Perun's video: Red Sea Crisis: Houthi Shipping Attacks Trade and Escalation

The global economic system is built on trade, and to trade, you need ships and safe, efficient routes. Often, that mean travelling through maritime choke points, where geography squeezes trade through a concentrated point. In the Red Sea, one of those chokepoints has come under pressure as a result of attacks by the Houthi movement based in Yemen, driving hundreds of vessels to divert to much longer routes around Africa. Now, US and Houthi forces have exchanged fire, with several Houthi boats reportedly being destroyed attempting to board a container ship. And beyond the risk of this particular campaign, the sight of relatively cheap attacks reshaping the contours of global trade may serve as a warning to decision makers elsewhere. After all, if technology and techniques can be applied in the Red Sea, why not at other maritime chokepoints around the world? On that cheery note, welcome to 2024. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PerunAU Caveats, Corrections & Comments: There are two flubs in the Audio that need to be mentioned on this one: Firstly - marine traffic .com, not marine tracker (flubbed because I use it as a tracker I think) Secondly - prosperity guardian not, as I say *twice*, prosperity garden Thirdly - there are a few times where i refer to a 'trip' intending to mean a 'round trip' but this is not uniform. I apologise for the ambiguity all other normal caveats and limitations apply: In particular – I would like to note as always that this material has been created for entertainment purposes and is not intended to be a complete or comprehensive examination of the topic in question and should not be relied upon to inform financial or other similar decisions. Relevant Reading (will be expanded when I'm at my other PC): US CENTCOM https://twitter.com/CENTCOM All ship traffic imagery generated using marinetraffic.com UN Review of Maritime Transport 2023 https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-2023 The CMF https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/ Prosperity Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/19/us-announces-naval-coalition-to-defend-red-sea-shipping-from-houthi-attacks https://www.reuters.com/world/us-allies-reluctant-red-sea-task-force-2023-12-28/ https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/07/politics/us-military-commercial-ships-red-sea-houthi-militants/index.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/25/analysis-has-the-us-led-red-sea-force-calmed-shippers-amid-houthi-attacks Houthi boats sunk by US https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67851897 https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/31/us-navy-sinks-three-houthi-small-boats-in-hijack-attempt-in-red-sea/ Reports on disruption and costs: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/suez-disruption-new-inflation-risk-horizon-2023-12-19/ https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/21/container-prices-hit-10000-freight-inflation-soars-in-red-sea-chaos.html https://www.joc.com/article/fresh-surcharges-pile-asia-europe-shippers-amid-red-sea-attacks_20231229.html Houthis: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemen-houthis-flex-military-muscle-parade-riyadh-seeks-ceasefire-2023-09-21/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/26/uk-maritime-group-reports-drones-explosion-off-yemen-coast https://www.ajot.com/news/spiraling-cost-in-ocean-freight-shipping-rates-is-becoming-a-reality-as-suez-canal-remains-out-of-bounds ACAPS (Yemen control map) https://www.acaps.org/en/about-us/who-we-are Image of VLS reloading https://maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-navy-tries-reloading-vls-missile-cells-with-a-commercial-osvhttps://maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-navy-tries-reloading-vls-missile-cells-with-a-commercial-osv SM6 upgrades https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27068/navy-to-supersize-its-ultra-versatile-sm-6-missile-for-even-longer-range-and-higher-speed Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Red Sea Crisis 00:01:14 — What Am I Talking About 00:02:05 — Setting The Stage 00:11:49 — Motivation And Strikes 00:14:04 — Engagements And Targets 00:20:40 — Diversions And The Economics Of Disruptions 00:28:35 — Forces And Responses 00:40:36 — Options For Escalation 00:48:33 — The Chokepoint Problem 00:58:57 — Why This Matters 01:06:32 — Conclusion 01:06:56 — Channel Update