The Decibel - Another crucial strait that could strangle the global economy

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

A lot of attention has been given to the Strait of Hormuz amid Iran’s closure in response to attacks by the U.S. and Israel. But another key strait in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the coast of Yemen, has also been threatened with a shutdown, and it’s similarly vital to trade. Thomas Juneau is a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. As an expert on Yemen and the Houthis, Juneau discusses the importance of the strait, the relationship between Iran and the Houthis, and what it would mean if the Bab al-Mandeb Strait were closed. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A lot of attention recently has been paid to the Strait of Hormuz. That's the shipping route between Iran and Oman that funnels out 20% of the world's oil. Iran effectively blocked the strait after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks, and that closure has crippled the energy economy and sent U.S. President Donald Trump on several tirades. But today, we're talking about a different strait in the region that could also be blocked, blocked and cause more economic disruptions and escalate the war even further. It's called the Bob Alman-Dab Strait, and it's off the coast of Yemen. Today, we've got Tamaj You Know back on the show.

He's a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Yemen and the Houthi militia there. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Tamar, great to have you back on the show. Thanks for having me again. And just to say, we are talking just before noon on Tuesday, Eastern Time. So, Tamar, tell me about this other important strait, the Bob Elmandab Strait. Where exactly is it?

And what should we know about its geography? So the Bob Almandab is not quite as well known, but most people have heard at least about the Suez Canal, which is on the northern side of the Red Sea. So the Red Sea is the long north-to-south body of water. that is between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, so on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula, as opposed to the Persian Gulf, which is on the eastern side or the northeastern side, if you will, a large segment. Most of the eastern shore of the Red Sea is Saudi Arabia.

The Red Sea to the north connects to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal. The southern entrance to the Red Sea is called the Babalmandab, and from there, the waters open on the Gulf of Asia. Aiden, which is the body on the southern side of Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. And from the Gulf of Aden, it opens up to the Indian Ocean. So in that sense, the Red Sea, with its northern entrance to Suez Canal, its southern entrance to Babalmandab, is an extraordinarily important body of water that is at the heart of trading routes between Europe and Asia. Because the whole point of the Suez Canal, right, was to really massively reduce shipping times from Europe to Asia so that you can go through Egypt, the Red Sea, and then off to India, Asia. as opposed to going through all around southern Africa.

And just so we can get a sense of the countries that surround Babelmandab, what countries are we talking about here? So on the western side of the Babalmandab, you have the Horn of Africa, with countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, and just a bit to the south Somalia, so weak states, unstable states. And on the eastern side of the Babelmandab, you have Yemen that I think we're going to talk about more today, with parts of Yemen controlled by the Houthi group. All right. Thank you for putting all that geography into perspective. What else is really interesting about this straight is that it is like the Strait of Harmuz. It is also very narrow.

At its weakest point, the Babelmandab is about 30 kilometers wide. The Red Sea as a whole, if you picture a map in your mind, is very long and narrow. But where it really narrows the most, and that's why it's called the Strait is the Babel Mandab. It is just over 30 kilometers wide. How important is this straight, the Babel Mandab? What goes through it? So the Babalmandab sees on in regular times, so until a couple of years ago, three years ago, about 10% of daily oil production globally would transit through the Babalmandab. That's actually a bit less than the Strait of Hormuz, which would see in normal times about 20% of global oil production. That being said, where the Babelmandab is, by other indicators, much more important is that what goes through the Babelmandab, in normal times, is far more diversified. It's not just oil that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. We are seeing now helium fertilizers, a couple other important products, but by and large,

the importance of the Strait of Hormuz is really oil. The Babelmandab is much more diversified. You have a significant proportion of trade in all kinds of goods that goes from Europe to Asia with multiple different countries involved that goes through the Babelmandab. So the threat, yes, is to global energy markets, but it is far broader than that. And I imagine that if the Babelamadab is closed, then even, even if the Babelamadab is closed, then even though there's less oil going through that area, if the street of Hormuz is closed and that is also closed, that creates a huge problem for the global oil markets. It creates multiple problems and they're really amplified by the possibility, which remains theoretical for now, but it's a real possibility that both would be closed at the same time.

