No, probably not the fighting that’s been a daily thing between Israel and Hezbollah. I’m guessing that the flash point could be the Red Sea, and more specifically the Bab-el-Mandeb (“Gate of Lamentation”) strait that leads from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. The strait is only 16 km. across, from Yemen to Djibouti, and to the north of Djibouti lies Eritrea. The Houthis in Yemen don’t control the coastline of the strait at the narrowest point, but they do control high mountains that overlook all of the strait. Hosting foreign military bases is a big part of Djibouti’s economy—there are US, Chinese, Japanese, and Italian military bases in the country, so you have quite a mix of militaries in the area. Eritrea is on good terms with Russia.
Since October 7 the Houthis have been launching drones and missiles toward Israel. More importantly, in my view, they have been attacking and, on at least one occasion, hijacking ships transiting the Red Sea. That includes commercial shipping as well as US naval ships. The goal is to stop shipping heading to Israel. At a minimum, one presumes that shipping insurance for ships transiting the Red Sea will skyrocket. Today we learned:
Two More Ships Struck By Houthi Missiles As Maersk Diverts All Tankers From Red Sea
There's been yet another Houthi attack on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, in at least the third serious incident this week, prompting container shipping giant Maersk to order any of its vessels near the southern entrance of the Red Sea to immediately halt their voyages.
"Following the near-miss incident involving Maersk Gibraltar yesterday and yet another attack on a container vessel today, we have instructed all Maersk vessels in the area bound to pass through the Bab al-Mandab Strait to pause their journey until further notice," the Danish international liner confirmed Friday, per Bloomberg.
This is a pretty big deal. In this Zerohedge article we get a detailed explanation of what’s going on and the signficance of it all, but these excerpts will suffice:
The impact of this fresh pair of attacks has been felt immediately by markets (note: rerouting of traditional routes means chaos as buyers need to scramble to ensure they have priority to new routes, and this in turn leads to surge in charter rates and boost to shipper revenues), per Bloomberg …
…
We are likely to get a US naval reaction. Combined Task Force 153 Operations was set up in 2022 to stop Red Sea piracy, but will need to be expanded from the US and Egypt: France already helped out last weekend by shooting down Yemeni drones aimed at Israel. Yet it’s still only reactive to attacks on shipping, not proactive at the source.
That maintains the risk shipping diverts from Suez round the Cape of Good Hope: if so, global carriers would only be able to make 3-4 Asia-Europe roundtrips per year, not 4-5, a massive structural drop in supply capacity. The Financial Times warns ‘Global pre-Christmas Trade at risk from twin Canal crises’, including the drought in Panama cutting passages there. But it’s far more than just pre-Christmas trade at risk.
Indeed, we are likely to get an Israeli reaction to this Yemeni (slash Iranian) casus belli to stop it at source; and Israel is also close to establishing a fixed deadline for Hezbollah to retreat north of the Litani river, after which it will attack them south of it. In short, key dominoes could yet topple towards a regional escalation impacting both the Suez Canal and energy markets.
Meanwhile, in a sign of a likely coming Iran-US naval clash...
I’ll go out on a limb here and state that I’m skeptical regarding the final paragraph. I’m skeptical that Israel will attack Yemeni targets and I’m skeptical that Israel will risk a major conflict with Hezbollah. On the other hand, Houthi attacks are making it very tough for the US to stay out of open conflict with Yemen—the US holds itself out as the global guarantor of freedom of navigation. So far the US has confined itself to shooting down drones and missiles. If there is a military effort to stop the Houthi attacks my guess is that it will come from the US rather than from Israel. Will any other Western countries join the US? That’s a tough one. The French have shot down a few drones, but they were outspokenly angry in their criticism of the US veto of a Gaza ceasefire resolution in the UN. Even the UK abstained, rather than joining sides with the US. The US may have to go it alone, and would probably prefer some other solution—maybe a ceasefire in Gaza? However, if this continues, the effect on world trade could be significant—forcing the US hand—and escalation could broaden into a regional war. In possibly related news, the USS Eisenhower has left the Persian Gulf, destination unknown.
Informed speculation on the why’s and whereabouts of the USS Eisenhower…
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-aircraft-carrier-eisenhower-exits-persian-gulf-after-close-irgc-surveillance
Israel has been pounding Iranian deliveries to Hezbollah for years in Syria, surely they must know what they’re up against.
With Ukraine gobbling up ground stand off weapons the only option seems like an extensive aerial campaign.
Makes sense why the US never supplied aerial weapons in Ukraine, they were saving it for Hezbollah.