Shipping Chokes as Houthis Tighten Red Sea Grip; U.S. Commanders Convene

Ship-tracking data from Wednesday told a stark story: only three commercial vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz, down from 12 the previous day and well below the 10-day average of 17. That operational reality, playing out against Houthi seizures of Mocha and Perim Island along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, formed the backdrop for a secret gathering of senior military commanders from the United States, Israel, and Arab nations in Germany last week.

The meeting, organized by US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. Brad Cooper, brought together military chiefs from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt, according to Axios. CENTCOM confirmed it hosted senior military leaders from eight Middle Eastern countries to discuss opportunities for strengthening regional security cooperation, though the conference was not publicly announced in advance.

What the gathering reveals, however, is less a new alliance than the limits of one. Abdulaziz Alshaabani, a Saudi political analyst, cautioned against reading the meeting as evidence that Riyadh is moving toward direct military cooperation with Israel. “Any intelligence coordination would likely remain limited and pragmatic, while Riyadh continues to rely primarily on its own security mechanisms and broader regional frameworks,” he told The Media Line.

Saudi Arabia and Israel share concerns about Iran and, increasingly, about the Houthis, but they have no diplomatic relations. Operational necessity can produce intelligence exchanges, deconfliction or parallel military planning without resolving the political constraints that have prevented formal normalization.

The regional security architecture itself predates the current crisis. In July, CENTCOM said the United States and regional partners were operating what it described as a large active air- and missile-defense umbrella across the Middle East. A Middle Eastern air-defense coordination cell, established in January, was intended to improve information sharing, threat warnings and responses to regional contingencies. Whether those mechanisms are adequate to the current pressure is a different question.

Giuseppe Dentice, an analyst at the Observatory on the Mediterranean (OSMED), frames the moment through the erosion of confidence in Washington. “What is actually happening is what no one wanted: at this moment, there is total chaos,” he told The Media Line. “The United States is pulling itself out of everything, and the most paradoxical thing is that it is also part of this problem.”

For Dentice, governments are responding pragmatically rather than ideologically. “Everyone is acting for themselves, and within this ‘everyone for themselves’ approach, the Gulf states are the most prepared to seek some form of action,” he said. “Not so much to resolve the issue, because at this moment neither what is happening in the Red Sea nor what is happening in Hormuz can really be resolved, but rather to try to find some kind of compromise through diplomacy.”

Washington has so far resisted Saudi requests for direct American military action against the Houthis. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought US military assistance as Houthi pressure increased, according to Reuters, but Washington limited its involvement to intelligence and targeting support rather than direct strikes. Cooper met the crown prince in Jeddah this week as the crisis intensified.

Meanwhile, the United States has maintained a separate channel with the Houthis. Reuters reported that American officials met Houthi representatives at the US Embassy in Muscat, Oman, over the weekend. Sources familiar with the talks said the Houthi delegation pledged not to target US or Israeli vessels and said it would continue observing its previous arrangement with Washington, while excluding Saudi shipping from those commitments. The State Department declined to confirm the meeting.

Alexander Portnoy, an independent military and geopolitical analyst, argued that behind-the-scenes cooperation carries more weight than public declarations of alliance. “Military contacts and mutually beneficial cooperation between these countries ceased to be sensational news a long time ago,” he told The Media Line. He added that disclosure of such contacts can itself serve as strategic messaging, and that any Israeli involvement would take place behind the scenes.

Israel and Saudi Arabia increasingly face the same categories of weapons: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and long-range drones. Shared threats, though, do not necessarily produce a shared political strategy. Alshaabani rejected assessments suggesting that the latest Houthi advances make a ground offensive into Saudi Arabia the likely next stage. “Saudi Arabia is a vast country, while the Houthis remain a militia with limited capabilities. I do not see a ground invasion as the most likely scenario at this stage,” he said.

The more immediate operational concern, in his view, is the Houthis expanding their control in western Yemen and using that position to intensify missile, drone and maritime attacks against Saudi Arabia. Their territorial advances have so far been concentrated inside Yemen and along the Red Sea coast, but the pressure on Saudi defenses is already measurable. Riyadh said this week that it intercepted a Houthi drone south of Mecca. The Houthis denied targeting the holy city while acknowledging other operations against Saudi targets.

Saudi Arabia is also seeking additional support, approaching partners including Egypt, Pakistan, the UK and France as the conflict strains its missile-defense resources. No broad regional military intervention has materialized. Riyadh has also signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Turkey and Pakistan, which contains a collective-defense commitment, though its full text has not been made public and questions remain about how its provisions would operate in practice. Dentice read the pact as evidence of selective engagement rather than permanent alignment. “The Saudis are willing to talk to anyone, but not to bind themselves completely to anyone,” he said.

Portnoy viewed the Germany meeting itself as evidence that regional coordination is still being worked out. “If these countries were already prepared for a collective response, I do not think the meeting in Germany would have been necessary,” he said.

Dentice pointed to the central operational question: how long individual governments can absorb several interconnected crises before the pressure forces a miscalculation. “There is a strong interest among virtually all the actors in preventing Bab el-Mandeb from becoming another Hormuz,” he said. “But we are already very close to that situation. Everyone risks making the same mistakes, because even sending a strong military signal can become counterproductive. Not because the Houthis are militarily superior, but because they retain the ability to strike strategic assets.” With Hormuz already near paralysis and Bab el-Mandeb under growing Houthi pressure, the question of whether coordination can move faster than the crisis is the one that remains unanswered.