The Houthis Aren't Israel’s Only Threat in the Red Sea Anymore!

Right, so if Israel thought its nightmare in the Red Sea at the hands of the Houthis blockading their shipping, not to mention of course those rockets still being fired at Ben Gurion airport, shutting down their airspace, then it seems they’ve got another think coming as Eritrea, on the African coast, have pivoted their alliances away from the West and their colonial project in the Middle East, and towards Russia, China and Iran, which, as you might imagine has got the US tearing their hair out at the same time as well.
In not insignificant part though, have the US and Israel only got themselves to blame for all of this, and with other Red Sea alliances with the west and Israel seemingly on their last legs as well, the future of the Red Sea as a key economic shipping lane for western interests, the very future of trade and industry, disrupted as it has been where it comes to Israel and its genocide of Gaza, is at stake and what we have seen unfold over the last 20 months of Houthi blockade, may end up becoming the norm in a shift that could take global economic prosperity out of the wests hands for the foreseeable future.
Right, so the Red Sea, considered one of the most vital thoroughfares for international shipping as it is, has been a no go zone for Israeli shipping for some time now as a result of their genocide of Gaza thanks to the Houthis of Yemen but it might be about to get so much worse and what the Houthis began out of protest, might soon become the norm as their influence and that of the west as well appears to be waning rapidly, with consequences that could ripple across global trade and security.
To get an idea of what’s going on, first, here’s an image of East Africa. You have Eritrea at the top there, cutting Ethiopia off from the coast, Djibouti just south of that, the contested territory of Somaliland and then Somalia moving down the coast from there and then to the west of Eritrea and Ethiopia you have Sudan and north of Sudan lies Egypt, not shown there. These are the states we’re looking at here, between them, that is the entire African coastline of the Red Sea we’re talking about here.
At the centre of this growing crisis for Israel is Eritrea, whose shifting alliances over the last several years are now driving this change.
To understand Eritrea's current positioning, we need to take a look back at some of its history. Eritrea fought a gruelling 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia, finally achieving statehood in 1993, cutting Ethiopia off from the coast as it did so. The new nation's hard-won independence was a moment of triumph, but it also ended up being the beginning of a long period of marginalisation. Despite having this prime real estate on the Red Sea Coast, Eritrea struggled to form alliances that its neighbours enjoyed. The United States was of course the main one they’d have loved a good relationship with, but they had little interest. At the time, Washington already enjoyed solid relations with other Red Sea coastal states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and even Yemen at the time. Eritrea was simply one more Red Sea coastal state that had nothing new to offer.
So what followed was a chronic sidelining of Eritrea. The US quickly gravitated toward Ethiopia as its regional partner of choice, despite Ethiopia's lack of coastal access, Ethiopia very much remaining Eritrea’s rival. Relations between Washington and the Eritrean capital Asmara soured further in the 2000s, especially after Eritrea was accused of supporting extremist groups in Somalia, such as the Al-Qaeda affiliates Al-Shabaab. In 2009, the United States backed UN sanctions against Eritrea over these allegations, deepening Asmara's isolation further. The sanctions included arms embargoes, asset freezes, and travel bans, cutting off Eritrea from international financial institutions and military cooperation. These measures were only lifted in 2018—far too late to repair the damage done, 9 years of US sanctions and 15 years since Eritrea formed and the US had done nothing but kick them in the teeth.
Yet Eritrea did not sit idle for all of this time. In the vacuum created by Western disengagement, Asmara began courting relationships with alternative powers. For a time, Eritrea explored ties with Israel, allowing the establishment of a low-profile Israeli intelligence base on its soil. This cooperation was part of a broader alignment with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during their joint war against the Houthis in Yemen. Eritrea granted Saudi-UAE coalition forces access to its ports and territory, positioning itself against Iran and their Houthi allies.
However, this cooperation was always transactional and once again, once Eritrea had served their purpose, they were dropped. Once the Saudi-UAE coalition’s war against the Houthis had failed, Eritrea had served its purpose. The UAE eventually abandoned its military base in Assab, and relations with Israel began to sour too. In 2020, Eritrea refused to accept the Israeli ambassador assigned to Asmara, no official reason for that having ever been given. Tensions escalated further the following year when Israel violated Eritrean waters by striking an Iranian cargo ship. Not long after, the Israeli embassy in Eritrea was shut down completely.
So Eritrea has been spurned, has been used, is looking pretty friendless at this point isn’t it?
Well into this strategic void have stepped China, Iran, and Russia. Chinese investment in Eritrea increased, particularly in infrastructure and mining. Russia, eager to expand its presence in the Horn of Africa, also began deepening ties with Asmara. Iran, who had for a long time been an enemy Eritrea had once opposed, along with their allies in Yemen, began rekindling relations with the Red Sea state. Iran and Eritrea were on good terms early days in Eritrea’s history, but this waned as they sought western allies instead. For so long spurned by the west and having also fallen out with Israel, Eritrea is now increasingly close to China, Russia and Iran, everyone the west wished they weren’t friends with essentially!
