American Magazine: Does the Houthis’ “Siege of the Red Sea” Serve Russia’s Strategic Agenda?

The American magazine "National Interest" published an article talking about what it described as the "Houthi blockade" of the Red Sea, indicating that this has created two strategic effects that benefit Russia, which it saw as the possibility of its support for the Houthis falling within the framework of an ongoing shift in Russian foreign policy.

The article, translated by "Yemeni Youth Net", saw that if Russia is now on a path that does not make it the main state that sets agendas, it needs a more confusing strategy as globalization has cracked and as the efforts and attention of the United States are drawn in multiple and different directions.

“The first effect,” writes Nicholas K. Gvosdev, a senior fellow for national security affairs at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, “is to force the United States and its allies to deploy resources across multiple theaters. This follows the concerns expressed by Dov Zakheim on the eve of Russia’s resumption of operations in Ukraine—that authoritarian states will exploit what he calls ‘Eurasian synchronicity’—multiple, overlapping crises to distract and drain the United States.”

The second effect—and what is seen as indirect retaliation—is to create problems for Europe in substituting Russian gas for imports from the Persian Gulf. Red Sea disruptions add length and cost to direct exports to Europe while keeping Russian energy sales to European customers going.

The writer said that disrupting the Red Sea corridor makes the creation of Russia's Northern Sea Corridor via the Arctic a viable option - and strengthens the argument for a "Middle Corridor" via the greater Silk Road region.

Moreover, the Middle Corridor increasingly serves as Russia’s lifeline to the global economy—both for exports and via the Eurasian “circuits”—for goods that Western governments are directly sanctioned from selling to Russian customers. If the Red Sea corridor is effectively closed, the West needs the Middle Corridor—and thus has less leverage to pressure those countries to block Russian access.

Support for the Houthis is part of what the author believes is an ongoing shift in Russian foreign policy toward what he calls the “Group Zero/Silk Road” model. Strengthening the Greater Silk Road region is now an absolute priority, because “from direct Western sanctions on the one hand, and the highly conditional nature of the Chinese lifeline on the other, it will be absolutely essential for Russia to keep one of the world’s key economic regions open and accessible.”

Moreover, Russia no longer believes in pursuing global governance in cooperation with Western powers, and thus helping to further disrupt the US-led global economic order is consistent with its vision of preventing any one country (the US) or group of countries (the US and its partners) from defining and implementing its international agenda.

If Russia is now on a path to no longer being a major agenda-setting state, Moscow needs a more disruptive strategy as globalization has fractured and U.S. efforts and attention are pulled in multiple, different directions.

“The Cold War saw the development of a set of informal rules for how to conduct conflicts, with an emphasis on finding ways to prevent escalation to nuclear war,” the author said. “Over the past several years, the West has successfully navigated the escalation ladder to prevent Ukraine’s collapse and increase its ability not only to defend itself but also to take the conflict to Moscow (in some cases literally). Are we now witnessing a Russian response?”