The EU Moves to Counter Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea

The EU Moves to Counter Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea 

Operation Aspides grants Western powers a different mission set than the existing, hard-power alternatives.

On October 19, 2024, the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) Operation Aspides  eight months of activity protecting merchant vessels in and around the Red Sea. Since its onset, the EU maritime mission has successfully escorted over 265 commercial ships through dangerous waters, destroying 17 unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), two unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and four anti-ship ballistic missiles in the process. Qualitatively different from historical EU naval engagements in the waters off the Arabian Peninsula, Operation Aspides highlights the EU’s resolve to restore freedom of navigation in and around the Red Sea—a waterway that has seen international shipping plummet 60 percent since the Houthis began targeting ships in October 2023.

The EU’s Shield

On February 19, 2024, the EU Foreign Affairs Council, the collegial body of Foreign Ministers from the 27 EU member states, launched Operation Aspides to restore freedom of navigation and safeguard commercial ships transiting the Red Sea. The operational headquarters of Aspides is located in Larissa, Greece, while the operation’s forward-deployed flagship operates as Force Headquarters in regional waters.

Since mid-October 2023, the Houthi naval campaign in and around the Red Sea has severely disrupted navigation across a maritime artery connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the North-Western Indian Ocean, through which almost 14 percent of global maritime trade and 30 percent of global containerized trade  passed before the current conflict erupted. The severity of the Houthis’ multi-pronged attacks and the rapid deterioration of the maritime security environment prompted many major European shipping companies—including Italo-Swiss company MSC, the Dutch Maersk, the German Hapag Lloyd, and the French CMA CMG—to halt transits across the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait and re-route commercial vessels around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. While ensuring safer travel, the 3,500 nautical mile-long detour around Africa’s southern tip has caused higher container spot rates, vessel traffic congestion in African ports, and extended transportation time.

When the U.S. launched Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023 to counter Houthi attacks on international shipping, some European countries rallied around Washington’s naval initiative. Washington opted to pair its deterrence approach with a campaign of precise air strikes, known as Operation Poseidon Archer, against Houthi military targets in Yemen. The surgical strikes, which remain ongoing, seek to degrade the Iran-backed group’s capabilities to launch asymmetric naval warfare attacks. At the time of its announcement, however, many European countries perceived the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign as escalatory and withheld support for Operation Poseidon Archer.

The EU naval mission resides within the EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), a policy framework through which the EU member states establish military or civilian missions to promote international peace and security. The EU Foreign Affairs Council provided Operation Aspides with a one-year-long mandate and a limited€8 million operational budget financed through the European Peace Facility, an off-budget instrument to fund CSDP activities. 

Aspides means “shield” in Greek, and as such, the mission has adopted a strictly defensive posture. The mandate of Operation Aspides aims to advance three main goals; first, it seeks to protect commercial ships transiting this critical maritime passageway against Houthi attacks. Second, it provides escort to trade convoys transiting the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait. Finally, it strives to reinforce Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA)—a foundational necessity for security—in and around the Red Sea. In a nutshell, MSA seeks to provide seafarers with a more complete picture of the maritime domain through monitoring, threat assessment, and information sharing. Firmly de-escalatory in nature, Operation Aspides acts in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2722, which calls for the total cessation of Houthi attacks against merchant shipping and recognizes the right of states to protect these vessels against unlawful attacks.

Though tasked to defend rather than attack, a convoy’s escort force still needs the ability to pose a credible threat to adversaries and enforce deterrence. That is, in theory, convoy defense is a peaceful maritime operation, but the mission may require escorting forces to engage in wartime functions when operating in high-threat maritime environments. To provide close protection, Aspides’ fleet profile includes four blue-water warships—one destroyer and three frigates. And to enhance the flotilla’s outreach, the EU naval initiative invites merchant vessels entering the Red Sea basin to register on the Maritime Security Center Horn of Africa webpage, to request protection and receive navigational recommendations. 

Beyond Deterrence

As a strategic asset exercising military might without exercising coercive force (as in the case of the Operation Aspides fleet), a warship is a versatile instrument in a country’s foreign and security policy toolbox because it can project hard and soft power simultaneously. A warship’s soft power functions primarily include confidence-building measures, such as conducting port visits and capacity-building initiatives with friendly nations.  Through its mere presence in a body of water, a warship can perform multiple duties, from benign tasks, such as providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and conducting evacuation operations, to coercive actions, such as gunboat diplomacy and combat operations. In the case of Operation Aspides, although its core aim is to restore the safety of commercial sea-lanes, the naval mission also enables European states to proactively shape the Red Sea’s strategic environment by engaging with local countries and shipping industry stakeholders.

