August 22, 2025:
Since June 23 there has been a truce in the Red Sea. Houthi rebels are no longer firing rockets and missiles at passing ships. A practical reason for this is that most of the Houthi weapons have been destroyed and the Yemeni army is now active again against the Houthis. The army seized a large shipment of Iranian weapons meant for the Houthis.
How long this truce will last is unclear. Iran was recently devastated by American and Israeli air strikes. Israeli and American air strikes continue to threaten any hostile activity in Yemen. The Houthis are still there, but currently have few weapons and are reluctant to start shooting again and risk more retribution.
Eighty percent of global trade moves via ships in a vast network of seagoing trade routes. China and the United States account for 43 percent of that trade, with China accounting for 17 percent and the Americans the rest. Anything that threatens this trade is a major problem and both America and China deal with the problem in their own ways. While the United States and its Western allies use warships and airstrikes against those who try to disrupt maritime trade, China prefers to bribe those who are attacking shipping to not attack Chinese ships.
When this Chinese immunity is noticed, China dismisses the accusations and claims its ship captains are simply more capable at avoiding attacks. This is obviously not the case and there the dispute ends in a muddle of mutual accusations. The current attacks are not destructive or widespread enough to do any serious damage to world trade. Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels had been firing Iran-supplied rockets and missiles at ships passing the Yemen coast headed for the Suez Canal starting after Israel invaded the Gaza Strip to stop Hamas from firing rockets at Israel. Many if not most of the ships that normally use the Suez Canal now prefer to take the long way around to reach the Mediterranean Sea. This can cost over a million dollars per ship while adding several weeks to the trip. This did not turn out to be as much of a disaster as expected. There was a surplus of cargo and tanker ships and the additional time needed by existing ships to reach their destination made it practical to put those surplus ships t
Other potential choke points include the Strait of Malacca, the Taiwan Straits, Strait of Gibraltar, Bass Strait, Strait of Hormuz, Singapore Strait, Bering Strait, Lombok Strait, Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, and Bosporus Strait.
While the Red Sea crisis was dealt with, a more ominous threat to global shipping is war involving various nations' submarines. This might mean a non-nuclear world war. Anti-submarine escorts are not available in large numbers and shipping companies, like their counterparts early during both world wars, would downplay the value of convoys and insist that they could avoid the submarines using new technology and tactics. When that doesn’t work the convoys are used and Anti-Submarine Warfare or ASW is allowed to evolve and come effective enough to reduce losses to a sustainable level.
Protecting sea transportation is a vital task for shipping companies and shipping insurance companies as most of the world's nations depend on this trade. Shipping companies complain that not enough work is being done by navies to protect shipping in wartime. How accurate that is will only be revealed if there is another submarine offensive against maritime trade.