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The bombshell publication of a group chat involving Trump administration officials discussing U.S. battle plans revealed in unusually stark fashion what the Trump administration hopes to achieve with airstrikes this month against the Houthi militia in Yemen.
The attacks, some of the chat’s participants said, were meant to deter the Houthis from attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea and reopen shipping lanes to the Suez Canal.
The Trump administration has called the Houthis a threat to the safety of Americans, U.S. allies and the stability of global maritime trade. In addition to the military strikes, the administration officially re-designated the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Middle East experts said the Iran-backed Houthis won’t be easily beaten. Few wars have been won with air power alone, and some military experts say it will be no different with the Houthis.
James R. Holmes, the J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said that even during the US war to remove Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, when air power was at its apex, a land invasion was necessary — and defeating the Houthis might require an occupation.
The Houthis may even use the US military strikes, analysts say, to bolster their position in Yemen and farther afield as other Iranian proxies, like the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, have suffered heavy losses at the hands of Israel.
The latest US strikes are a “direct answer to the Houthi prayers to have a war with the US,” said Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemeni research fellow at Chatham House, a research institute based in London.
The Trump administration has called the Houthis a threat to the safety of Americans, U.S. allies and the stability of global maritime trade. In addition to the military strikes, the administration officially re-designated the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
The Houthis have been striking ships in the Red Sea since late 2023, targeting vessels that the group believes are linked to Israel, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. A period of relative calm followed after a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was struck in January. But then the Houthis issued a warning on March 12, saying they would restart attacks on Israeli vessels in retaliation for Israel’s closure of Gaza’s crossings and the blockade of humanitarian aid.
Since the US strikes began this month, the Houthis have launched at least six ballistic missiles at Israel on at least four occasions in the past two weeks, though most were intercepted. Israeli warplanes have retaliated by bombing ports and a power plant in Yemeni territory controlled by the Houthis.
Historically, great powers have aimed to protect shipping because an interruption in global trade flows can trigger shortages and high inflation, causing economic havoc. Much of the group chat among Trump administration officials focused on opening shipping lanes. “Restoring freedom of navigation” was “a core national interest,” Mike Hegseth said.
But although the US military has been conducting daily strikes against Houthi targets, the Pentagon has not provided details about the attacks since March 17, when it said more than 30 Houthi targets had been hit on the first day. Yemeni officials say the strikes also hit residential areas and buildings in Sana, the capital, causing an unknown number of civilian casualties.
The Houthis have largely succeeded in frightening off Western vessels from the Red Sea. Since they started targeting ships in 2023, they have carried out about 130 attacks on commercial vessels, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, the crisis monitoring group.
That has prompted freighters going from Asia to Europe to stop traveling through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and instead go around the southern tip of Africa — a voyage that is about 3,500 nautical miles and 10 days longer.
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