Andrew Craig-Bennett gives his take on shipping and the Middle East.
Well, isn’t life just wonderful! We have, for most practical purposes, one of our forebears’ favourite things, a Suez Canal closure! Just when the freight markets ought to be heading downwards, we are having a splendid time, because this closure has now gone on for long enough for our very favourite thing, port congestion, to kick in along with lots of out-of-position boxes, for those of us in the box business, nicely in time for our industry’s favourite party, Posidonia.
It’s time to rain on the parade.
We must all remember that, officially at least, this party can be stopped faster than most. President Biden took a shot at stopping it three days ago. He might succeed. If the Houthi crime family (that is what they are, a crime family, not “rebels”) run out of excuses for shooting randomly at ships (and it is random) the party is over. If Israel and Hamas stop shooting at one another, the Houthis run out of excuses. It will take a few weeks to get ships and cargoes back into their usual positions, but the party will be over.
Once this happens – and it could happen at any moment now – we go back to normal. Too many ships on order, the Great Fuel Muddle and a nagging feeling that world trade might not keep growing in the way that we are all used to, in terms of ton-miles by sea, because nation is, shall we say, less inclined to speak peace unto nation.
We don’t know what the fuel of the future is, but we know what the fuel of the next 10 years is; it’s dual fuel. Which helps nobody to plan anything, much. Dual fuel can mean a ship which actually can close and open a few valves and change fuel, or it can mean the footings for the tanks for the other fuel have been included in the block sections. In our business, we generally mean the latter, and we hope that nobody asks exactly what we do mean.
World trade might not keep growing in the way that we are all used to
The shipping industry hasn’t made much fuss about the Houthis firing assortments of missiles at ships because, let’s face it, this suits everyone who isn’t actually getting shot at, and that’s an awful lot more people than are getting shot at.
The Houthis have shown themselves so ignorant of, and so careless about, who owns what ship and which ship is carrying what to where, that when (and as noted it could be any day now) their excuse for firing missiles at completely innocent seafarers is taken away from them, nobody is going to trust them anyway.
We know what this crime family really want. They want to imitate the old Barbary pirates and charge a toll for innocent passage through “their” waters and perhaps they fancy a little extra piracy on the side, into the bargain, kidnapping crews and holding them to ransom. They are enjoying themselves at the moment; they have quite literally got away with murder, and who is going to tell them to stop?
I have no trouble believing the Islamic Republic of Iran when their Revolutionary Guards tell us that they cannot control the Houthis. That’s obvious. The Iranians can supply them with arms, but they cannot make them stop until those arms run out. The Iranians can stop the supplies, but that will take weeks and months, and we all know that the arms trade finds unexpected paths to deliver killing implements anyway.
This gives the regular merchant shipping industry a dilemma. Do we really (really?) want the Houthis to stop? Our distant ancestors were pretty relaxed about paying off the Barbary Corsairs until the brand new American republic came along and had no money to buy them off with, so they fought them.
The same probably applies here. The Houthis will probably be around until they really annoy someone, and get invaded.
Have you ever considered that it’s not an ‘excuse’ for the Houthis? They’ll stop blocking shipments to Israel when Israel stops committing genocide. A very simple calculation.
As for invading them when they get ‘too annoying’ (are they not already? We’ve already spent billions on hardware and deployment costs trying to fight them), Saudi Arabia spent almost a decade trying. What makes you think the US will do any better? The US has already shown that it has no ability to meaningfully suppress the armed forces of Yemen from a distance (and has been driven from the field in a clear defeat on at least one occasion). They can’t be bombed into submission, which means the only way to stop them is to go in on foot. We do that, and US troops start going home in body bags, in great numbers, just as Arab troops and African mercenaries did before them. This is also all happening in a post-Ukraine context where it’s been made abundantly clear the emperor has no clothes and much of NATO equipment and training isn’t fit for purpose. We invade Yemen and Yemen takes us to pieces.
“They’ll stop blocking shipments to Israel when Israel stops committing genocide. A very simple calculation.” Simple being the operative word for a number of reasons.
Have you ever considered that the Houthis are just anti-Sunni Shias? And as such oppose everything Sunni, i.e. Saudi Arabia, and support everything Shia, i.e. Iran. They are implacably opposed to an Israeli state, regardless of the existence of Hamas or IDF atrocities. They were opposed to Israel long before the current genocide.
So it is an excuse for the Houthis.
As long as Israel, Sunnis and Shias exist there will be conflict.
I guess I’ll point out how they weren’t doing any of this before the genocide started.
Yemen is a poor, half-starved (thanks to the US and the Gulf States) nation battered by nearly a decade of foreign pumped ‘civil war’. They didn’t have to take on the burden of making themselves another target of feckless foreigns powers so soon. They’ve done it because, surprise, they don’t like genocide. It is actually that freaking simple.
Bless. Don’t like reality do you., conspiracy theories are your forte.
You’re a cuck for the Saudis. Hell of a sight.
Thanks for proving me correct. You also need to attend a course n English comprehension
Welcome back, I was concerned about your absence!
“The Houthis will probably be around until they really annoy someone, and get invaded.” That is a Sunni prerogative, and their last foray resulted in exacerbating the long extant Afghanistan ‘troubles’.
“The Houthis have shown themselves so ignorant of, and so careless about, who owns what ship and which ship is carrying what to where,” Given how easy and swift it is to ascertain a vessel’s provenance I have been sceptical of their claims from the start, although the crime family label, beloved of 34Trump, is a novel take. What isblatantly obvious is they are as callous and dishonest as Bibi.
Thank you, David. When the world becomes exceptionally absurd, mere sarcasm no longer does the trick.
“Crime family” because they are more a family business than an ideology, and the criminality is beyond dispute.
Having lived through absurd times one has to agree we are currently beyond satire and sarcasm. I think we’ve been there before but some years before my time.
On reflection you are correct, it is a crime family.
PS. I still think your convoy idea should have been implemented, but that would have been less profitable.