And there's a really important nuance here that in the 1980s, just to give a tiny bit of historical background, there was a brutal war between Iran and Iraq from 1980 to 1988, more than half a million dead with a lot of oil shipping in the Persian Gulf. Strait of Hormuz, like today, that was closed or at least reduced significantly. After the year, Saudi Arabia learned the lesson and built what it calls an east-west pipeline. So it's a pipeline that goes from the Saudi coast of the Persian Gulf across the massive Saudi country desert to the Red Sea. It is a pipeline that has a capacity of about 5 million barrels of oil per day. That is about a quarter of what usually goes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 20 million barrels of oil per day, in peacetime, of course. The whole point of that pipeline was to be

able to shift Saudi export capacity from the Strait of Hormuz, in the case that it was being shut, to the Red Sea. We have seen in the past month and a bit over a month, now Saudi Arabia effectively doing that, maximizing its capacity through that pipeline and sending oil through its port of Yanbu, which is on the Saudi coast of the Red Sea, pretty far from Yemen, on the northern side of Saudi Arabia. Now, that is not enough. to fully compensate for the lost export capacity of the Strait of Hormuz. It's about 5 million out of 20 million barrels, about a quarter, give or take, you know, a bit. Part of the threat, if the Houthis decide to close the Babelmandab in the coming days or weeks, who knows,

is that that compensation of Saudi export capacity would also be lost. So the effect on world oil markets would just be amplified. So what happens to the ships coming from the Suez Canal if the Bob Elmandeb straight is closed? So in 2024, in 2025, at various moments, in response to the war in Gaza by Israel against Hamas, the Houthis started attacking maritime shipping in the Red Sea, close to the Babal Manda, but also a bit further up north. They did hit a few ships. They actually sank a couple ships, and it did cause in at least a couple instances serious environmental damage. As we are seeing now in the Persian Gulf, shipping companies are quite risk-averse.

If there's a risk that they're going to be hit, whether by Iran, in the Persian Gulf or by the Houthis in the Red Sea, they will not go. They will not take the risk. In the case of the Persian Gulf, there is no alternative because it's a closed body of water, with the exception of Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline through which it can divert a portion of its oil export capacity. In the case of the Red Sea, there is an alternative. The alternative for shipping between Europe and Asia is to go all around the southern coast of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. So it is doable. It's just that it adds a lot of time, two to three weeks, depending on what exactly the trajectory is. And therefore, it adds significant costs because

you have to pay the sailors, you have to pay the fuel to the ships. It just takes more time, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, so there is an alternative to getting around the Babel Mendeb, but of course, like you said, it's very expensive and it would take quite a bit more time. So, yeah, that's not exactly ideal here. You mentioned a couple times, the Houthis, and I want to bring that into the conversation just to make sure we are on the same page here. So how are the Houthis involved in this straight? So the Houthis, just to give a tiny bit of a background are a group that emerged in northwest Yemen in the 1980s and 90s. They were dissatisfied with what they perceived, and they were quite right in perceiving that at their economic,

political, cultural marginalization in northwest Yemen. They belong to a different branch of Shia Islam. They are called Zaidi Shia Muslims, so not quite the same as the dominant Shia in Iran and Iraq, in Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Over the years, they emerged from a dissatisfied group into an armed insurgency. In the 2000s, there were several rounds of violence, increasingly difficult. And then, long story short, the Arab uprising comes to Yemen in 2011. We saw what happened in Egypt and Syria and other parts of the region. In Yemen, the government becomes extremely vulnerable.

