US warships versus the Houthis

More military firepower has been deployed in the last few weeks in the Red Sea by America than at any time in the last few decades, defence sources said. America is trying to stop the crisis in the Red Sea from escalating into a full-blown regional war that could drag Saudi Arabia and Iran into conflict. The US has spent tens of millions in the last fortnight to block attempts by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen from provoking other players in the Middle East. The USS Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group, now in the Gulf of Aden, and an extra guided-missile destroyer, USS Laboon, which has just arrived in the Red Sea, will now also play key roles if there is any decision by President Biden to launch retaliatory attacks on Houthi targets. While the US is shooting down Houthi drones fired at Israel to avenge its war against Hamas, the Pentagon insists that the US is not engaged in armed conflict with the Houthis. But Washington has been trying to shoot down Houthi drones and missiles to prevent them hitting commercial shipping. The cost of the defensive action is spiralling. While the Houthis are launching drones that will have cost $1,000-$2,000 each, the US Navy warships engaged in knocking them out of the sky are believed to have fired, among other weapon systems, the short-range, anti-ballistic missile weapon, called Standard SM-3 which costs more than $11 million each. The costs are being absorbed because the US knows the alternative, a much wider war, would require significantly increased funding from a budget already under strain from backing Israel and Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Red Sea and Suez Canal have become such a danger zone for container ships and other merchant vessels that all the major shipping lines have had to reroute around Africa. Alternative transit options have also been reduced because of the continuing drought conditions affecting water levels in the Panama Canal. The US Navy currently has three destroyers close to the Bab el Mandeb Strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They are the USS Carney, USS Mason and USS Thomas Hudner. All of them have intercepted cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and large numbers of Iranian-made Shahed armed drones. At the weekend, USS Carney shot down 14 drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The US on Tuesday announced the establishment of a new international maritime force to protect ships transiting the Red Sea. Under Operation Prosperity Guardian, up to 19 nations are expected to be involved in sending ships. Bahrain, host nation of the US Fifth Fleet, has so far been identified as the only country joining the new force from the Gulf nations. Some US defence sources suggested the almost daily drone and cruise missile strikes across the Red Sea by the Houthis were a deliberate attempt to entice a military response by the Americans. The Pentagon said that so far the movement of warships into the region had not been affected by the challenges in the Suez Canal and Panama Canal. For those shipping companies with vessels queuing up to enter the Suez Canal, the presence of US warships, as well as the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond and French frigate, FS Languedoc, has prevented wholesale closure of the canal.