New Red Sea choke‑point fears

A narrow strip of water at the bottom of the Red Sea is back in the global spotlight, and the reason is simple: if attacks restart there at scale, ships do not have a good Plan B. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is only about 18 miles wide at its narrowest point, and it is the southern gate for traffic heading to and from the Suez Canal. (eia.gov, britannica.com) That is why analysts are talking about a possible second choke point. The first is the Strait of Hormuz, the better-known oil bottleneck at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, while Bab el-Mandeb is the doorway that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. (eia.gov, britannica.com) The danger is not theoretical. The U.S. Maritime Administration said in a fresh advisory last week that Houthi forces still pose a threat to commercial vessels in the southern Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, and Somali Basin, even after a period without attacks on merchant ships following the October 2025 Israel-Gaza ceasefire agreement. (maritime.dot.gov) That advisory also gave a blunt measure of the campaign’s scale. From November 2023 to October 2025, it said, there were more than 100 separate Houthi attacks on commercial vessels affecting more than 60 nations. (maritime.dot.gov) The shipping market has already shown what happens when that lane becomes dangerous. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil and petroleum product flows through Bab el-Mandeb averaged 4.0 million barrels per day in the first eight months of 2024, down from 8.7 million barrels per day in 2023. (eia.gov) Those barrels did not disappear. Many cargoes simply took the long way around the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of Africa, which adds time, burns more fuel, ties up more ships, and pushes freight capacity into a tighter squeeze. The same Energy Information Administration report said oil volumes routed around the Cape rose to 9.2 million barrels per day in the first eight months of 2024, up from 6.0 million barrels per day in 2023. (eia.gov) That longer detour ripples far beyond the Middle East. The International Monetary Fund said in March 2024 that trade through the Suez Canal fell 50 percent from a year earlier in the first two months of 2024, while rerouted trade around the Cape of Good Hope jumped by an estimated 74 percent. (imf.org) The extra sailing time is not small. The International Monetary Fund said the Cape route increased delivery times by 10 days or more on average, which is the shipping equivalent of turning a short freeway commute into a cross-country drive. (imf.org) The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development warned early in 2024 that the Red Sea disruption was landing on top of other shipping problems, including Panama Canal restrictions and the Black Sea war. In its rapid assessment, it said transits in both the Suez and Panama canals were down by more than 40 percent from their peaks at that stage. (unctad.org) Egypt has already paid a direct price for that traffic loss. The Suez Canal Authority said canal revenue fell to about $4 billion in 2024 from $10.3 billion in 2023, according to reports citing the authority’s official statement. (euronews.com, suezcanal.gov.eg) That is why renewed threats around Bab el-Mandeb matter even if no full closure happens. Shipping does not need a waterway to be physically blocked to treat it as unusable; a handful of missile, drone, or boarding attacks can be enough to raise insurance costs, change routing decisions, and scare crews and shipowners away. (maritime.dot.gov, unctad.org) Governments have already built military structures around that reality. The United States announced Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023 as a multinational security initiative for the Red Sea, and the European Union established and launched its Aspides naval mission in February 2024, later extending it into 2027. (globalsecurity.org, consilium.europa.eu, eur-lex.europa.eu) So the new fear is not just one more regional flare-up. It is the possibility that the world’s shipping system could face pressure at Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb at the same time, forcing more oil, gas, containers, and bulk cargo onto longer routes just as fleets, ports, and supply chains are still adjusting to the last disruption. (eia.gov, imf.org, maritime.dot.gov)