The Houthi breakthrough at Bab el-Mandeb should force Washington and its partners to reconsider an increasingly outdated Red Sea security architecture—and the strategic value of Berbera within it.

The most important lesson from the Houthi advance toward Bab el-Mandeb is that the security architecture surrounding one of the world’s most important maritime corridors has failed to keep pace with the geography it was supposed to protect.

Mayyun, Dhubab and the Yemeni coastline overlooking the strait are becoming increasingly important pieces of a larger contest involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States. Yet Western strategy remains heavily dependent on arrangements designed for a different Red Sea.

For years, the international response to the Houthis has concentrated on intercepting missiles and drones, escorting commercial vessels and striking launch sites when attacks became intolerable. Those measures addressed the weapons coming toward the sea without sufficiently addressing the geography from which maritime coercion could eventually be used. The Houthi advance has exposed the weakness of that approach. A missile can be intercepted; a strategically positioned and increasingly fortified coastline presents a much more complicated problem.

Mayyun illustrates the difference. The island sits inside Bab el-Mandeb, while Dhubab provides mainland fortification beside it and Mokha extends the military geography farther north. Possession of these positions empowers the Houthis to improve their ability to observe shipping, threaten selected vessels and impose uncertainty on maritime traffic without attempting the far more difficult task of closing Bab el-Mandeb completely.

That is why recent reports of Iranian specialists examining radar positions and tunnel construction deserve more attention than another battlefield headline. AFP reported on September 19, citing Houthi military sources, that personnel associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had inspected positions around Bab el-Mandeb and Mokha and were involved in discussions about radar installations and underground facilities.

The reporting does not establish that an integrated surveillance network is already operating, and those claims still require continued scrutiny. But if the Houthis are moving from capturing territory to hardening it, the strategic problem is entering a different phase.

That combination is deadly. Geography provides proximity, radar can provide awareness, underground facilities can improve survivability, and missiles and drones provide reach. None........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)