The plans to strike Houthi missile and guerrilla bases had been in place for weeks – as we indicated in the Evening Standard from before Christmas. The Houthi war machine had been threatening freedom of navigation in international waters since November. They said they were acting to support Hamas in Gaza.
This week came the tipping point with Tuesday’s massed drone and missile attack on American and British forces in the Red Sea. One of the main targets was the British destroyer HMS Diamond. By gunfire and the Sea Viper missiles it fended off at least six attack drones.
This has proved a red line. So, too, are the increasingly lethal attacks on commercial shippings, huge container carriers and tankers. Two had been set on fire and two experienced near misses by sophisticated Iranian anti-ship missiles. The Houthis have also taken to launching new generation Iranian ballistic missiles, which could have a range of 800 miles.
The Houthis have now announced that they intend to escalate – but they can only do so with the agreement, or under orders even, from Iran, principally the junta commanding the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A further complication has been highlighted by yesterday’s seizure – blatant hijack, in other words – of the Greek crude oil carrier St Nikolas. It was seized by Iran Navy outside the Straits of Hormuz and then guided under duress to an Iranian port. Iran then said it was seizing the cargo of Iraqi crude in retaliation for the US impounding a cargo of Iranian crude – then under international sanctions – a year ago from the very same ship, though then under a different name, Suez Rajan.
We are now in a complex battle affecting up to a quarter of the world’s energy and goods shipping through a wide area. Here there are shades of the energy crisis that followed the Yom Kippur Middle East War of October 1973.
One of the main aims must now be to stop the world sliding into similar economic chaos.
For Britain the message is brutal and obvious. There are direct security interests involved and we have to ensure that we have the assets, the armed forces and the diplomatic skills and muscle to meet the challenge. The audit on our presence and preparedness for a protracted crisis and confrontation across a wide area from the Mediterranean to the Red and Arabian Seas, the Gulf and Indian Ocean does not look good.
In the past 13 years the armed services have been allowed to run down, acquisitions and equipment programmes have been less than smart – witness the excessive cost and poor availability of the Ajax light tank and the Watchkeeper and Protector drone programmes – costing about £6 billion for a few dozen vehicles so far. On top of that we have the eye-wateringly inflationary spiral of replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent programme.
Treasury officials and ministers don’t like defence – in truth many of the tribe regard the whole subject as a bolt-on nuisance to their normal political business.
The clash with the Houthis and the crisis in international maritime security it underlines, is a wake-up call to this and future governments to get real about the continuing and pressing needs of the national’s defence needs now obvious.
After all, our armed services have been remarkably effective and resourceful in their current roles – especially in support for Ukraine and their highly effective contribution today by HMS Diamond and her sister ships in the troubled waters of the Red Sea and the Gulf.
