And it worked. A combination of SEAL teams, mobile sea bases (barges chartered from the offshore industry), in the region of 26 surface combatants, from frigates to amphibious ships, the US Army’s special operations aviation regiment (the ‘Night Stalkers’), EOD and special boat units, and many others contributed. For a long while the operation remained covert but anyone moving mines about or acting suspiciously would be boarded or otherwise dealt with. Eventually footage of Prime Chance elements taking down the Iranian ship Iran Ajr as it was laying mines brought the operation out into the open, immediately undermining the Iranian narrative that the mines were being laid by Iraq. Faced with this level of aggression and capability, Khomeini sought a ceasefire.
The US still has all the component parts required to do this again. There are even oil rigs and other offshore platforms that could be used as forward operating sea bases in the way that the barges Hercules and Wimbrown VII were for Prime Chance.
The major difference between this and Prime Chance is that the Houthis’ missiles and launchers are ashore, and as discussed, they are difficult to take out with air power alone. US (and probably British) SOF, largely based from the sea, would need to operate ashore.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made “boots on the ground” toxic. Nonetheless American and British SOF have carried out huge numbers of covert in-and-out operations over recent years in Syria and elsewhere: they could do so in Yemen as well. Houthi air defences would need to be suppressed – cue the carrier – so that extensive use could be made of Osprey tiltrotors and other rotary wing aviation, with forces based at sea and perhaps also in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and non-Houthi-occupied parts of Yemen.
In addition to SOF raids and observation parties, the US carrier – perhaps aided by land based aviation – could establish constant overhead air cover, reducing response times so that Houthi missile teams could be hit as soon as they made a launch.
None of this is easy, warfare never is, but imagine what it would do to the Houthi risk calculus. They don’t care if the odd launcher gets hit from the air and they certainly don’t care for the safety of the Yemeni people, but imagine if they knew that some of the US’s most serious operators, and a few from the UK, were in amongst them. It would have the same effect as the pager attack on Hezbollah, or the long SOF campaign against ISIS/Daesh – no-one and nowhere is safe. In a few weeks it would be possible to decimate Houthi capability and morale, and damage their internal political credibility whilst showing Iran and the rest of the world, in a relatively isolated area, that the US will only tolerate so much, even if that appears to be a lot more now than it was in the late 80s.
MacDill Air Force Base in Florida is home to both Central Command – in charge of American forces and operations in the Middle East – and Special Operations Command. In ops rooms there this has all been worked through properly (not like my plan). The senior person in the group will have gone to his boss and presented it and would have finished with ‘when do we go?’ There will be many such plans from this, to interdiction operations to more conventional strikes, presenting them patiently to the Pentagon whenever possible before they brief the White House where decisions of this magnitude reside.
Navies have never been keen to fight with their hands tied, and that is how the US Navy will perceive Prosperity Guardian at this point. Either you want freedom of navigation in this important chokepoint restored or you don’t. Assuming the former, those tasked to do it need to be given the requisite tools to do so.
Repeating yourself and expecting a different outcome is indeed the definition of insanity, especially when inside an enemy’s missile envelope. Something has to change in the Red Sea or we will continue to lose. Sadly I doubt there will really be an Operation Prime Chance II – call it Operation Gloves Off, perhaps – but you never know. Perhaps such a plan is underway already. I sincerely hope so.
Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer