Senator Angus King laments the cruelty of the Houthis and the horror of the losses America is suffering from the Battle of the Seas in his conversation with senior defense officials in the Senate. According to the senator it is a real scandal. The Houthis send a plane worth 20 thousand dollars and we shoot it down with a 4.3 million missile. We cannot defend ourselves with 80 million missiles!”.
To reinforce the thesis of the costs and difficulty of fighting the Houthis at sea comes a note from the International Center for Maritime Security “CIMSEC”: “The Western naval coalition in the Red Sea must face a new and difficult challenge, to deal with the diving of Yemeni drones. The emergence of the Yemeni drone threat requires a complete reevaluation of maritime defense strategies and tactics used in the Red Sea.”
According to CIMSEC “Yemeni drone dives pose a major challenge to Western naval operations designed primarily to address air and surface threats. Traditional naval defenses designed to address surface and air threats are ineffective against underwater drones, posing a major and difficult challenge for the Western Navy in the Red Sea. The impact of Yemeni drone dives goes beyond the potential damage to individual ships, and the presence of a threat like this under the sea is devastating.”
And again: “The process of detecting Yemeni drones, with current military capabilities, and the presence of the acoustic environment of maritime navigation in the Red Sea, is considered complex.”
According to the International Center for Maritime Security “CIMSEC”: The threat of Yemeni drones is a stark reminder of the need for continuous adaptation and innovation in the field of maritime warfare.
Indeed, despite the limited effectiveness of Houthi attacks, international companies continue to incur significant costs. In particular, Maersk has reported increased security surcharges and problems with ports on the route around the Cape of Good Hope.
Ports are also experiencing congestion and shortages of equipment to maintain cargo and ships, and logistics industry sources report an expected decline in freight even as additional container capacity is added. So Ansar Allah is winning its war in the sea for now.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
