Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and cofounder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to Iran-backed militias.
Articles & Testimony
In this timely new video, Washington Institute scholars discuss the pre-Gaza predecessors of the latest attack campaign, its widening repercussions on trade, and what will be required to halt it militarily.
Shortly after the Gaza war broke out, armed groups throughout the Middle East began attacking Israeli and allied interests in solidarity with their fellow Iranian proxy Hamas. Among them was the Houthi movement in Yemen, which has been using Iranian-provided drones and missiles to strike Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and threaten faraway targets such as the port city of Eilat. Caught in the crossfire are commercial vessels flying flags from around the world, many of which have elected to alter their routes to Asia and other destinations—at great cost to shippers, customers, and global commerce writ large.
In this timely new video, Washington Institute fellows Noam Raydan and Michael Knights discuss the pre-Gaza predecessors of the latest attack campaign, its widening repercussions on trade, and what will be required to halt it militarily. In explaining the problem, they draw on data compiled in the Institute’s regularly updated interactive map and attack tracker.
Among their conclusions is that although the Houthis can’t be deterred by military strikes, they may soon run out of their most threatening weapons systems—the ones most capable of damaging large ships and hitting faraway targets in Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Alternatively, if the United States and its partners let up in their campaign of destroying these systems and preventing Iranian resupply to Yemen, then the Houthi threat could persist indefinitely.
