How the Yemen war, Red Sea insecurity and the Suez Canal are reshaping the maritime link between Asia, Europe and the Middle East
Update, September 16, 2026: Egypt Is Now Part of the Bab el-Mandeb Security Equation
The regional picture has shifted significantly over the past 24 hours. After the Houthi advance along Yemen's Red Sea coast and the capture of strategically important positions around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Saudi Arabia has begun seeking additional external support. Reuters reported on September 16 that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman travelled to Cairo to seek help in containing the fallout, with regional sources saying Riyadh wanted Egypt to play a role in Red Sea operations. At the same time, Associated Press reported that Saudi Arabia is seeking military assistance from several partners, including Egypt, France, Britain and Pakistan, as its missile-interceptor stocks come under growing pressure. Neither Reuters nor AP reported that these countries had committed to direct military support at the time of publication.
This development adds a new dimension to the Red Sea crisis. Egypt is no longer simply a downstream economic beneficiary of the Suez route or a state indirectly affected by instability at Bab el-Mandeb; it is now being discussed as a potential participant in the regional security response. That distinction matters because any Egyptian role would connect the security of the southern Red Sea more directly to Egypt's strategic interests around the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that U.S. officials had met Houthi representatives in Oman, indicating that military escalation and diplomatic engagement are now unfolding simultaneously.
The contradiction at the heart of the crisis is becoming clearer. Shipping is returning to the Suez route even as Bab el-Mandeb becomes more dangerous. On September 15, The Wall Street Journal reported that Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd were restoring four additional container services through the Red Sea and Suez Canal after years of largely avoiding the route. Yet the security environment continued to deteriorate, with Reuters reporting a decline in vessel traffic through Bab el-Mandeb. The result is an increasingly unusual situation in which the economic logic of the Suez route is pulling shipping back toward the corridor at the same time that security risks are pushing in the opposite direction.
Update: Shipping Is Returning to Suez—Even as Bab el-Mandeb Gets More Dangerous
A striking contradiction has emerged in the Red Sea shipping crisis. On Sept. 15, 2026 7:01 am ET, A.P. Moller-Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announced the return of four additional container services to the Suez Canal route, extending a gradual resumption of services linking Asia with the Mediterranean and Europe. The carriers had largely avoided the Red Sea for nearly three years because of Houthi attacks, choosing instead the longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope. The Wall Street Journal reported that the companies are nevertheless continuing to monitor the security situation closely as the Houthis strengthen their position around the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint.
The significance of this development goes beyond the return of individual shipping services. It creates a strategic paradox: commercial incentives are pushing shipping back toward the Suez route at the same time that security risks around Bab el-Mandeb are rising again. On September 15, Reuters reported that vessel traffic through Bab el-Mandeb had fallen from 28 to 21 transits in a single day as the regional conflict intensified. The result is not necessarily a closed maritime corridor, but a more uncertain one—where shorter routes remain economically attractive even as the cost of security risk increases.
For Egypt, this distinction is critical. The question is no longer simply whether ships will return to the Suez Canal, but whether the return can become durable enough to restore the strategic advantage of the Suez route. If shipping companies continue to regard Bab el-Mandeb as too risky, the economic logic of returning to Suez could once again be undermined by security concerns. The future of the canal therefore depends not only on the safety of the waterway itself, but also on the stability of the maritime corridor that connects it to the Indian Ocean.
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| Bab el-Mandeb Strait Satellite Image |
hese developments are particularly significant because the two straits do not function as isolated geographical points. Together with the Suez Canal, they form parts of a wider maritime system linking the energy-producing Gulf region with Asian markets and European consumers. When one route becomes insecure, shipping can sometimes be redirected. But when several routes are disrupted at the same time, the available alternatives become fewer, more expensive, and strategically more important.
This is why the latest developments in Yemen matter far beyond Yemen itself. The rapid Houthi advance along the western coast, including the capture of the port of Mokha, Perim Island, and more recently the Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands, has brought the group closer to the physical geography of the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint. Reuters and other major international outlets have described the advance as a growing threat to one of the world's most important shipping corridors.
