Russia’s prospected interest in sending anti-ship missiles to the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militant group, threatens to “broaden the conflict,” the top U.S. military officer warned.
“We’d prefer them not to do that,” Gen. C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the Aspen Security Forum. “They’re a sovereign nation, they’ll do what they do. But the key point is, we don’t want to broaden the conflict. And them supporting the Houthis, if that’s what they’re doing, helps to broaden the conflict and just makes it more complicated in the Middle East.”
Brown offered that assessment after an initial refusal to “validate” reports U.S. intelligence officials suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin is mulling a plan to arm the group. Such a transfer would enhance the Houthis’ ability to endanger key international shipping lanes while extending Russia’s military cooperation with Iran to include one of its most pugnacious proxies.
“There is a connection between Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Red Sea,” retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022, told Middle East Eye last month. “Putin sees the U.S. [as being] responsible for Ukrainian attacks on Russian vessels in the Black Sea. It is possible he could see doing something in the Red Sea as payback.”
Such a transfer would aggravate a threat that is already a source of anxiety and frustration in U.S. military circles. McKenzie’s successor at Central Command reportedly has warned his superiors that the United States is “failing” to stymy the Houthis because of policies that have restricted his options.
“If you tell the military to re-establish freedom of navigation and then you tell them to only be defensive, it isn’t going to work,” an unnamed U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal, which reported on Kurilla’s letter. “It is all about protecting ships without affecting the root cause.”
The U.S. and the United Kingdom have conducted several joint operations to target Houthi positions in Yemen. The Houthis, nonetheless, have used a combination of naval drones and missiles to attack ships throughout the Red Sea.
“This continued reckless behavior by the Iranian-backed Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Central Command said Tuesday. “The Houthis claim to be acting on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza and yet they are targeting and threatening the lives of third country nationals who have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Brown warned that “it’s going to take more than just a military strike to change the Houthis,” while emphasizing the potential risks of a more intense effort.
“I have a responsibility to be thinking strategically about the actions we take…and what the risk is of further escalation, of broader conflict,” he said. “One of the objectives the president laid out [after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7] is not to let the conflict in the Middle East broaden. I think we’ve been effective doing that. I want to continue to do that. But I’ll also say we are prepared, if need be, if the nation calls, to take action.”