Houthi aggression offers US a chance to vindicate freedom of navigation

Since November, Houthi rebels have repeatedly attacked commercial vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. The U.S. and its allies’ response — including missile strikes against Houthi assets yesterday — risks widening hostilities in an already volatile region. 

The risk of escalation is real, but the potential cost of inaction is equally high. The U.S. must maintain a proportional but sustained military response to Houthi aggression.

Why so urgent? Although the fighting is regional, the implications are global. According to the Houthis, their ongoing attacks on commercial shipping represent a defense of Palestinians against Israel and the West. But whether they intend it or not, their missiles have struck at a key pillar of the international order that affects all nations: the freedom of navigation.

At its heart, the freedom of navigation entitles all countries’ vessels to traverse the globe in peace, free from interference. It is both a driver of international free trade and a manifestation of the idea that the world’s oceans — the high seas and international straits — lie beyond the reach of any single nation’s sovereign control. The vindication of this principle alone justifies measured military action in the region.

Though often taken for granted, the freedom of navigation today is under threat of erosion. Over the past 10 years, re-shoring and protectionism, often fueled by nationalism, have heightened geopolitical competition. As part of this deglobalizing trend, some of the world’s largest seafaring nations have forsaken a broadly international approach to the oceans in favor of maximalist claims to maritime areas once thought of as free and open to all.

The most salient example of this is China, which has built artificial islands in the South China Sea, gradually fortifying them with military installations, and using its coast guard to harass neighboring countries’ vessels. China has even insisted that foreign naval vessels obtain its permission to pass through the area — a clear violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the customary international law principles that treaty embodies. No surprise, then, that China has remained silent while the Houthis launch missiles and drones, despite Beijing’s outsized interest in efficient ocean-borne shipping.

Russia has asserted a similarly restrictive vision of the Northern Sea Route, an icy passage linking Europe to the Pacific Ocean, while also claiming a large swath of the Arctic sea floor — clear analogues to its expansionism in Ukraine and beyond. Nor is this brand of territorialism restricted to our adversaries. Canada, somewhat unhelpfully, claims the Northwest Passage as internal waters subject to its sovereign control. This is a legally dodgy position that promises to become only more contentious as Arctic ice recedes.

Still, none of these countries has gone as far as the Houthis in mounting potentially deadly strikes on commercial vessels exercising their freedom of navigation to transit a key international strait. For the U.S. to moderate its response to such flagrant assaults would risk signaling that the freedom of navigation is elastic — subject to the might of global powers rather than the right of all nations.

Yet in light of worrisome global trends, and for all their bluster, the Houthis may have handed the U.S. and its Western allies a strategic opportunity. The freedom of navigation is as well-established a right as any in international law. The case against the Houthis is thus cut and dried. By visiting measured, proportional strikes against Houthi infrastructure, the U.S., its allies and its partners can draw a clear line in defense of the freedom of navigation.

Indeed, this is a chance to take advantage of the Houthis’ relative military weakness. As delicate as current tensions in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea may be, they pale in comparison to the risks of similar action in the South China Sea or the Arctic. This means the U.S. can enforce the freedom of navigation at low cost locally but in effect vindicate it globally — across all the world’s oceans.

This is a path to preserving the freedom of navigation everywhere, both now and in the long-run.

Timothy Perry is a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, government official and adjunct professor. He frequently writes about matters of national and homeland security.