The crucial issue, however, is not simply whether the Houthis can achieve permanent and comprehensive control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That would be too narrow a way to understand the strategic problem. The more consequential question is whether a non-state actor can acquire enough territorial, military, and political leverage around the chokepoint to make international shipping more expensive, more uncertain, and more vulnerable.
In strategic terms, that distinction matters. A maritime chokepoint does not need to be physically closed to become politically powerful. The ability to raise the risk of passage, increase insurance premiums, alter sailing schedules, or force shipping companies to consider longer routes can itself constitute a form of strategic influence. Recent scholarship on the Red Sea describes precisely this kind of transformation, arguing that Houthi attacks since late 2023 have helped produce a new, hybrid security environment in which land-based conflicts and maritime insecurity increasingly interact.
Bab el-Mandeb Is More Than a Strait
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is only about 30 kilometers wide at its narrowest points, but its strategic importance is vastly greater than its physical dimensions suggest. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean system, while the Red Sea itself links directly to the Suez Canal. The result is a maritime corridor in which developments at the southern entrance can affect the economic value of the northern exit.
Academic research published in 2025 emphasized this connection by examining the maritime security environment stretching from the Suez Canal to Bab el-Mandeb as a single strategic corridor. The study argues that this corridor is not only one of the world's most important commercial routes, but also a major arena for military presence, strategic competition, and power projection.
The same logic is reflected in the International Maritime Organization's recent assessments. The IMO has continued to monitor attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and has stressed that the security of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden requires regional cooperation involving countries on both sides of the maritime system, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
This regional dimension is increasingly visible in the current crisis. The fighting in Yemen is taking place on the Asian side of the Red Sea, but its consequences are immediately visible on the African side as well. Djibouti has become an important destination for Yemenis fleeing the renewed conflict, while its own strategic location at the southern end of the Red Sea makes it deeply exposed to any deterioration in maritime security. The IMO recently brought Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen together in a regional maritime security dialogue precisely because these threats can no longer be treated as separate national problems.
The Global Shipping Problem Is Really a Geography Problem
The current crisis illustrates a basic principle of maritime geopolitics: distance is a strategic variable.
When commercial vessels can move safely through the Suez Canal, Asia-Europe trade benefits from a relatively short connection between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. When the Bab el-Mandeb becomes dangerous, shipping companies have another option—sailing around the Cape of Good Hope—but that alternative adds substantial distance, time, fuel consumption, and operational cost.
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| Shipping companies are returning — while the threat is rising. |
The economic importance of this distinction was already demonstrated during the previous Red Sea crisis. A 2026 peer-reviewed study on Gulf maritime security estimated that the Suez-Bab el-Mandeb route can save roughly 40 percent in distance and travel time compared with the Cape of Good Hope alternative for some Gulf-to-Europe journeys, while disruptions have pushed up shipping and logistics costs, as well it affected consumer prices in Europe and the United States.
The latest crisis is therefore emerging at a particularly sensitive moment. EIA data show that oil flows through both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb remain constrained and variable. The agency estimates that oil-production shut-ins averaged 6.7 million barrels per day in August and expects Middle Eastern flows to remain constrained through the fourth quarter of 2026. It also notes that attacks affecting Saudi oil exports through Bab el-Mandeb have reduced shipments from Yanbu, the kingdom's major Red Sea export terminal and one of the most important alternatives to Hormuz.
This creates a particularly unusual strategic situation: the two principal maritime exits from the Gulf energy system are simultaneously becoming less reliable, while alternative land infrastructure is also being tested.
Why the Suez Canal Is at the Center of the Story?
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| Major shipping route connecting the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden. |
For Egypt, this is where the issue becomes more than an international shipping problem.
The Suez Canal is geographically located in the north of the system, but its commercial effectiveness depends partly on the security of the route leading to it from the south. The canal itself can remain open and fully operational while the broader maritime corridor becomes unattractive to shipping companies.
This is precisely why Egypt's strategic interest in Bab el-Mandeb is not reducible to the canal's direct revenues. Cairo's interest is also tied to preserving the geographic advantage that makes the canal economically valuable in the first place.
