Remember the Rubymar: Stop Houthi attacks now

“Remember the Maine” and “Remember Pearl Harbor” were battle cries over which the U.S. went to war. 

The USS Maine blew up and sank on Feb. 15th, 1898 in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The Spanish were blamed and it helped ignite the Spanish-American War. Rather than sabotage, seven decades later, the cause of its sinking was determined to be an explosion in the coal bunkers. However, it made no difference. The Maine was remembered.

But will anyone remember the merchant ship Rubymar that sank last week in the Red Sea, a victim of a Houthi missile attack? Will this incident be a repeat of the absence of consequences in 1967, when Israel forces premeditatively and without cause attacked the USS Liberty in international waters off its coast, killing the commanding officer, or after North Korea hijacked the USS Pueblo, an unarmed electronics ship also in international waters, off North Korea’s coast?

This sinking and the ability of a third or fourth-world state to challenge and threaten the international order by closing off transit through the Red Sea raise grave consequences. The first is the damage done to trade when a substantial amount must be diverted to sailing around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope adding time and expense. The second is the pollution that has been and will be caused. Rubymar carried some 21,000 tons of fertilizer that will be largely impossible to clean up with negative effects on the sea and sea life.

But the third consequence is the most troubling and dangerous. What can responsible parties do to keep the seas free, safe and open when confronting a third or fourth-world state that seems oblivious to limited military strikes to disrupt its ability to attack local shipping? In December 2023, the U.S. announced the formation of a 20-member coalition operation code-named Prosperity Guardian to protect merchant ships transiting through the Red Sea to and from the Suez Canal.  About one-seventh of all maritime commerce passes through Suez.

Since then, coalition warships, principally those from the U.S. and the United Kingdom, have shot down large numbers of Houthi drones and ballistic missiles. But no defense is perfect and so-called “leakers” got through that struck and sank the Rubymar. Air and missile strikes against Houthi command, control and surveillance systems have been launched, as well as against missile sites and storage facilities at great expense.

For example, a U.S. SM-6 anti-air missile costs about $6 million; a Tomahawk land attack costs about $2 million. And none of these strikes, so far, has deterred or prevented Houthis from continued attacks.

Part of this strategic dilemma is that the only way to eliminate Houthi attacks is to eliminate its stocks of cruise and ballistic missiles and drones at the source. While it is unlikely that the Houthis have the technical ability to produce missiles in large numbers, its source is Iran. But President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he does not wish to see an expanded war in Ukraine and by extension in the Gulf.

Iran’s supreme leader likewise has expressed no interest in causing a wider war in the region. And, of course, Iran is still supplying weapons to the Houthis. What options are open to the members of Prosperity Guardian? 

The most obvious is the status quo. Continue providing air defense for maritime commerce and selectively hitting targets ashore to exhaust or destroy Houthi magazines.

A second is increasing air and missile strikes to eliminate much or all of the Houthi’s capabilities. The third is to use ground or special forces in raids ashore to accelerate the disarming process. And last is to attack the source, Iran, with economic sanctions and blockades or direct military action against weapons facilities.

Action against Iran is certainly off the list in order not to provoke a wider war. The use of special forces ashore is risky. And more or a bit more of the same could be the compromise choice. Whether that works depends entirely on the Houthi’s stockpile of weapons, its ability to replenish and the accuracy of intelligence to provide answers to both.

The stated reason for Houthi attacks against shipping is supporting Hamas against Israel. But one wonders if after the Gaza War is resolved the Houthis will still have the ability to blackmail the West by attacking Red Sea traffic. In that context, the use of ground forces may not be such a bad idea after all.

Harlan Ullman Ph.D. is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of the “shock and awe” military doctrine. His 12th book, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large,” is available on Amazon. He can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.