The president is overthrown by popular protests. And then in 2014, the Houthis emerged from the northwest, and they seized the capital of Sana. And ever since then, they have steadily consolidated their control in the northwest of the country. Today, they control only about one-third of Yemen, but that third includes the capital, and it includes about two-thirds of the country's population. So they don't control the entire country, but they are the dominant actor in Yemen. Where this becomes really important is that the Houthis are close to Iran. Ideologically, they are aligned with Iran. They share Iran's anti-Israel, anti-American views.

They are very much opposed to Saudi Arabia. And over the years, they have received a lot of support from Iran. military support, but also political, diplomatic, and a bit of economic support as well. So the Houthis, in that sense, are an Iranian partner similar, but not the same way that Hesbola is in Lebanon, that Hamas is in the Gaza Strip. This whole constellation, right, of Iran and armed groups that it supports throughout the region. We often call them the Axis of Resistance. The Houthis have now emerged as one of the key members of the Axis of Resistance. And in fact, whereas for years, we said that Hezbollah and Lebanon was kind of

the dominant other member of the Axis of Resistance. We sometimes called it the deputy of Iran in the Axis of Resistance. Hezbollah having been so weakened in the past couple of years by Israel and the Houthis having been strengthened in many ways over the years, they are now Iran's most valuable partner in the Axis. And the Houthis, I guess, effectively control the strait the strait. It's a bit like what Iran is doing in the Strait of Hormuz. They control the straight in a narrow sense. Right now, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz in the sense that it has attacked a few ships. Everybody knows that it could attack more ships. Therefore, ships are not willing to go through the Strait of Hormuz unless they get permission from Iran. So that is a real blockage

of the Strait of Hormuz right now. The Houthis in 24 and 25, they did block the Babel Mandab. Right now, they have actually stopped attacks. There have not been attacks since 2025, but the whole point is that everybody knows that they could do it again, even if right now they are not doing it. Right. Okay. That's possible. That makes it very risky. And of course, there's insurance issues when it comes to ships going through and therefore there's that threat there. But I'm curious, Tamo, why are there concerns that this straight might close now? What's going on? So when the war started on February 28th, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, a number of analysts predicted that the Houthis would start attacking shipping in the Red Sea right away

to come out in support of Iran in this war. They didn't. So the question then was, why haven't they done it so far? And could they do it? There's still a debate on that issue among Yemen watchers. The general view is that the Houthis could still do it. It's a latent possibility. It's a threat in reserve that Iran and the Houthis are keeping.

I think a lot of us thought that if the Islamic Republic had been on the verge of collapse as the result of the war right now, the Houthis would have done it to really save their close partner in Iran. Right now, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not on the verge of collapse, right? We have seen that with the war right now. It is being badly hit. It is suffering a lot, but it is not on the verge of collapse. So the Houthis right now are probably thinking, well, we're not going to enter this war fully right now. We want to make sure that everybody knows that we could.

But I do think that they're reluctant to enter the war because they know that if they do start attacking shipping in the Red Sea, the Houthis, that the U.S. and Israel will hit them. will retaliate and will retaliate hard. In 2024 and then even more so in 2025, when the Houthis did attack shipping in the Red Sea, the U.S. and Israel did strike back at the Houthis. And some of these strikes, especially in the spring and summer of 2025, so almost a year ago now, the U.S. and Israel did inflict significant damage on the Houthis. Not enough to fully deter them, certainly not enough to overthrow them, but enough to inflict a degree of pain, that is inducing a certain sense of caution on the side of the Houthis. So I don't think we can conclude that the Houthis will not

block shipping in the Red Sea. They could, especially if the war really escalates between the U.S. and Iran. But right now, the Houthis are, you know, being cautious about it. We'll be right back. Tamah, there was a recent post on Twitter or X from a high-ranking advisor in Iran, Ali Akbar Belayati, saying, quote, today, the unified command of the resistance front views Bab al-Mandab as it does Hormuz. If the White House dares to repeat its foolish mistakes, it will soon realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single move, end quote. You said earlier that the Houthis aren't controlled by Iran.

