By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The Pentagon’s new Red Sea security mission called Operation Prosperity Guardian will be tasked with both maintaining secure waterways in the Red Sea and also “defending” against ongoing Houthi missile attacks.
Thus far, US Navy warships have proven quite successful in the realm of tracking and intercepting or destroying both Houthi-fired drones and missiles targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea. Now, an allied group of like-minded nations, to include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and expanded US Navy and NATO support, are forming a specific new multi-national security coalition tasked with protecting the Red Sea.
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters the new coalition came into existence following a special visit to the Middle East by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“Among the topics discussed during the trip was the importance of freedom of navigation in international waterways and the recent threat of Houthi attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Upwards of 10 to 15 percent of global shipping transits these straits and these attacks are impacting global trade and commerce, negatively impacting the economies of nations around the world, and costing commercial shipping firms billions of dollars,” Ryder told reporters, according to a Pentagon transcript.
A Delicate Balance in the Red Sea
The Pentagon appears to be striving a delicate and potentially precarious balance between simply ensuring security with a defensive posture and simultaneously placing multi-national war assets within attack range of Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen in the Red Sea. This kind of a move seems to align with the Pentagon’s firm position that it seeks to purely deter and “not” engage with offensive firepower in response to Houthi missile and drone attacks. This approach is deliberately aimed at preventing escalation of the Israel-Hamas war into a broader regional conflict.
Will this balance work? Or simply increase the likelihood of a conflict escalating in the region? Perhaps an Operational Guardian member will wind up responding with greater force to continued Houthi-attacks, yet that is also unlikely to happen for several reasons. At this point, the continued Houthi rocket and drone attacks do seem to indicate that Iran-backed Houthi rebels are attempting to escalate and widen the conflict into a broader Middle East potentially involving the US and Iran. Perhaps the Houthis wish for the US to retaliate with precision-strikes into Houthi areas for the purposes of leveraging images for anti-US propaganda throughout the region? If this is indeed the case, the Pentagon has thus far not taken the bait, and a multi-national defensive security force may provide the optimal balance between defensive firepower and deterrence.
Certainly the new defensive operation will operate with the firepower to exact a devastating toll upon Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, yet US Navy warships have already repeatedly showed they are armed with the technology, countermeasures and weapons to intercept, stop and destroy incoming Houthi missile and drone attacks in the region. Therefore, a purely collaborative joint protective posture may be achieved the intended effect.
Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
