hostages) hail from Bulgaria, Mexico, the Philippines, and Ukraine; it flies the flag of the Bahamas, is managed by a Japanese operator, and owned by a company registered in the Isle of Man that is in turn held by another company partially owned by a private Israeli citizen. Every other ship attacked by the Houthis in recent weeks comprises a similar amalgamation of national interests; this means that dozens of countries have a vested interest in countering the aggression currently unfolding, including potential allies to whom the Houthis might otherwise turn. Pirates hijacking merchant ships in Somalia and the Gulf of Guinea were essentially defeated by broad multinational coalitions in recent years. By applying lessons learned from those efforts, CTF-153 and its partners can ensure that the fate of the Houthi hijackers will be the same.