As a country with a centuries-long naval tradition and a coastline extending from the Strait of Hormuz to the Arabian Sea, Oman is a natural interlocutor for the EU on maritime security matters. Djibouti is also a crucial security partner of the EU, as it overlooks the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait and hosts the military facilities of France and Italy, two main contributors to the EU naval mission. Over the past months, EU warships have successfully conducted several port visits to Salalah, Muscat, and Djibouti, allowing Operation Aspides officers to discuss the mission and regional threats with local authorities, including the Royal Navy of Oman’s Commander Rear Admiral Saif Nasser Al Rahbi and the Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority.

Alongside these military-to-military efforts, Operation Aspides has pursued a three-pronged approach to engage and build links with shipping industry stakeholders. First, Op. Aspides military personnel  has participated in sectoral conferences, such as the Hellenic Mediterranean Panel Meeting, the 14th Capital Link Operational Excellence in Shipping Forum in Athens, Greece, and the 1st Maritime Security and Cooperation Forum in Brest, France. Second, Aspides has actively contributed to organizing events to enhance awareness about the naval mission. For instance, in May, it co-chaired the 15th Industry Strategy Meeting, an event gathering military and industry representatives, with the Combined Maritime Forces. In July, it held the  “Safeguarding Maritime Security in the Red Sea” symposium with Djibouti and Japan. 

A Sustainable Effort?

Despite its progress countering unlawful Houthi attacks against commercial shipping, operational and political challenges loom over the EU naval initiative’s capacity to keep its security commitments. From an operational perspective, the scarcity of EU deployable surface combatants poses two significant concerns for the mission. Aspides’ Operation Commander Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis urged the EU member states to provide more naval assets, stressing that twice as many warships are needed to provide sufficient coverage. However, only a few EU countries have the political resolve and military capability to sustain the forward deployment of warships far from territorial waters, which complicates the Operation’s rotation plan. Perhaps more importantly, the operation’s area of operation (AOO) covers a maritime region of approximately 2 million square miles of international waters, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf and the north-western Indian Ocean. With a limited force structure incapable of ensuring security across the entire AOO, Operation Aspides has prioritized providing close protection to trade convoys in and around the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait.

From a political standpoint, Operation Aspides faces considerable challenges at home and abroad. On the one hand, although the EU mission relies on a one-year-long mandate, the Operation’s proper execution depends on the continued resolve of EU member states to follow through on their security commitments. However, a mix of scarce blue-water combat capabilities and pressing security concerns closer to home have limited the number of EU countries willing to undertake the task. For instance, many Scandinavian, Baltic, and Eastern European countries remain hesitant to divert naval assets from territorial waters due Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Sweden, one of NATO’s newest members, provided a medical team serving as an embarked unit. As a result, the burden of military contributions to Aspides will likely continue to fall on a small club of the EU’s most powerful states—France, Italy, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

On the other hand, the forces of Operation Aspides must build trust, confidence, and goodwill among local governments. The most relevant naval players in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, have fought the Houthis for nearly a decade. Still, after suffering significant diplomatic repercussions following their air campaign against the Houthis during the 2010s, these critical actors have refrained from undertaking military actions to counter the Yemeni insurgents’ anti-shipping campaign. Perhaps more pragmatically, they are concerned that any kinetic action against the Houthis could jeopardize ongoing peace talks between Israel and Hamas, escalate tensions in Yemen, and expose their national territory to retaliatory attack. Although the EU has undertaken steps to emphasize Operation Aspides’ defensive operational profile in its outreach to regional governments, Brussels should highlight the EU’s military presence in the region as a stabilizing force and not as an escalatory move that jeopardizes their national security.

