No one has stopped the Houthis yet, will someone do it? If so who?
With 2024 being such a tumultuous year in global politics it is easy to focus on the wars in Ukraine and Lebanon to the detriment of other issues. Specifically, the Houthi attacks on global shipping. I wrote about it in January, optimistically predicting that it would end in a few weeks, probably by the USA. Obviously, that did not come to pass. Why? And with the hindsight of the last ten months, when can we expect the attacks to end?
A theme on the blog for the last two years has been national interests. In my posts (rants? screeds?) about NATO I kept emphasising how interests change over time, and that states rhetoric should be disregarded when analysing their interests. I have also repeatedly said that it is not necessarily in all Western or NATO member states’ interests to see Ukraine win the war. Similarly, on reflection I no longer think the US has a particularly strong interest in making sure shipping through the Suez Canal is uninterrupted any more.
The US used to be very focused on the Middle East for energy reasons, for a couple of decades the US went from being an energy exporter to an energy importer which meant that it relied on hydrocarbons from the Gulf states. But the shale revolution has made the US energy independent so it no longer needs stability in the Middle East to ensure the wells keep pumping at top capacity.
The US is also a major importer which means that it requires safe oceans so that all the products and raw materials it consumes from other states reach it safely. However, it is also a continent spanning state with several major ports on two global oceans. The Suez is a major shortcut when products travel between Europe and East Asia where some of the world’s most advanced economies are located. But Asian products can go to Long Beach without passing the Suez, and so can European products destined for Houston.
In my original post on the Houthis disruption of shipping I made the case that there is a prestige gain for being the guarantor of global commerce. In the competition between great powers that is more than enough motivation to stop the Houthis, but of the three great powers Russia is a land based power which might not have the power projection capabilities needed to stop the Houthis even if it were not tied up in Ukraine, the US has as mentioned little need to do it, so I think that China has the most to gain from stopping the Houthis. The reason it hasn’t yet is probably that it expects the US to do it.
In terms of when we can expect it to end, I think Jacob Shapiro’s take is correct. As long as oil stays relatively cheap the added distance of going around the Cape of Good Hope is not so expensive as to make shipping companies pass on the added cost to consumers. But when oil gets more expensive again – which there is a risk of with the escalating war in Lebanon – the economics of shipping might change to a point where the Houthis become a pressing issue at which point we should expect the US or China to take action.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by David Dibert from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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