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So UK and the US forces have hit 16 sites in Yemen, and all of this really relates to shipping through the Red Sea
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To recap very quickly, Houthi rebels took control of Sana, the Yemeni capital in 2015, and they have control of the whole western side of the country
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That looks on to the Red Sea. Now, this civil war has impoverished millions of people across Yemen, one of the world's truly failed states
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But in the past year or so, things had started to calm down, I suppose, particularly in terms of the regional powers backing for the official government of Yemen to which the Houthis are our enemies
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That all changed after the Hamas attack on Israel on October the 7th
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The Houthis announced that they would stand with their allies, that certainly friends with Hamas and Hesbullah as well as the Iranian regime, and that they would attack shipping moving through the Red Sea towards the Suez
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and therefore in theory to Israel, but in reality, of course, most often to Europe
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or indeed the United Kingdom or the United States. They have begun launching a number of assaults on shipping moving through that area
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to the point that global shipping companies have started to avoid the area, rather than going through the Sears C, going right around the bottom of Africa
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and of course adding a huge amount to the cost of just getting stuff around the world
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Eventually after about two dozen attacks including the hijacking of one particular car carrier the Western forces began to react We saw US action on New Year Eve that took out a number of Houthi rebels
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That was followed by just earlier this week. The biggest toothy attack on shipping going through the Red Sea, a number of drones and missiles
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And that appears to have been the trigger for this action overnight with these sites hit in Yemen
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Now, two things. One, is this just economics? Well, yes and no. Clearly, the cost
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of shipping stuff around the coast of Africa, the Horn of the Cape of Good Hope, as it's
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known, is more expensive than just going through the Suez C. But the wider point is
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probably that if global shipping lanes become effectively a while west, that breaks up the
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whole interdependence of global trade. And breaking up the interdependence of global trade
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creates a more unsafe world. That will be, presumably, the logic of Rishly seeing that Joe Biden
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and those who've backed this action. The second thing to watch out for, of course, is what next
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1918 uncertainty is really good for trade, it's really good for the economy
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is really good for energy prices, at least when it comes to the consumer
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and it's good for oil traders. Will these attacks have crippled the Houthi's ability to launch attacks
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on resi shipping, or will they come back stronger, will they come back again? Certainly, that's the noises off
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from the leadership this morning. If they do, it's hard to see how the UK and the US
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won't then retaliate again, and we could be in a horrible spiral
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I think unfortunately the people that are going to lose here probably going to be the millions of people in Yemen, which is already one of the world's failed states
