The Houthis in November 2023 started to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Attacks continue even though the United States and other nations have stationed naval forces to protect commerce in the region. The perception of risk to commercial ships transiting the Red Sea has in fact grown, to judge by the rise in insurance rates during the first half of September.
The Houthis are a clearly inferior combatant. Even so, naval powers operating in the region have failed to bring their attacks to an end. This is true even though the United States has hit the Houthis on multiple occasions with a combination of air power and missile strikes ashore.
This has led to questions about the U.S. response, and, more broadly, the usefulness of naval power. Headlines shout that “the Houthis have defeated the U.S. Navy” and “the Houthis now rule the Red Sea,” while an opinion piece from the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal asserts, “The American-led international coalition to escort vessels can now fairly be declared a failure.”
Such statements might leave readers lamenting the ineffectiveness of sea power. But before reaching such a conclusion, consider writings from over a century ago by Alfred T. Mahan. His arguments give a fuller picture of the role sea power plays in the confrontation with the Houthis. They also speak more broadly to the role of sea power in the 21st century.
Sea Power and the Confrontation with the Houthis
Mahan wrote that sea power combines naval and economic elements.1 The blend of economic and naval strength often works quietly, far from prying eyes ashore, to obtain outcomes. Mahan noted sea power’s influence is easy to miss because it is nearly impossible to see in action.2 Even in 2024, it is only when the Houthis strike a ship, shoot down a U.S. drone, or attempt to escalate the conflict that the world seems to notice.
This situation should not be seen as surprising. A navy is not a silver bullet that will rapidly end a crisis. Rather, naval power acting alone works to quietly exhaust opponents.3 Historically, it has accomplished this by regulating maritime commerce for economic effect. This means protecting friendly commerce and limiting the commercial interactions of opponents. In recent decades, the increased range and accuracy of weapons, including ship-launched missiles and those used in carrier-launched air strikes, have added another layer to the U.S. Navy’s options when acting alone. But precision strikes at targets ashore do not generally obtain results that are both quick and lasting. It has historically proven difficult to use naval power to directly influence situations ashore, and this remains true in the Red Sea.
Sea Power and Strategies of Exhaustion
One of Mahan’s contemporaries, Julian S. Corbett, warned the effects of naval power “must always be slow, and so galling both to our own commercial community and to neutrals, that the tendency is always to accept terms of peace that are far from conclusive.”4 Naval campaigns based on exhaustion are protracted affairs that often offer less-than-perfect outcomes.
Operations in the Red Sea carry a hefty price tag. First, the search for alternative trade routes leads to delays in transit. Ships willing to risk passage through the Red Sea pay higher insurance costs for using the contested waters. In addition, consider the costs associated with the potential loss of a commercial ship. These include the outright value of the ship, the loss of its carrying capacity, and the risk to merchant mariners. Moreover, there are environmental considerations: An oil spill was one of the great fears after the Greek-owned and flagged oil tanker MV Sounion was damaged off the coast of Yemen in August. Then there is the expense of maintaining warships in the region and the great expenditure of weapons used to thwart Houthi attacks. Given the costs, powerful pressures will likely emerge to end operations somewhat on the Houthi’s terms.
It has generally been more cost-effective to deny transit than to protect commerce. Take for example the Battle of the Atlantic—the longest sustained campaign of the European Theater in World War II. The battle began in September 1939 and continued until the end of hostilities in 1945. It has been argued that during much of the war, the Germans were able to divert more allied resources for the protection of the Allies’ own commerce than the Germans spent to fight the campaign.5 The Houthis are gaining similar advantages despite their significant inferiority as a fighting force.
Sea Power as the Necessary Enabler
With the necessary political will, naval powers can sustain operations and keep commercial arteries open despite the costs, and thus buy time for diplomatic and military options to yield more permanent outcomes. We can again turn to Mahan for an explanation. When he wrote more than a century ago about sea power’s influence, Mahan carefully studied the Napoleonic Wars and concluded that the deciding factor was the pitched economic struggle between Britain and France. In fact, in The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, Mahan ended the study with the year 1812, as Napoleon’s armies invaded Russia, rather than at Waterloo in 1815.
Mahan concluded that British sea power by 1812 had placed Napoleon in the horns of a dilemma. The British fleet protected the British Isles and its colonies. Unable to defeat Britain by invasion, Napoleon instituted the Continental System to prevent Britain from trading with its largest commercial partner—continental Europe. Mahan called the Continental System “the determinative factor in Napoleon’s fortunes.”6 It caused massive economic disruption. Attempts to compel states to join the Continental System led to military interventions. including operations in Iberia that Napoleon could not bring to a satisfactory conclusion. Later, attempts to keep Russia in the Continental System drove Napoleon to war with that country in 1812.
Napoleon’s aggressive actions spurred the development of a coalition to oppose him. This was key to his eventual defeat. Mahan makes it clear: Sea power multiplied Napoleon’s opponents and forced him into self-defeating actions.7 Sea power had done its work to slowly and quietly set the stage for more visible outcomes.
We must think in a similar way today about the Houthi threat. Sea power allows nations to buy time and create conditions for future success. As the conflict continues, leaders will need to think creatively about using naval power in combination with the other instruments of national power to put the Houthis in a position from which they cannot win. At the same time, they must always be prepared to take advantage of favorable developments—including those that may emerge beyond the Red Sea.
1. A.T. Mahan, Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (Boston: Little, Brown, 1911), 223.
2. A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890), 275.
3. K.D. McCranie, Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2021), 215
4. J.S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (London: Longmans, Green, 1911. Reprint. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 15-16.
5. P.P. O’Brien, How the War Was Won (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 243, 250-51.
6. A.T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907), 305.
7. Mahan explained this outcome in the final two chapters of The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1893), 272-411. For a more recent description of the Napoleonic Wars and the Continental System, see A. Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
