Initial Thoughts on Yemen Airstrikes

 

The Royal Air Force has conducted air strikes in Yemen as part of wider international efforts to disrupt the Iranian backed Houthi rebels from attacking international shipping. These strikes were a proportionate and necessary response to needless provocation that threatened wider global economic stability. Much will be written over the coming days on this, but it is worth noting some immediate thoughts and reactions.

The first is that these strikes were necessary only because the Houthis had failed to respond to international pressure to cease their attacks. If anything the international community had demonstrated significant restraint since Nov 19, when the first attacks were launched. Despite this, and the increasing presence of western naval assets to defend their maritime and trade interests, they have persisted in launching unwarranted attacks on both commercial and military shipping. There is no excuse or justification for firing anti-ship missiles, ballistic missiles and drones at merchant ships undertaking innocent passage. Many innocent sailors’ lives have been put at risk as a result and it is lucky that no ships have been lost. To continue to fire on Western warships protecting these vessels is also an astonishingly foolish and aggressive act that was unnecessary.

Others will say that this attack has been pointless and that the Yemenis can reequip from Iran. Yes, they probably can, and will, over time. But the calculation has now changed. They can no longer fire with impunity, and the West has laid down a marker that it will disrupt and deny their assets if it deems appropriate. The Houthi and their Iranian allies will now be disrupted, needing time to rearm, rebuild and prepare for new attacks. Their current sites are compromised, and they will have to accept trade offs between using known and targetable sites, and less capable new facilities that may also be found and destroyed. They will need to decide if it is worth the cost and hassle of disruption and destruction to continue firing, or if holding back may be a better course of action.

The Iranians will also have seen a clear message from the West that there are lines and that if crossed, they will retaliate. Drawing boundaries and policing them is a key part of deterrence, and the West has made clear it will act. The Iranian regime will need to assess if the value of the Houthi being provided with weapons and technology remains worth the price, they need to pay to support them. Whatever they decide, they do so in the knowledge that they cannot act with impunity.

For the military this response highlights several issues. Firstly, the importance of building diplomatic alliances for airpower. These strikes could not have occurred without diplomatic approval for overflight of airspace, which points to a concerted diplomatic push and relationship building. In turn this reminds us of the importance of diplomacy and the presence of embassies and high-level engagement that helps persuade a nation to authorise overflights of armed aircraft through their airspace.

The RAF have also demonstrated the importance of airpower in its reach and impact, and the critical value of RAF Akrotiri as a base for British and wider interests. This facility, long the home of operations more widely in the Eastern Med remains a site of enormous strategic value, and along with Gibraltar, one of the two sovereign British runways in the Med. The continued value of Akrotiri as a hub for operations cannot be overstated, nor its importance to both the UK and our allies. Providing a sovereign site that can host aircraft, support logistics and munitions resupply and provide a flexible response to a variety of operations is crucial. The strikes also remind us of the importance of the RAF Typhoon fleet and its versatility in operating in the region. Long deployed on Op SHADER from Cyprus, the Typhoon has shown itself an agile and resilient platform that can support operations across the wider Middle East.  The Typhoon force has been hard worked in recent years, often out of the wider limelight, but it is proving itself a key asset.

There are some who will feel that a carrier group should have been deployed instead. The author respectfully disagrees here – this is a problem that was sorted by air power from a well-equipped location, and it is hard to see what the F35 could have added that wasn’t already delivered by the Typhoon. Sending a carrier may have made a political statement, but there are serious questions as to whether you’d want yet another carrier operating in the Red Sea, which is a cramped water space and deconflicting QE from her US Navy cousins in air operations could have been challenging. If instead you operated from the Eastern Med, the question becomes, why not just use Cyprus? Add in the impact on wider programmes and delivering carrier airpower for the long haul and the case, right now, for a Royal Navy carrier in the region becomes relatively weak.

Finally, this operation reminds us of the importance of sea power and maritime trade to British and American national policy. Iran has attempted through proxies to deny freedom of passage to merchant shipping and turn a key waterway that powers the global economy into a free fire zone. The UK and US have taken significant steps to demonstrate that both air and sea power will be used appropriately to ensure freedom of passage. Other nations will probably draw reasonable conclusions as to the extent to which the West is prepared to protect its interests in this space, and look at their own maritime disputes accordingly.

Few people want to see violence inflicted on others, and very few people actively want to send the military into action without good cause. But it is hard to think of a better or more just cause here than removing the ability of dangerous actors to threaten global trade and security.  There will be some who see the Wests response as warmongering or pointless. It is not. You have to ask at what point would they have supported military action – when the first sailor was killed, the first ship sunk, the first warship damaged or sunk? How many innocent sailors would they judge an acceptable price to avoid retaliation? The wider costs too must be remembered – these attacks have been having a damaging effect on Egypt’s economy, hurting countless people who rely on the Suez canal and its associated incomes for their living. Closer to home we would (and may yet) see prices rise as maritime insurance costs increase, fuel costs for longer passages bite and disruption to supply chains. In a cost of living crisis, is it acceptable for people in the UK to be poorer and out of work to avoid entanglements in Yemen? Had the Houthis heeded the very clear demands of the West to halt attacking innocent shipping then this could have been avoided, but instead they chose a path of needless confrontation and escalation. This subtlety will be lost on the usual crowds who will somehow see this as the fault entirely of the West, but it is hard to think of a more clear cut and legitimate case for action than exercising the right to self-defence against a hostile regime trying to kill innocent sailors for its own political ends.