In early 2025, the international community witnessed what some called a strategic win: the Houthi rebel group in Yemen announced it would halt its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and Gulf of Aden. To many in Washington and allied capitals, this announcement marked a turning point in a months-long irregular naval war. But did it really? Was air power the silver bullet that forced the Houthis to back off?
A U.S. Navy-led campaign of sustained air and missile strikes had hammered Houthi launch sites, radars, and logistical chains. Supporters of this approach pointed to the ceasefire as vindication of air dominance. Yet others, like military theorist Admiral J.C. Wylie and 19th-century strategist Carl von Clausewitz, would warn us not to celebrate too quickly.
So was it air power that “won” in the Red Sea? In the narrowest, most technical sense—perhaps. But as with most things in warfare, the reality is murkier, more complex, and arguably more temporary than the headlines suggest.
To understand the nature of this supposed victory, we have to look at what Wylie called the distinction between “sequential” and “cumulative” operations. Air and missile strikes fall into the latter category: tactical actions that don’t follow a linear plan but instead pile on pressure in the hope of reaching a tipping point. Wylie viewed them as supporting efforts, not decisive forces. They can degrade, delay, and punish—but they cannot control territory or impose lasting strategic outcomes.
This distinction matters when evaluating U.S. strategy against the Houthis. Air strikes degraded Houthi capabilities, yes. They destroyed infrastructure, disrupted operations, and forced the group to adapt. But they did not lead to peace. Houthi leaders were explicit: their fight against Israel would continue. The halt in maritime attacks was a tactical adjustment, not a surrender.
There was no occupation of ports. No boots on the ground to seize weapons caches or enforce order. In this view, air power didn’t bring victory. It nudged calculations.
To make sense of the Houthis’ partial retreat, it’s useful to revisit Clausewitz’s idea of political objectives and cost/benefit logic. Every war, Clausewitz wrote, is a political act. And the resources a group is willing to spend—men, money, time—depend on how much it values the objective.
But that value isn’t static. It changes as the costs rise. If a combatant is losing more than it’s gaining, the rational choice is to reassess.
In this case, it’s plausible the Houthis calculated that continued attacks on commercial vessels were no longer worth the price. The strikes weren’t pressuring Israel effectively, and the U.S.-led retaliation was eating away at valuable assets: missile stockpiles, radar stations, launch crews, and storage bunkers. What did the Houthis gain from this front of the war? Very little—especially when compared to their broader strategic goals tied to Gaza and Israel.
Air power didn’t force a total collapse. But it may have successfully distorted the Houthis’ internal cost-benefit ledger. That’s not nothing. But it’s not everything, either.
Let’s be clear: this is not a peace agreement. It’s a narrow ceasefire affecting one axis of conflict—the Red Sea shipping lanes. Houthi leaders emphasized that their hostility toward Israel remained unchanged. In fact, they explicitly stated that missile and drone attacks would continue against Israeli targets.
And they have. Since the ceasefire announcement, at least three attempted long-range missile strikes have been launched in Israel’s direction from Yemen. While most were intercepted, they’re a reminder that the ceasefire isn’t evidence of deterrence—it’s a tactical pivot.
Moreover, this pause in maritime attacks could be temporary. The Houthis have shown themselves to be agile and opportunistic. Should international resolve wane or should new vulnerabilities emerge, the group could easily revive this front of the conflict.
The Houthi maritime campaign was never about controlling sea lanes in a conventional sense. It was about disruption, economic pressure, and signaling. By threatening the flow of global commerce—particularly through one of the world’s most critical chokepoints—the Houthis sought to globalize their grievance, draw attention to the Gaza conflict, and indirectly pressure Israel through its allies.
But there’s a risk in such a strategy. Unlike attacks on military targets, indiscriminate assaults on commercial shipping lack a direct military payoff. They can alienate potential sympathizers, provoke wider retaliation, and shift the narrative away from legitimate political demands.
In this light, halting the maritime attacks may be as much about regaining control of the narrative as it is about preserving military hardware. If the campaign was doing more harm than good, the Houthis had reason to shift course—and air strikes merely accelerated that decision.
In Washington, London, and other coalition capitals, the temptation is strong to declare victory. After all, the Red Sea is safer—for now. Insurance premiums are dropping. Ships are returning. Mission accomplished?
That would be premature.
The Houthis are still active. The broader regional conflict still simmers. And crucially, the drivers of this confrontation—the Gaza war, Iranian influence, and Saudi-Houthi tensions—remain unresolved. Air power may have influenced behavior, but it didn’t solve the problem.
Declaring victory too soon risks strategic complacency. If the Houthis feel that they’ve bought themselves time to regroup while Washington lets down its guard, they may reemerge stronger and more lethal.
Yet it’s also worth pushing back against Wylie’s hardline skepticism of air power. While it’s true that cumulative effects rarely “win” wars outright, that doesn’t mean they’re meaningless.
If applied smartly and with consistency, cumulative operations can shape the battlefield, limit enemy options, and reinforce broader strategic aims. The campaign against the Houthis, for instance, showcased a fusion of intelligence, precision targeting, and diplomatic signaling. It disrupted launch networks, drove wedges between factions, and reassured allies.
And in asymmetric warfare, where there are no neat frontlines and no capitals to seize, shaping behavior may be the best-case outcome.
So perhaps the lesson here isn’t that air power is decisive. It’s that it can be consequential. And that might be enough—at least for now.
The Red Sea campaign wasn’t just about Houthis. It was a litmus test for broader U.S. deterrence in the Middle East. After years of retrenchment, allies wondered whether the U.S. still had the appetite to lead. Enemies, meanwhile, watched to see if Washington would stomach the cost of confrontation.
By mounting sustained strikes, coordinating coalition efforts, and forcing a tactical retreat, the U.S. signaled that it can still punch back. That message matters—not just to the Houthis, but to Tehran, Hezbollah, and others watching from the sidelines.
Still, messaging isn’t strategy. And air strikes aren’t policy. If the U.S. wants a durable outcome, it needs to connect tactical success to strategic endgames. That means pressure, yes—but also diplomacy, local partnerships, and long-term political solutions in Yemen and beyond.
So, did air power “win” in the Red Sea?
The honest answer is no—but it didn’t lose either. In the confined context of maritime security, it achieved a meaningful effect: it disrupted a dangerous campaign and altered enemy behavior. But it did not impose peace. It did not end the war. And it certainly did not remove the root causes of the conflict.
What air power did do was raise the cost of escalation for the Houthis—enough, perhaps, to make this one aspect of their campaign no longer worth pursuing. That’s a narrow win, but a win nonetheless.
