The Unbroken Glass: Bab al-Mandab and the risk of asymmetric escalation

Alliances are drafted for contingencies their signatories hope will remain theoretical. The Makkah Joint Defense Agreement – concluded in August by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan – was one such instrument, yet early this week, less than two months after it was signed, the three states announced the activation of its collective deterrence measures. What set it in motion was not an invasion, nor the act of a rival state, but a campaign by a non-state movement based in the northern highlands of Yemen. It may prove the first of many state responses in this particular area.

The risk differs from that which markets have watched at Hormuz, a problem of leverage in which any actor able to threaten a narrow gateway can impose costs far beyond its physical power. Bab al-Mandab is where the workaround runs. Saudi loadings at Yanbu, on the Red Sea, rose more than sixfold in March, from roughly 0.8 million barrels per day to about 5 million bpd, once Hormuz was effectively shut. Around 80% of that volume initially moved south through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, until that route was jeopardized by the Houthi campaign launched in July.

This story was originally published by Hellenic Shipping News. Read the full story at Hellenic Shipping News →