An oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil is on fire and adrift in the Red Sea, after Houthi militants based in Yemen apparently caused three explosions on board. The Greek-flagged MV Sounion now represents a ‘navigational and environmental hazard’, according to the European Union’s naval mission in the region, Operation Aspides. It went on to warn that the fire ‘could lead to a severe ecological disaster with potentially devastating effects on the region’s biodiversity’.
This is a serious situation. Houthis attacked the vessel on Wednesday, following which the crew – 25 Filipino and Russian sailors and four private security contractors – was taken off by a French warship (probably the air defence frigate Forbin) and transferred to France’s joint base in Djibouti. The Sounion lay at anchor for a while before militants seemingly returned and set off a number of explosions, chanting their slogan ‘God is the greatest! Death to America! Death to Israel! Curse the Jews! Victory to Islam!’
The EU mission is right to draw attention to the danger of a huge oil spillage. If the estimated million barrels of oil leak into the Red Sea, it would be a disaster four times the size of the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989. However, you could also argue that this situation might have been less likely to occur if the European Union had responded to the Red Sea crisis more quickly and with greater resolution.
Houthi forces began attacking commercial shipping coming through the Bab-el-Mandeb between Yemen and Djibouti on 19 November last year. The move was in opposition to Israel’s conflict in Gaza and at first the militants claimed, falsely, to be targeting only vessels linked to Israel. Within a month, the United States secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin III, announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational maritime mission to protect commercial shipping and strengthen regional security. The gravity of the situation was obvious: 30 per cent of the world’s container traffic sails through the Red Sea, and if it is made unsafe, vessels will have to consider the longer and more expensive route round the Cape of Good Hope.
The United Kingdom pledged support for Operation Prosperity Guardian straight away, with guided missile destroyer HMS Diamond joining the task force, quickly reinforced by two Type 23 frigates, HMS Richmond and HMS Lancaster. Initially, the Pentagon announced that France, Italy and Spain would also participate, but this unravelled in days. The French defence ministry said the assets it already had in the region would remain under French command, Italy announced it would send the frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea but only to protect Italian commercial vessels, while the Spanish government declined to serve under US leadership and said it would only be involved in a mission led by NATO or the EU.
Eventually, in February, the European Council agreed to establish Operation Aspides, to begin on 19 February and last for a year, but the European External Action Service stressed that the mission was ‘purely defensive’. This was a tacit reference to the previous month’s missile and air strikes against Houthi sites in Yemen carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom. By the time the EU mission even began, 32 vessels had been attacked by the Houthis, at least four of them under EU member state flags.
The EU has been a day late and a dollar short for narrow political reasons: member states wanted to show their independence of action from the United States and have been faint-heartedly stressing the importance of not starting another armed conflict. This has left the United States and a handful of key allies like the United Kingdom to bear the brunt of operations against the Houthis, and slowly and painstakingly they have been degrading the militants’ capabilities by destroying launch sites and infrastructure in Yemen.
The US Navy has deployed a carrier strike group with two cruisers, two destroyers and nine squadrons of warplanes, as well as other assets like submarines, while the Royal Navy has seen four warships cycle through the mission. Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s from RAF Akrotiri have also carried out air strikes. How much more successful would the campaign against the Houthis have been already with more substantial military contributions from France, Germany, Italy, Spain or Greece?
The EU has been a day late and a dollar short for narrow political reasons
The EU has failed to take this crisis seriously enough. Wringing their hands over the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in whose name the Iranian-backed Houthis claim to be acting, member states have not grasped that these attempts to choke off maritime commerce through the Red Sea are a serious threat to global trade, supply chains and the whole international order. A ‘purely defensive’ strategy is woefully inadequate, because the Houthis will not stop, and sometimes their drones and missiles will get through and sink ships.
We all hope the Sounion does not become an environmental disaster. But we should also hope that the European Union has at last been jolted into seeing the gravity of the situation in the Red Sea. The Houthis will have to be defeated with military force in order to maintain freedom of navigation and international commerce. There can be no half measures, no equivocation. We cannot lose this fight.