The Suez Canal Authority has continued to work on restoring confidence in the canal and strengthening relationships with global shipping companies. In September 2026, the Authority held talks with Lloyd's List Intelligence on maritime services and crisis management, while its earlier statements emphasized the canal's role in global maritime connectivity.
These developments reveal the strategic interdependence of the two waterways. Suez and Bab el-Mandeb are not two separate shipping stories; they are two ends of the same corridor.
The New Yemen Crisis Is Different
The current escalation also differs from the earlier Red Sea crisis in one important respect: geography is becoming more central.
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| Perim Island lies within the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. |
The capture of Mokha placed Houthi forces within roughly 50 kilometers of Bab el-Mandeb, according to reporting by the Financial Times. The subsequent seizure of Perim Island brought the group directly into the geography of the strait itself. Reports on September 15 indicated that Greater and Lesser Hanish had also fallen under Houthi control, further extending their position along the southern Red Sea.
That does not automatically mean that the Houthis can permanently dominate the entire international maritime route. Nor does it establish that the strait has become formally closed. It does, however, change the strategic geography of the conflict.
A group operating mainly through missiles and drones can threaten ships from a distance. A group that also controls coastal territory and strategically placed islands acquires additional options: surveillance, coastal missile deployment, logistics, political leverage, and the ability to shape perceptions of risk around the maritime corridor.
This is one reason recent academic work has described the Red Sea as a hybrid security complex, rather than a conventional maritime security environment. The security of shipping is increasingly inseparable from the political control of territory onshore.
The Saudi Question!
The Saudi dimension is unavoidable, but it should not be reduced to a simple contest between Riyadh and Tehran.
Saudi Arabia has legitimate national security concerns. The Houthis have intensified attacks on Saudi military and civilian targets, while Yanbu and other Red Sea sites have come under heightened security pressure. Reuters reported on September 15 that Saudi authorities had issued alerts in several cities, including Yanbu, while Saudi and U.S. officials continued to coordinate over the escalating threat.
From an Egyptian perspective, however, another question deserves attention: what kind of regional order could emerge if Saudi influence over Yemen's western coast were to become more durable?
That is not an argument that Saudi Arabia should be denied legitimate security interests. It is an argument against treating Yemen as if its political future can be permanently organized around the interests of a stronger outside power.
The ethical issue matters here because Yemen's long conflict has already demonstrated the risks of externalized state-building through competing regional patrons. Research on the Saudi-Emirati role in Yemen has documented how the two states supported different local actors and developed overlapping but sometimes competing strategic interests, particularly around ports, islands, and coastal territories.
A durable political settlement that leaves Yemen fragmented into externally dependent zones would therefore represent a strategic problem even if it reduced one immediate threat. It could simply replace one form of instability with another.
What If Saudi and Emirati Interests Converge Again?
This is where the wider Red Sea picture becomes particularly important for Egypt.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have not always pursued identical objectives in Yemen. In fact, research published in 2026 describes their competition there as having moved from managed rivalry toward open confrontation during the previous phase of the conflict. The UAE has developed its own interests around ports, maritime routes, and southern Yemeni actors, while Saudi Arabia has placed greater emphasis on border security and the political structure of Yemen.
It would therefore be premature to assume that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are once again operating as a fully coordinated bloc.
But it is strategically reasonable to examine what would happen if their relations improved significantly and their cooperation in security, logistics, ports, energy, and maritime affairs deepened again.
The concern from an Egyptian perspective would not be that Saudi-Emirati cooperation is inherently hostile to Egypt. On the contrary, Cairo maintains close and historically significant relations with Riyadh, and Egyptian officials continue to describe Saudi security as closely connected to Egyptian national security. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi reiterated this position in early September, while Egyptian and Saudi officials have continued high-level coordination during the current crisis.
The strategic concern is structural rather than conspiratorial. If one interconnected network of relationships were to extend across the Gulf, Yemen, the Red Sea, and the Horn of Africa, it could gradually reshape the distribution of influence around Egypt even without being designed as an anti-Egyptian strategy.
Such a distinction is essential.
