This text belongs to ‘Penínsulas’, the newsletter that Enric Juliana sends to the readers of ‘La Vanguardia’ every Tuesday. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
We must return to Bab el Mandeb now that attention once again focuses on Russia and Ukraine. Since last October, the world has been watching two war scenarios that alternate in the foreground. Two years of war in Ukraine have strained all the hinges of Europe with Russia. Today there is obsessive talk of rearmament in Europe. The cruel Israeli retaliation in Gaza is having various repercussions throughout the Middle East and one of them is the attempted strangulation of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, with the consequent crisis of the trade route that connects Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal. The war in Ukraine pushes Europe to rearmament. The brutal punishment of the population of Gaza is causing a great moral tear. And attacks on naval traffic in the Red Sea disrupt trade between Europe and the Far East. Since the attacks began, global trade has decreased by 1.3%.
Now that the focus is on Ukraine’s military difficulties and the savage jihadist attack on a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, it may be interesting to pay attention to how things are in the Bab el Mandeb Strait and in the Gulf. from Aden. We must return to the Gate of Tears. The old masters of journalism taught us that you should never abandon the topics in which you have shown interest.
Attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden began in October last year, shortly after the bloody outbreak in Gaza. The Houthi militias, a Yemeni rebel group of Shiite religion, began to attack Israeli-owned ships, and then harassed Western ships of different flags almost indiscriminately. The attacks have been carried out by launching missiles and sending drones with explosives, although speedboats and helicopters have also intervened. The Houthis, an armed group that controls a large part of western Yemen after a bloody civil war that has not yet concluded, claim to be defenders of the Palestinian people. His most spectacular action, at the end of November last year, consisted of the hijacking of the British merchant Galaxy Leader, owned by an Israeli businessman.
Backed and armed by Iran, the Houthis are carrying out a wide-ranging action. By strangling Bab el Mandeb, they put in crisis the Suez Canal, the great civil engineering work of the 19th century that revolutionized maritime traffic between East and West. Suez tariffs are an important source of income for Egypt, a country of 109 million inhabitants, always at risk of social unrest. A new social crisis in Egypt would cause tremors in Europe. The possibility of being attacked from a boat or suffering the impact of a missile or a drone loaded with explosives has made transport insurance more expensive, pushing the main Western shipping companies to take the African route through the Cape of Good Hope, with the resulting increase in navigation time and costs. The Houthis assured in early January of their intention to allow Russian and Chinese merchant ships to pass without problems, which includes one of the ten main shipping companies in the world, the Cosco Group company that controls 12% of global container traffic and is the largest operator in the world of bulk products.
In short, the Tehran regime plays on the Middle East board with the Houthi bishop, capable of sinking ships. With that bishop, Iran reserves another more extreme option, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which all the hydrocarbon production of the Persian Gulf countries circulates. Faced with this movement, first the United States and then the European Union have launched military deployments to protect merchant traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The North American operation, with active British support, is called ‘Guardians of Prosperity’. The European operation, promoted by France, Germany and Italy, has been baptized ‘Aspides’. Spain does not participate in either.
Balance. An Israeli-owned ship, the Galaxy Leader, hijacked in November. A British merchant ship, the Rubymar, sank in early March, with 21,000 tons of fertilizer in her holds. Dozens of boats attacked, with damage of varying intensity. Three sailors killed in the attack on the Greek merchant ship True Confidence. More than a dozen militiamen killed from Western warships. And more than a hundred casualties in Yemen as a result of bombing carried out by the United States Navy with air cover from the United Kingdom. 55% decrease in traffic through the Suez Canal between November and February. Massive diversion of naval traffic, especially large container ships, along the Good Hope route. Container ships are the most elusive since they transport goods from very diverse clients, with a greater increase in risk in the event of an accident. Transport rates multiplied by two and three, without reaching the enormous increase in the cost of maritime traffic after the epidemic. Reinforcement of the ports of the Strait of Gibraltar as a logistics stopover, especially the Moroccan port of Tangier Med, which currently leads container traffic in the Mediterranean, surpassing the port of Algeciras. Relative increase in traffic in the ports of Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona. Stagnation and decline of the ports of the central and eastern Mediterranean. There is more: alarm about the underwater cables that transport Internet connections through the Red Sea. A month ago, four submarine cables were severed in the Gulf of Aden, affecting 25% of the Internet communication capacity between the West and the East. The causes are not clear. It could have been sabotage by the Houthis or an accident caused by the anchor of the sunken British merchant ship.
A certain information eclipse over the Red Sea during the last few weeks could make us think that there is no longer a problem. It is not like this. The two ongoing military missions have surely prevented the situation from worsening. China has ensured that the Houthis do not attack its ships and Iran does not want to tighten the screws any further, for now, waiting for events on the world stage, where the war in Ukraine returns to the foreground, while it reappears, with unprecedented brutality, the Islamic State movement, with Sunni roots.
A recent report by the North American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group outlines four possible scenarios in the Red Sea crisis. First scenario: Quick solution at the end of March, with minimal impacts. It is clear that this scenario is not going to happen. Second option: Semi-frozen conflict. Escalation throughout the year, militarily contained, preventing a total crisis of the Suez route. Third option: Prolonged conflict beyond 2024, with structural modifications of maritime routes and greater price increases. And fourth scenario: Regional war throughout the Middle East, with a drastic reduction in trade between Europe and Asia, with strong repercussions on the world economy and the structure of maritime trade.
Spain is not in the naval missions that patrol the Red Sea but has not received criticism from the United States. North American diplomatic sources have made it known in recent weeks that there is no anger in Washington over the Spanish position. I am aware of these considerations. In future installments of ‘Peninsulas’ it will be interesting to see why Spain has not been criticized for its absence. Perhaps the Spanish position on Gaza will be appreciated by the United States, which yesterday abstained at the UN in a binding vote calling for a ceasefire.
It will soon be a year since the premiere of ‘Peninsulas’, on April 18, 2023, with a text dedicated to the conservative wind that blew from northern Europe after the legislative elections in Sweden and Finland. A wind propelled by the war in Ukraine and by the growing sense of insecurity among the European population most accustomed to well-being. That conservative blizzard is even more intense today.
‘Peninsulas’ is about geography and politics and for me it is a pleasure to inform you that in the coming weeks I will have the collaboration of Santiago Fernández Muñoz, doctor in Geography from the Autonomous University of Madrid and professor of Human Geography at the Carlos III University, to address a series of issues about politics and territory in Spain. Fernández Muñoz was project manager of the Public Policy Evaluation division of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) and responsible for the evaluation of investment in transport infrastructure between 1985 and 2000. Later he was responsible for the monitoring of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan in the General Secretary of Economic Affairs of the Presidency of the Government. Currently he is a partner in the consulting firm SILO, specialized in public and private innovation.