Houthi Red Sea Blockade Poses Challenge to an Overstretched U.S. Military

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

Washington, July 22 (Reuters) – A Houthi threat to enforce a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea could dramatically broaden the conflict with Iran and further stress an already overstretched U.S. military, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announced on Monday that they would prevent ships from loading or unloading at Saudi ports, a move that could curtail Saudi oil exports and cut roughly 7 % from the global oil supply.

Saudi Arabia, which hosts U.S. forces, has not yet asked the United States for military assistance. However, former President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that any attempt to block Red Sea shipping — a critical conduit for world trade — might draw the United States into the dispute.

“If something like that happens, we’ll take care of it. We’ve handled the Houthis before,” Trump said to reporters on Tuesday.

For the U.S. military, the situation is more complex.

The Houthis have built a reputation as resilient, agile fighters who have repelled previous Saudi and U.S. bombing campaigns. Confronting them would require the United States to divert resources already devoted to countering Iran and maintaining its naval restrictions on Iranian ports in the Gulf.

“You’re splitting your already considerable regional assets between two active fronts,” said Jason Campbell, a former senior Pentagon official.

Campbell, now affiliated with the Middle East Institute, added that addressing the Red Sea threat could involve repositioning U.S. warships from the Gulf toward Yemen to enable operations against the militants and to shield against Houthi missile attacks.

The potential involvement of the Houthis marks another escalation in a conflict that was initially framed by Trump as a limited bombing campaign aimed at forcing Iran’s capitulation, now evolving into a broader political dilemma for the U.S. president.

Should U.S. Navy ships and aircraft begin intercepting Houthi drones and missiles, experts warn that it could further deplete already strained stocks of American munitions and air‑defense interceptors.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

Resilient Houthi Posture

The Houthis have demonstrated remarkable endurance through years of bombing by a Saudi‑led Arab coalition that failed to crush the mountain fighters who control much of Yemen, and through more recent intense U.S. air campaigns.

“The Houthis have repeatedly shown they can and will disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Bab el‑Mandeb strait,” said Michael Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during Trump’s first term.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States carried out air strikes against Houthi positions to keep the vital Red Sea shipping lane open. In the following year, Trump escalated the effort, bombing the Houthis after they began targeting U.S. warships and commercial vessels off Yemen’s coast.

Experts argue that neither campaign succeeded in ending the group’s ability to threaten shipping. However, the two‑month operation demanded substantial U.S. firepower, including two aircraft carriers, additional warships, fighter jets and strategic bombers such as the B‑2.

While the U.S. military remains the best‑funded in the world, it still faces resource constraints, officials say. Many of the platforms needed for a Yemen campaign are already committed to the conflict involving Iran.

“We’re pretty busy already,” a senior official noted, adding that some warships have been at sea longer than usual because of the high operational tempo, first in the Caribbean and now in the Middle East.

Extended deployments strain service members, and vessels eventually require port calls for maintenance.

More than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of U.S. military aircraft are presently operating in the Middle East, with additional forces slated to arrive to support the Iran‑related effort, a second U.S. official said.

Such deployments could limit the assets available for a Red Sea confrontation, which would require considerable naval and aerial capabilities and would also divert U.S. intelligence resources to locate Houthi capabilities that may have changed since last year.

Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine officer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees that a second front in the Red Sea would stretch U.S. naval forces. Nevertheless, he notes that the Houthis would also face supply challenges given the ongoing blockade of Iran, their primary patron.

“The U.S. blockade is not 100 % effective but it is highly effective. As a result, the Houthis may find it difficult to sustain a prolonged campaign,” Cancian said.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Don Durfee and Kate Mayberry)

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