From the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa
The Red Sea cannot be analyzed separately from the Horn of Africa because the two sides of the maritime corridor are strategically linked.
Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia are all affected by developments around the southern Red Sea, although in very different ways. Ports, naval access, logistics infrastructure, military partnerships, and political alignments have increasingly connected the African and Arabian shores of the Red Sea into one strategic space. Recent scholarship on the region argues that maritime power, port investment and geopolitical competition are helping to redefine the Red Sea as a regional security system whose boundaries do not stop at the shoreline.
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| The Red Sea strategic space linking Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Horn of Africa. |
This matters directly for Egypt because the Horn of Africa is also where several of Cairo's other strategic concerns converge: Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland, and the wider Nile Basin.
The same geography that carries maritime commerce toward Suez also contains the political and military environment in which Egypt must manage its interests further south.
That is why an escalation at Bab el-Mandeb can eventually become relevant to the Nile even when no water physically moves between the two systems.
Note that the connection is strategic rather than hydrological.
The Nile and the Red Sea Are Separate Systems—But Not Separate Strategic Problems
Egypt's dependence on the Nile is fundamentally different from its dependence on maritime routes. One is a freshwater system; the other is a global shipping corridor. Yet both operate within the same broader strategic geography.
Sudan links the Nile Basin to the Red Sea. Ethiopia links the Blue Nile to the Horn of Africa. Djibouti and Somalia occupy positions on the maritime routes connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Yemen controls the Asian side of the Bab el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia dominates much of the Arabian Red Sea coast. And Egypt controls the northern gateway through which this maritime system reaches the Mediterranean.
Due to why the strategic significance of Bab el-Mandeb for Egypt cannot be measured only by the canal's daily traffic.
The deeper issue is whether Egypt's surrounding strategic environment is becoming more fragmented, more contested, and more dependent on relationships among external powers.
Is Egypt Facing a Strategic Encirclement?
The available evidence does not justify describing the current situation as a unified plan to "encircle" Egypt.
There are too many independent actors, competing interests, and unresolved rivalries for such a conclusion to be analytically convincing. Saudi Arabia and the UAE themselves have experienced serious disagreements over Yemen, while Iran, the Houthis, the United States, Israel, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and other actors pursue objectives that do not necessarily coincide.
However; there is another possibility that deserves more attention: cumulative strategic narrowing.
Several developments can constrain a state's strategic room for manoeuvre even when they are not parts of a single coordinated strategy. A more contested Bab el-Mandeb, unstable Yemen, changing port alignments in the Horn of Africa, prolonged conflict in Sudan, growing competition over Red Sea infrastructure, and continuing tensions around the Nile can together create a denser and more difficult strategic environment for Egypt.
The significance lies in the accumulation.
Egypt does not need to face a single adversary controlling every route around it for its strategic flexibility to decline. It is enough for the surrounding spaces to become more crowded with rival powers, competing networks, external military partnerships, and fragile local states.
That is the essence of cumulative strategic narrowing.
The Question Europe and the United States Should Be Asking
For European and American policymakers, the significance of the current crisis is broader than the immediate Houthi-Saudi confrontation.
If both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb remain unstable, the consequences will extend beyond the Middle East. European importers, Asian exporters, shipping companies, insurers, energy traders, and governments all have to account for a maritime system in which two major chokepoints can become simultaneously unreliable. EIA's latest outlook already treats the disruptions as an important factor in oil-market uncertainty through the end of 2026.
For Europe in particular, the Suez route remains strategically valuable because it provides the shortest maritime connection between Asian production centers and European markets for many types of cargo. For the United States, meanwhile, the crisis raises questions about the cost and sustainability of protecting maritime commerce across multiple interconnected theaters rather than a single isolated chokepoint.
The question is therefore not simply whether Western navies can escort ships through a dangerous corridor.
It is whether the international system can maintain the economic and political conditions that make the corridor usable in the first place.
Conclusion: The Chokepoint Is Only the Visible Part of the Problem
The latest crisis in Yemen demonstrates once again that a maritime chokepoint is never only a geographical feature.