So, I mean, how much stock should we be putting into this comment? Well, I think when the Houthis themselves or Iranian officials, and Valiati is a quite influential member in the regime, when they say that, it is meant as a sense. signal to remind the international community that they still have this leverage that they haven't used so far, and that if they do use it, yes, everybody understands that it would be very costly for the Houthis, but at the same time, it would be extremely costly for the global economy. So it's a signal. Specifically on your question, of the degree of control that Iran has over the Houthis, there is a debate on that issue, and there's no clear consensus. Clearly, we know

very well now, and I've written a lot about this over the years. Iran provides a lot of military and other forms of support to the Houthis. Does that mean that the Houthis are an arm of Iranian foreign policy that basically Iran presses a button, orders, and the Houthis execute? My view is that that is absolutely not the way the relationship works. The Houthis are extremely aggressively nationalist. I mean, they are blotly xenophobic as a group in many ways. They are radical.

They are extremely zealous in many ways. They're very violent, but they don't take orders from Iran. They certainly don't view themselves as subordinate from Iran. It's a group that has a very messianic view of itself and of its leadership and of its role in Yemen and in the broader region. So to me, the way the relationship works is that, yes, they're closely aligned ideologically and politically. They share many interests. But when the Houthis act or don't act, it is the product of joint coordination between the two of them. And ultimately, it's a Houthi decision.

In terms of the war, have we seen any involvement by the Houthis' in this war so far? Very limited involvement. But the one thing that we did see was on Saturday, about 10 days ago, so in late March, the Houthis did send one missile on Israel. When that happened, of course, what everybody was watching for was, is this a prelude to the Houthi starting attacks in the Red Sea? Throughout the hours and then, you know, one day, two days after that Houthi missile strike

on Israel, that was what everybody was watching. And it didn't happen. So my reading of that Houthi missile strike on Israel was that it was a signal. It was just a way for the Houthis to remind everybody, we're here, we could do this, because on its own, the Houthi missile strike on Israel militarily was irrelevant. Israeli air defenses were easily able to swat it down. It did not cause any physical damage inside Israel, but it was really meant, I think, as a signal. You talked about the conflict between the U.S. and the Houthis in 2020.

to 2025. And that resulted in a ceasefire in 2025. What kind of state are the Houthis in right now? What do we know? Well, the Houthis, like we said at the beginning, control about one-third of the territory in Yemen with about two-thirds of the population. They are dominant in Yemen, politically and militarily. But the main reason why they are dominant, in addition, of course, to Iranian military assistance, is the weakness of their rivals. The anti-Houthi coalition, which we call nominally the internationally recognized government, which is the government of Yemen, according to the international community. The problem is that the internationally recognized government of Yemen is fragmented. It is weak. It is corrupt. It is viewed as illegitimate by a number of Yemenis.

And it has spent over the years as much time fighting amongst itself, with the different factions fighting amongst themselves, sometimes militarily, sometimes just politically bickering, as opposed to really getting their act together, forming a cohesive anti-Houthi front that can really take on the Houthis. There is not a coalition of actors today or tomorrow that can take them on militarily, but they are vulnerable in many ways. Yemen is an extremely poor country. It has been ravaged by war for decades.

So the Houthis do think that they are vulnerable and that a massive campaign of American airstrikes wouldn't necessarily lead to their overthrow, but would be very, very challenging for them. Do the Houthis have the firepower to attack ships going through the strait? Absolutely. The Houthis have two sources of firepower. First of all, when they took over the northwestern third of Yemen, they absorbed many units from the Yemeni military. So they got missiles, boats, intelligence services, some army units that they really absorbed by force in many cases. In addition, on top of that, they have received a lot of Iranian assistance. So now they are able to quite effectively target shipping in the Red Sea with missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. They also have drones. And again, in large part, thanks to Iranian assistance. And one important evolution here is that they have aerial drones. So basically planes that are unmanned, that they can guide on stacked with explosives, that they can guide on ships.

