Yemen’s Houthi rebels—once a relatively obscure group—are suddenly dominating the Red Sea and threatening global trade, and Britain’s Royal Navy—once the world’s preeminent military force—appears to be back on center stage.
When World War I broke out, the Royal Navy had the world’s largest and most powerful fleet, as it did during the preceding Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian eras. Indeed, the Royal Navy had famously allowed Britannia to rule the waves—and, as a result, to build extraordinary globe-spanning trade.
Back then, the Royal Navy’s tasks included escorting British vessels—which still made up a large part of the global merchant fleet—through perilous waters, such as those in the Red Sea and its neighborhood, and it did so using an impressive fleet. During its peak in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Royal Navy had all manner of battleships and other vessels.
The world wars were exceptional periods, of course, but in 1960, the Royal Navy had 156 destroyers and frigates, as well as 54 submarines, two battleships and large amphibious craft, 14 cruisers, eight carriers, and smaller vessels. “For the Royal Navy, protecting global shipping has historically been one of its major roles,” said retired Royal Navy Adm. Alan West, who served as Britain’s first sea lord and chief of the naval staff. “It started when Britain dominated global shipping but continued later as well.”
Though the Royal Navy is much smaller today compared with half a century ago, the Red Sea may be the proud navy’s moment. Now Washington and London have opted to strike the Houthis in Yemen from the air and the sea. Such is the global maritime disorder that the Royal Navy will once again be needed to keep order.
Despite Britain’s smaller global role and military footprint in the 21st century, the world could still rely on the country to keep some semblance of order in the world’s waters. Perhaps understandably, subsequent generations of politicians decided that maintaining a globe-roaming fleet was too ambitious for a midsize country. In 2022 (the last year covered by the U.K. Parliament’s research service), the Royal Navy had two aircraft carriers, 12 frigates, six destroyers, two amphibious vessels, as well as offshore patrol vessels, mine-countermeasure vessels, and smaller vessels. “That means that putting three ships in the Red Sea as we have done now is a stretch,” West said.
But it’s more than most countries would be able to manage, especially since China, which now has the world’s largest navy, seems uninterested in using it to maintain global maritime order. Indeed, even in this much smaller formation, the Royal Navy still possesses the expertise and reputation of a force that knows how to patrol the world’s seas. That matters in the Red Sea, where Britain now has two frigates and one destroyer.
“We’re one of the few nations that have the capability to do this for the rest of the world,” said retired Vice Adm. Duncan Potts, a former controller of the navy. “One of our key selling points is that we’re globally deployable, we have experience in the area, and we have experience operating with the Americans.” Potts himself has commanded ships and taskforces in the region and has also commanded the European Union’s anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia. No other Western navy has the Brits’ extraordinary institutional history of protecting global shipping.
Defeating the Houthis has, alas, turned out to be rather different from deterring past generations’ malfeasants. “Our three vessels in the Red Sea provide a presence and also capability,” Potts noted. “But it’s capability against a complex target set. And it’s a very expensive way of protecting shipping.” While the Houthis can frighten the shipping companies, their insurers, and as a result the globalized economy with cheap missiles and drones that don’t even reach their targets, the missiles used by the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy to shoot the Houthi missiles down cost $1.3 million each. On Jan. 9, the Houthis fired an astounding 21 missiles and drones.
Two days later, hours after I spoke with West and Potts, Britain and the United States struck targets in Houthi-held parts of Yemen. “These precision strikes were intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of international mariners in one of the world’s most critical waterways,” the White House explained in a joint statement. The two countries launched the strikes both from the air and from the sea; by Friday morning, five Houthi militants had been killed.
The option of the Royal Navy (and the U.S. Navy and other Western navies) taking on the Houthis in naval battles rather than shooting down individual missiles may seem an obvious choice. “But being able to do something doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a wise thing to do,” Potts said. The Houthis are an Iranian proxy, and a naval battle with the Houthis could therefore draw in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy and any other elements that might decide to join the fight. “It’s very easy to start things,” Potts said, “but once you’ve started things, the other side has a vote, and you don’t know where it’s going to end.” Now that battle has begun, not as a traditional naval encounter involving battleships but as one involving strikes launched from the sea and the air.
The strikes may convince the Houthis’ maritime fighters to withdraw for now. But the maritime order in the world’s oceans is deteriorating. Indeed, the Houthis may well retaliate against shipping in the Red Sea, and other militias may decide to do the same in other waters—either out of solidarity or because these days attacking merchant vessels brings global attention. And if that happens, the Royal Navy may soon be regularly called on to do what it did in centuries past. It would, however, need a fleet somewhat closer in size to that of the Georgian, the Victorian, and the Edwardian Royal Navy.