A Larger Naval Strategy

Although born out of the compelling need to respond to an emergent threat, Operation Aspides closely aligns with other European initiatives to build a safe regional maritime environment. Since late  2000s,  the EU has pursued a two-fold strategy to strengthen its credentials as a reliable maritime security provider in the Middle East. The EU has stepped up its naval activity in the waters off the Arabian Peninsula, notably through EUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta and the European Maritime Awareness in the Strait of Hormuz (EMASoH). Launched in 2008 during the Horn of Africa’s piracy crisis, Operation Atalanta performs several non-combat naval tasks, including escorting World Food Program ships that deliver humanitarian aid to Somalia, combating regional piracy networks, and disrupting drugs and weapons trafficking. Developed as a European response to growing U.S.-Iran tensions in the Persian Gulf in 2019, EMASoH was an ad-hoc naval coalition supported by nine European countries to enhance situational awareness in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Through its operational arm, Operation Agénor, EMASoH promoted region-wide dialogue and de-escalation by conducting trade convoy escorts and reassurance calls. In late July 2024, Operation Agénor concluded and passed control of the Red Sea and Bab-El-Mandeb to Operation Aspides. 

Brussels has also strengthened and expanded the institutional framework that underpins the EU’s maritime security policy. In February 2022, the European Council extended the      Coordinated Maritime Presence (CMP) concept to the north-western Indian Ocean. The CMP, as its name suggests, integrates the naval assets of EU member states in a maritime area of interest. In March 2023, the European Commission published the updated EU Maritime Security Strategy, which acknowledges that the EU’s strategic interests and economic prosperity are closely linked to freedom of navigation in the Middle East’s most critical waterways.

Aspides’ Edge

The saga of the MV Sounion illustrates Operation Aspides’ value to the region’s security. On August 21, the Houthis launched a multi-layered attack on the MV Sounion, a Greek-owned tanker carrying 150,000 tons of crude oil. The vessel lost engine power and anchored in international waters in the southern Red Sea. Responding to the ship master’s request for urgent assistance, Operation Aspides dispatched a French frigate to conduct an operation to rescue the ship’s crew. After destroyingClick here to enter text.a Houthi unmanned surface vehicle, the French warship successfully evacuated the crewmembers and transported them to Djibouti.

On August 23, Operation Aspides’ assets surveilling the area spotted fires in several locations on the ship’s main deck and in the superstructure where the navigation bridge and crew accommodation are located. The unknown origin of the fires became evident when the Houthi-controlled media accounts released footage showing the insurgent group’s militiamen planting explosives over the hatches of the ship’s oil tanks and detonating them, setting the tanker ablaze. With its cargo of nearly 1 million barrels of oil, the MV Sounion represented a major environmental hazard.

On August 28, the Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdul-Salam confirmed the group’s consent to allow the EU to lead the MV Sounion’s salvage operation. After an initial rescue attempt failed, a second towing operation safely transported the damaged tanker out of the Red Sea without an oil spill. A flotilla of three Operation Aspides warships protected the commercially chartered tugboats throughout the salvage operation. The success of the MV Sounion rescue and salvage missions suggests that Operation Aspides’ defensive and de-escalatory approach enables it to perform missions that Operation Prosperity Guardian’s forces cannot. At the first-ever EU-GCC Summit held in Belgium on October 16, 2024, the GCC bloc praised Operation Aspides’ role in safeguarding freedom of navigation and signaled its resolve to develop a joint approach to maritime security.

Uncharted Waters Ahead

Nearly a year after the Houthis began targeting merchant shipping in the waters off of Yemen, the Red Sea basin remains a highly hostile maritime environment. Yet, the security umbrella provided by Prosperity Guardian and Aspides—though unable to ensure all-around protection—has persuaded some shipping companies to resume Red Sea transit. Nevertheless, as long as the Houthi naval offensive remains ongoing, the Red Sea basin continues to be a maritime region significantly vulnerable to unforeseen escalation.

In line with the EU’s intensifying naval presence in regional waters since the late 2000s,  Operation Aspides reinforces the EU’s profile as a reliable maritime security actor in a crisis. During eight months of activity, the EU naval mission has proved its strategic and diplomatic utility, countering Houthi aggression against commercial shipping and sending a message of reassurance to regional countries and shipping industry stakeholders alike. However, as Houthi attacks on commercial maritime routes become increasingly complex, Operation Aspides is expected to confront a growing number of high-intensity challenges in the following months. The EU member states should double down on efforts to ensure that European sailors are well-equipped to face more unpredictable threats in these choppy waters by conducting joint maritime drills focused on strengthening counter-UAV and -USV warfare capabilities before deployment and by dispatching to the Red Sea waters only naval assets equipped with state-of-the-art anti-air and anti-surface warfare systems.