Bab el-Mandeb is a point where geography becomes strategy. Its importance comes from the fact that large-scale movement between the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean is concentrated through a relatively narrow corridor. Any actor capable of raising the cost or risk of passage can therefore acquire influence far beyond the territory it controls.
That is what makes the current Houthi advance so significant. The capture of Mokha, Perim Island and the Hanish Islands does not automatically amount to permanent control over the entire maritime corridor. But it strengthens the group's position in the very geography from which pressure on shipping can be exercised.
For Egypt, the implications are larger still.
The security of the Suez Canal depends not only on the canal itself, but on the stability of the maritime system that connects it to the Gulf of Aden. The future political order in Yemen therefore matters to Cairo even when Egypt is not a direct party to the conflict.
At the same time, the possibility of expanded Saudi influence along Yemen's Red Sea coast, combined with the possibility of renewed or deeper Saudi-Emirati cooperation in maritime and logistical affairs, deserves careful attention—not because such cooperation must be directed against Egypt, but because any durable redistribution of power around the Red Sea can affect Egypt's strategic room for manoeuvre.
This is why the present crisis should not be reduced to a contest between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, or between Iran and its regional adversaries.
The larger question is whether the maritime geography connecting Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea and Suez is becoming progressively more vulnerable to political fragmentation and competing systems of regional influence.
For Egypt, that question extends further south—to the Horn of Africa, Sudan and the Nile Basin.
And once the Red Sea and the Nile are viewed as interconnected elements of Egypt's wider strategic environment, Bab el-Mandeb begins to look less like a distant maritime chokepoint and more like one part of a much larger geopolitical system.
The real question, then, is not simply who controls Bab el-Mandeb. It is who can shape the strategic environment around it—and how far those effects can travel.
Selected Bibliography
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- Ayenalem, Abebe Yirga, and Gashaw Ayferam Endalaye. “From Suez Canal to Bab al-Mandab Strait: Navigating Maritime Security in the World's Busiest Maritime Trade Corridor.” Middle Eastern Studies 17, no. 1 (2025).
- Donelli, Federico. “Maritime Disruption in Yemen: The Making of a Hybrid Red Sea Order.” Middle East Policy 32, no. 4 (2025): 35–50.
- “Reconceptualising the Red Sea Neighbourhood: Bab-el-Mandeb, Maritime Space, and Regional Boundaries.” Middle Eastern Studies, 2026.
- “Geocultural Power in the Red Sea Region.” Foreign Policy Analysis 21, no. 2 (2025).
- Al-Dawsari, Nadwa. “From Coalition to Confrontation: Saudi-UAE Rivalry in Yemen and Its Regional Implications.” Middle East Institute, January 5, 2026.
- Radman, Hussam. “From Competition to Rivalry: Yemen Reshapes the Saudi-Emirati Relationship.” The Yemen Review, February 2, 2026.
- The Yemen Review. “The Saudi-Emirati Economic Rivalry and Its Fallout in Yemen.” Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, 2025.
- International Maritime Organization. “Regional Cooperation Key to Maritime Security in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.” September 3, 2026.
- International Maritime Organization. “Red Sea Area: Information Related to the Situation in the Red Sea Area.” 2026.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. Short-Term Energy Outlook. September 2026.
- Reuters. “Why Is the Bab el-Mandeb Strait So Important?” September 10, 2026.
- Reuters. “Gulf Oil Threatened Anew as Houthis Reach Key Island and Pipeline Is Shut Down.” September 11, 2026.
- Reuters. “Houthis Strike Saudi Targets Anew as Talks over Strait of Hormuz Stall.” September 15, 2026.
- Reuters. “Saudi Civil Defence Says Danger Has Passed in Six Cities Including Yanbu.” September 15, 2026.
- Associated Press. “Iran-Backed Houthi Rebels Take Strategic Port City in Yemen, Raising Threat to Red Sea Shipping.” September 2026.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. World Oil Transit Chokepoints. 2026.
- Foreign Ministry of Egypt. “Egypt Reaffirms Its Rejection of Attacks on Saudi Arabia.” September 13, 2026.