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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1739 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Red Sea

Speaking of the Red Sea, things still look chaotic there. The US issued a “final warning” to the Houthis to stop attacking or face reprisal, which the Houthis immediately defied by attacking the next day. It’s been a week since then and it’s unclear to me if the west has escalated in any specific way.

Otherwise, tanker traffic still looks remarkably stable though the shipping behemoth Maesrk has recently put a pause on the route for their vessels though, despite the US sinking three Houthi vessels that attacked Maersk ships.

Don’t worry though, Sri Lanka has now announced they will join Operation Prosperity Guardian.

if the west has escalated in any specific way.

We now have an answer: https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-uk-coalition-strike-iran-backed-houthi-targets-yemen-spate-ship-attacks-red-sea

We sure do. It definitely feels like we're slipping more and more into a regional war, though maybe that's overly dramatic.

I don't think there will be something that looks like full-blown war, because there doesn't seem to be any western targets there for Houthis to strike beyond ships, and the US wouldn't go into a full scale invasion there, especially not in an election year. Some bombings would be enough to show Biden still has some cojones left, and I don't think it would go beyond that. More likely, there would be a repeat loop of what is already happening - Houthis attack some ships, the West does a dozen of warnings, then bombs something, rinse, repeat.

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