Bab el-Mandeb and the coming age of chokepoint warfare

The waters of the Bab el-Mandeb are running red with the blood of a failing international order. For the first time in modern history, two of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints—the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb—are under simultaneous, sustained assault. This is not merely a crisis; this is the unravelling of the post-war maritime consensus, and the world is watching with paralysis as a new form of warfare exposes the hollow core of our strategic doctrines.

Consider the mathematics of catastrophe. Before the conflict, roughly 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products passed through the Strait of Hormuz each day—equivalent to one-fifth of global consumption. The Bab el-Mandeb carried another 9.3 million barrels per day in 2023. Today, the Houthi blockade threatens to sever Saudi Arabia’s last remaining alternative pathway—its Red Sea lifeline through Yanbu—just as Hormuz has been rendered all but impassable. 

The cumulative effect? A potential 15 to 17 per cent of the world’s oil supply strangled at the source. The International Energy Agency now estimates that cumulative oil supply losses from Middle East producers have exceeded 1.3 billion barrels. North Sea Dated crude reached an all-time high of $144 per barrel—more than double its pre-war levels.

These are not statistics; these are the raw materials of economic collapse, of famine in importing nations, of geopolitical realignment on a scale unseen since the 1973 oil shock.

This crisis is a palimpsest of history’s darkest maritime chapters. The Tanker War of the 1980s saw Iran and Iraq attack merchant vessels for years, culminating in Operation Earnest Will—the largest naval convoy operation since World War II. But that conflict, for all its brutality, remained within the state-versus-state framework. Today’s adversary is something far more insidious: a non-state actor, armed by Tehran, operating from the rugged highlands of Yemen, exploiting every ambiguity in international law with surgical precision. 

The Houthis have weaponised legal opacity itself, transforming the law of blockade—rooted in the 1856 Declaration of Paris and the San Remo Manual—into a juridical ghost that haunts every naval commander’s decision. When a non-state actor declares a blockade, the entire architecture of maritime law trembles. Who enforces? Who attributes? Who retaliates without triggering an escalatory spiral that consumes the region?

READ: Iran says Hormuz remains closed, warns of ‘major military operation’

Saudi Arabia’s strategic vulnerability is a tragedy written in pipeline steel. The East-West Petroline, built in the 1980s as a hedge against Hormuz closure, now runs at full capacity—7 million barrels per day—pumping crude across 1,200 kilometres of desert to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. This is not a strategy; this is a single point of failure stretched across a kingdom. 

The pipeline snakes through territory vulnerable to Iranian missile strikes, Houthi drone attacks, and internal sabotage. Its pumping stations are exposed; its terminal at Yanbu is a sitting duck. The kingdom has been diverting more than 70 per cent of its crude exports to Yanbu since Hormuz was effectively shut. 

Yet even this desperate gambit now hangs by a thread.

Weekly crude loadings from Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea terminals have already plunged 36 per cent—from 9.5 million barrels per day to 6.1 million—in just two weeks as the Houthi threat materialised.

The Houthis have signalled they are prepared “to expand the confrontation from Yemen’s territory into the Red Sea maritime domain,” in the words of Chatham House’s Neil Quilliam. This is not a blockade; this is an execution.

The doctrinal paradox at the heart of this crisis is devastatingly simple: modern militaries are expected to operate inside a battlespace shaped by proxy actors who weaponise legal ambiguity and intelligence opacity. Every strike risks breaching international humanitarian law; every delay risks operational failure; every intelligence assessment becomes a probabilistic gamble rather than a definitive guide. 

The US has now carried out ten consecutive nights of strikes against Iran, targeting command centres, missile facilities, and maritime capabilities. Iran retaliates by striking US allies—Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan. Two American service members killed in Jordan; a third missing. The escalatory trap is sprung: each round of strikes generates pressure for the next, with no clear political path to de-escalation.”At some point,” warns former US diplomat Alan Eyre, “a ladder goes in only one direction.”

And yet, the international community dithers.

Qatar and Pakistan have proposed a ten-day ceasefire—a symbolic gesture that addresses none of the underlying security dilemmas. The mediators lack the power to compel or to offer irresistible incentives; they can only facilitate communication. 

Meanwhile, the Houthis’ chief backer, Iran, continues to exploit the legal vacuum, providing material support while maintaining just enough operational distance to evade attribution under the International Law Commission’s “effective control” test. This is the alchemy of proxy warfare: transforming state responsibility into a legal mirage that dissolves upon contact with evidence.

The long-arc implications are terrifying. If both chokepoints remain unstable for a protracted period, we will witness a structural metamorphosis of global trade. Shipping routes will shift southward around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks and millions in cost. Insurance markets will redraw war risk zones, making the Red Sea and Persian Gulf virtually uninsurable. The Suez Canal’s strategic importance will diminish, weakening Egypt’s geopolitical leverage. 

READ: Yemen’s Houthis declare ‘maritime blockade’ on Saudi Arabia

And in the vacuum left by a distracted Washington, China will fill the void, accelerating the militarisation of the Belt and Road maritime routes. The global commons will fragment into spheres of contested control, a maritime equivalent of the interwar period before a new hegemon imposes a fragile stability.

This is the moment for strategic clarity. The Houthi blockade is not an act of resistance; it is an act of war against the global economy, enabled by Tehran and executed with Iranian missiles and Iranian training. The Saudi-led coalition has vowed to respond with force. It must. But force alone will not suffice. The international community must recognise that the old legal frameworks are obsolete. 

A new maritime order is now an operational necessity—a “Chokepoint Transit Regime” codifying the right of collective self-defence against non-state maritime aggression. The creation of a standing naval force, with pre-authorised rules of engagement. The establishment of a permanent insurance pool, underwritten by a consortium of trading nations. These are not ambitions; they are the minimum requirements of survival. 

Either the international legal architecture evolves to meet the reality of hybrid warfare, or its collapse becomes the next strategic shock—rendered obsolete by adversaries who have already moved beyond its reach.

The stakes could not be higher. The Houthis have declared “an eye for an eye” against Saudi Arabia. But if the world responds with a blink, the consequences will be measured in hunger, in inflation, in the collapse of developing economies, and in the permanent reordering of global power. 

The Straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are not just waterways; they are the circulatory system of the global economy. And that system is now in cardiac arrest. The time for diplomatic niceties has passed. The time for decisive action is now.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.