When Nothing Seems to Work: Houthi Edition

What is a country to do when military action and diplomacy are both presently hopeless? That is the situation the United States finds itself in today: Military escalation will not compel the Houthis to halt their anti-shipping campaign or attacks on Israel. Nor will diplomacy — at least not yet.

Intensifying the use of force will strengthen the Houthis’ regional legitimacy and their control over Yemen. At the same time, it will draw the United States further into a conflict it cannot win, thus making it harder to cut losses when the time comes. It will also incentivize Israel to deepen its own involvement, creating a negative feedback loop in which the United States gets even more bogged down. These risks far exceed the importance of the Red Sea to U.S. interests.

The Houthi challenge will eventually dwindle. The Gaza war will die down, enabling the Houthis to declare victory. In the meantime, Washington should set the stage for a diplomatic process that locks in a Houthi ceasefire and reduces the likelihood of a repeat performance. This will require Iranian and Russian cooperation or at least acquiescence. Their support for the Houthis, and whatever leverage it buys them, is collateral to their primary interests. They might be responsive to direct approaches by Washington (as the United States has already done vis-à-vis Iran), and Masoud Pezeshkian’s accession to the presidency in Iran might provide another opportunity. But the key intermediary, if there is one, would be China. Given the hazards that the Red Sea crisis poses, this issue should be a priority in U.S. talks with China. The bilateral agenda is, of course, already overloaded, and neither country might be able address this issue. And China’s interests will be divided, impeding its ability to make any hard decisions about this situation. For Washington, though, the stakes are high — avoiding the trap in which Yemen turns into the motel where you can check in, but you can’t check out.

U.S. interests in the Red Sea are straightforward: ensuring the security of this particular shipping route, which has an important place in global commerce. As a practical matter, this means suppressing the Houthi threat to vessels transiting the Bab al-Mandeb and the Red Sea. Thus far, the U.S. approach to these objectives has been primarily defensive, gearing cost to scale of interest.