Oh the irony! Eritrea, which once fought alongside the Saudis and Emiratis against the Houthis, now supports them in their blockade of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Eritrea's support for the Houthis includes maritime coordination and some passive naval cover, enabling Houthi operations to expand in both scale and scope. It gets even worse for th Israel and the West though.
On top of Eritrea’s new alliances and what that brings to Western and Israeli influence on the Red Sea coast, American influence in the region is rapidly eroding at the same time. Djibouti has increasingly opened its doors to Chinese and Russian interests having refused to allow the US to launch attacks on Yemen from their airspace. The erosion of American leverage in Djibouti has pushed Washington into a more desperate position, you might recall from a video from a few months ago where the US was offering formal recognition of Somaliland in an attempt to not only maintain a foothold in the Horn of Africa, but also as a potential home for the population of Gaza as Israel fixates on the Trump Plan for total displacement.
Sudan, another erstwhile partner of the West, embroiled in civil war with UAE backed military insurgents the RSF, has also been tilting decisively towards Russia and China, which would be another chunk of Red Sea coastline no longer fixed on western and Israeli ties. The consolidation of ties between Eritrea, Egypt, and Somalia only exacerbates the regional polarization, especially as these countries increasingly coordinate on Red Sea security. That is, with the exception of the disputed Somaliland coast, the whole East African coastline of the Red Sea turning away from the west. Egypt and Sudan’s influence together with Eritrea is bad news for Ethiopia, landlocked and isolated from Red Sea access, they might still be favoured by Western powers, but their relations with their immediate neighbours are not good. Ethiopia’s lack of a coastline, relying on a deal with Somaliland for any sea access.
Predictably, as Eritrea moves out of the Western orbit, it has come under renewed attack in the Western media. Haaretz have reinforced the bad blood between Eritrea and Israel by labelling Eritrea as an Iranian proxy now, a sure sign they don’t get on and reinforcing the relations Eritrea now enjoys with Iran, whilst also painting a picture of strategic menace to Israel, but it does conveniently omit the years of Western marginalisation and betrayal that has led Eritrea to form the alliances it now has. More recently, Eritrea detained Azerbaijani vessels in what analysts believe is a show of loyalty to Iran and against Israel with whom Azerbaijan has close ties, it is of course where Israel’s oil comes from, via Turkey. Eritrea has never had issues with Azerbaijan, so this move tells us quite a lot about where their loyalties now lie.
For Israel, the Red Sea is increasingly turning from a trade asset currently denied to them by the Houthis, into an ever greater corridor of threats. Once able to monitor Iranian naval activity and smuggle routes through cooperative ties with Eritrea and the UAE, Israel now finds itself hemmed in. The Houthis, emboldened by now increasing regional support, continue to launch numerous drone and missile attacks on Israel. With Eritrea now tacitly backing their Red Sea blockade efforts, Israel faces a much more hostile northern Red Sea.
The tragedy of this scenario lies in its preventability though. Eritrea, though an extremely authoritarian and oppressive state, it would be remiss of me to not mention that, engagement with other states in a meaningful way could have made a difference to that. Equally, had the United States offered genuine partnership rather than punitive measures, had Israel or Saudi Arabia or the UAE treated Eritrea as a sovereign equal rather than a disposable outpost, the situation could be very different. Instead today it is with quiet acknowledgement that the decision to isolate Eritrea was a strategic error.
The United States and Israel now face an increasingly hostile Red Sea corridor dominated by forces they once controlled. Attempts to reassert control—through military escalation, economic pressure, or diplomatic isolation—are likely to backfire, they sure as hell didn’t help with the Houthis and they would no doubt help their new found allies in such a scenario now.
Eritrea is not an anomaly but a symptom of a larger ailment, that being the West’s inability to adapt to a world they have less influence in as the rise of Asian states, the rise of BRICS and where sovereignty and self-determination cannot be overridden by sanctions and scorn, the Red Sea is closing on them more and more as a result of that it seems. The Red Sea crisis as it is growing more and more to be should be a cautionary tale about the dangers of arrogance, the cost of neglect, and the long memory of those who have been wronged.
Eritrea's pivot towards Iran, Russia, and China represents not only a major political realignment but a rebuke of decades of Western policy failures. Nations do not forget how they are treated. The West can choose to ignore that or it can finally start learning from it. But time is running out, and the waters of the Red Sea are rising against them.
As for the Houthis themselves, well they’ve gone from aerial blockades of Ben Gurion airport, to sea blockades of Haifa now, no longer content with blocking shipping n the Red Sea, they’re trying to block it in the Med now too! Check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch to find out all about that.
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