But they also have surface water drones. So basically, speedboats that they stack with explosives and then that they can guide. So unmanned speedboats that will swarm and crash on ships. They have also developed subsurface drones. i.e. really small submarines, very basic, very rudimentary. This is not technologically advanced stuff, but more than enough to threaten shipping. And here the key point is, again, to remember, the block shipping in a small strait like this Babelmandab or the Strait of Hormuz, you don't need super advanced stuff. You need pretty rudimentary short-range missiles and drones

that are able to threaten, just to threaten to target ships to convince the vast majority, if not the totality of ships that they will not take the risk of going through. So we've kind of laid out here that this threat is a real threat, but that there's probably a lot of considerations here for the Houthis in terms of effectively blocking the strait. So what are the considerations for the Houthis in deciding whether to get more involved in this conflict by blocking the strait? Well, the main consideration for the Houthis is really, in the short term,

the threat of American and or Israeli retaliation. And here, just to add on what we said earlier, there's an important nuance. In 2024, the U.S. with the U.K. a bit, attacked the Houthis after they started attacking shipping in the Red Sea. The damage on the Houthis was limited because there was a lot of restraint on the U.S. and the U.K. and because they had quite poor intelligence on the Houthis. In 2025, when the U.S., and this time Israel as well, in the spring and summer of 25, started attacking the Houthis, A, there was far less restraint. They hit the Houthis a lot harder than in 2024. But also, the really interesting evolution was the quality of the intelligence. And of course, there's a lot

we don't know in public, but you can see it based on what is being hit. In 2024, it was large immobile Houthi targets, so military bases that were being hit, launchers on the coast. In 2025, you saw military leaders being hit, civilian leaders, weapons production sites, weapons stockpiles, including smaller ones. So clearly there was a huge investment on the part of the US and Israel to improve the quality of their intelligence on the Houthis, and you can only assume that now in 26, that intelligence would be even better. And you can only assume, even if I can't prove that, that the Houthis know this. So on their part, the major constraint here is the fear that the damage that was already heavy in 2025 would be even heavier in 26. Tama, I also imagine the Houthis

wouldn't want to provoke Saudi Arabia by blocking the Babel-Mandab Strait. Is that right? That's a really difficult and delicate calculus that the Houthis have to make. I mean, the Houthis were at war with Saudi Arabia for many years. If you go back to 2015, Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention to try to roll back Houthi gains, push Iranian influence out of Yemen, out of the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It's a war that failed in the sense that the Houthis not only were not defeated, but they came out stronger for that war.

Since 2022, that war has not ended, but it's been much more stable in the sense that the violence between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has been largely contained. There's been an on and again, off again peace process between the two of them to try to negotiate an end of the war. So from the Houthis perspective, to start attacking shipping in the Red Sea and thereby severely damage the Saudi economy as opposed to, in addition to the global economy as a whole, is something that they have to keep in mind because they do want to manage that relationship with Saudi Arabia. So, Tama, after what you've laid out here today, how likely do you think it is that the Houthis will block this straight?

Like, is this something that we should be thinking about imminently? Or what did you say to that? I really struggle to make precise predictions in this war because President Trump in particular is so unpredictable. And the Houthis, you know, we understand them better today, but it's not a group we understand well. At the very least, it's a possibility. And it's a possibility we need to think of.

And, you know, it's a possibility that I have to hope, even if I'm not fully confident, that the U.S. Trump administration now. is taking into consideration as it lays out its options for the next steps in the war with Iran. Because the economic impact of the Houthis formally joining the war and shutting down traffic in the Bab al-Mandab in terms of global supply chains, in terms of oil prices shooting up to $150, $200 per barrel, the impact on inflation, the impact on an eventual global recession, etc. would just really magnify the economic impact that we are only starting to feel now from what is going on in the Persian Gulf.

Tamar, I appreciate you coming back on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks. That was Tamar Junot, a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our associate producers and interns are Finn Dermot and Emily Conahan. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby.

Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.