"Remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always," the IRA warned the world after an assassination bombing at Brighton's Grand Hotel barely missed killing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984. The same story is being told today in the vital lanes of the Red Sea, where Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are waging a missile war against the world's shipping — and major shippers are getting out before their luck runs out.
Oil giant BP is just the latest firm to announce it will "pause" all shipments through the Red Sea due to the "deteriorating security situation," according to a company statement. Taiwan-based Evergreen Line made a similar announcement, "For the safety of ships and crew, Evergreen Line has decided to temporarily stop accepting Israeli cargo with immediate effect, and has instructed its container ships to suspend navigation through the Red Sea until further notice."
Those announcements came on the heels of similar decisions made over the weekend. On Saturday, two other major shipping firms — Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA CGM — ceased Red Sea operations. "The CMA CGM Group is deeply concerned about the recent attacks on commercial vessels unfolding in the Red Sea Region. The situation is further deteriorating and concern of safety is increasing," one statement said. All of their ships currently in passage have been instructed to "reach safe areas and pause their journey in safe waters with immediate effect until further notice."
The BBC explained Monday that Houthis are "targeting ships traveling through the Bab al-Mandab Strait - also known as the Gate of Tears - which is a channel 20 miles (32km) wide, and known for being perilous to navigate."
One or two American guided missile destroyers — dispatched from a navy that is already stretched too thin — is not enough to shoot down every Houthi missile. Shipping firms understand this and are skedaddling accordingly.
For my isolationist-minded readers who are certain this is just "a quarrel in a faraway land between people of which we know nothing," nothing could be further from the truth. The Red Sea — and the Suez Canal that connects it to the Mediterranean — is one of the world's most vital sea lanes.
Oil prices are up — way up — on the news. That quarrel in a faraway land is about to make itself felt at your neighborhood gas pump, and that has nothing to do with a lack of production in this country. Oil is a global commodity, so a disruption anywhere leads to higher prices everywhere.
About one in six container ships travels through the Suez Canal, carrying everything from crude oil to consumer goods. Supply chain expert Chris Rogers told CNN today, "Consumer goods will face the largest impact, though current disruptions are occurring during the off-peak shipping season."
American prosperity has been built on international trade since before the Revolutionary War and it almost certainly always will be. The same goes for the rest of the West, including our non-Western (but friendly) commercial cousins in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Maybe even China has a role to play here. But the world's wealthy trading nations can either get as Medieval on terrorists and pirates as they are on us, or we can kiss our prosperity goodbye.
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