iscover
While things seem to have settled down in the Red Sea, the Houthis' asymmetric campaign targeting international commercial shipping has been highly successful in targeting and slowing down maritime trade and shed light on what similar conflict with a peer competitor may in fact look like.
The Red Sea and the waters surrounding the Horn of Africa are among the world's most critical maritime trade routes, linking Europe, the Middle East, and Asia via the Suez Canal. In recent months, this strategic corridor has become increasingly dangerous due to a sustained campaign by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have targeted international shipping with drone and missile attacks.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group that controls large swathes of Yemen, claim their actions are in support of the Palestinian cause, particularly in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. However, the consequences of their campaign extend far beyond the immediate conflict, threatening global trade, regional stability, and the security of international maritime routes.
The disruption in the Red Sea has forced major shipping companies to reroute vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, significantly increasing transit times and costs. Insurance premiums for ships passing through the region have also soared, adding further pressure to global supply chains. These developments have raised concerns among governments and industries worldwide, particularly in Europe and Asia, which rely heavily on the Suez Canal for energy and goods transportation.
The United States and its allies responded by launching Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational effort to protect commercial shipping and deter further Houthi aggression and maintain the global flow of commerce.
Despite being a key trading nation, Australia has taken only a limited role in the international response. While the Australian government has condemned the Houthi attacks and supported diplomatic efforts to ease tensions, it has so far refrained from committing military assets to the coalition protecting Red Sea shipping.
While the Australian Government has been at great pains to state, that this cautious approach aligns with Australia's broader strategic priorities, focusing on Indo-Pacific security rather than Middle Eastern conflicts. However, as a major exporter of resources and agricultural products reliant on stable global trade routes, Australia remains exposed to the economic fallout from prolonged disruptions and the precedent established by the relatively cost-effective success of the Houthis' campaign.
The escalation of Houthi attacks underscores the fragility of international maritime security and highlights the challenges of maintaining open sea lanes in conflict-prone regions. As pressure mounts on Western allies to take a stronger stance, while Australia’s response will continue to be shaped by competing geopolitical, economic, and strategic considerations, the implications and lessons learned from the ongoing security operations in the Red Sea and around the Horn of Africa will prove invaluable, particularly in an era of mounting great power competition and potential conflict with a peer, or near-peer competitor.
In particular, the ongoing crisis raises important questions about the effectiveness of current defensive capabilities and, as Australia continues down its AU$330 billion modernisation and recapitalisation efforts for the Australian Defence Force, the suitability and survivability of the "Focused Force" as planned when assessed against the implications of increasingly complex, multi-front conflicts.
Highlighting this is Geoff Ziezulewicz, writing for The War Zone has conducted some critically needed objective analysis that has wide reaching implications for Australia's own defence and acquisition planning, in a piece titled, 'What Red Sea Battles Have Taught The Navy About A Future China Fight' where he details the critical lessons learned by the US Navy in particular.
A real-world "stress test"
It is not hyperbole to say that the Houthis have undoubtedly proven themselves to be highlight competent, resilient and successful in tying down the might of the US-led Western world order for relatively little cost compared to materiel and personnel costs rallied by the US, United Kingdom, Canadian, Norwegian and Singaporeans to effectively conduct Operation Prosperity Guardian.
In recognising this, Ziezulewicz is quick to accurately describe the ongoing operation in the Red Sea as a "real-world stress test" for the systems, platforms and personnel currently engaged in "the most intense sustained combat the sea service’s warships have seen since World War II" at a time when the US and its allies are facing an increasing contested global environment.
There is certainly an argument to be made about "iron sharpening iron" as it were in this case, one can't help but account for the increasingly precarious position the US and allies find themselves in when confronted by a well equipped, asymmetric force, much less a well resourced and committed peer, or near-peer competitor as could potentially unfold either in Europe, or the Indo-Pacific.
Ziezulewicz highlights this, quoting an active-duty US Navy surface warfare officer under the condition of anonymity who said, "A lot of these lessons and everything that we are taking from the Red Sea are an incredibly valuable warm-up for us in the high-end fight."
Separately, it is worth saying that no matter how many secure briefings, power point slides or collaborative planning sessions, Australia cannot learn these lessons by osmosis, rather we need to learn these lessons in the real world, but importantly, the lessons don't stop here.
Ziezulewicz adds, "China would be an entirely different adversary to take on compared to the Houthis, and that war with Beijing would be far more fearsome and intense than the Houthi campaign. But while the theater, geography and capability of the adversary would differ, the Red Sea has nonetheless been a major experience generator and proving ground on several fronts."
He adds, "No American warships have been hit, and crews have countered Houthi attacks that have, at times, come dangerously close to putting a hole in a gray hull. Navy brass says they are now able to tune ship radars, provide feedback and update tactics far more rapidly than when the hostilities started. Just analyzing engagement data has gone from 40 days or more to just a day or two, a massive gain that could prove critical in a Pacific fight."
Another critical lesson has been the undoubted impact of the his relatively "low-intensity" fight on the US and more broadly, the allied defence industrial base and supply chains required to keep critical war stocks for both offensive and defensive munitions viable, particularly while stockpiles are also being consumed by conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, let alone in the face of a conflict with a peer-competitor, like China.
The conflict in the Red Sea has not solely been the domain for relatively rudimentary anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, with autonomous and uncrewed systems building on their success in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to demonstrate that in the maritime domain they are as capable, particularly fielded in "swarm" numbers and combined with equally rudimentary loitering munitions, designed to overwhelm allied air defences.
Ziezulewicz explains this, saying in mid-January 2025, "The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet has fired nearly 400 individual munitions while battling Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea over the past 15 months. That includes the firing of 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 rounds from destroyers and cruisers’ five-inch main guns, as well as a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles."
Yet, it needs to be reinforced, that as it stands, the Houthis despite their Iranian backing, are still an asymmetric threat and are not an accurate representation of what the US and allies, like Australia will face if required to face a peer-competitor, like the People's Republic of China and this is where these lessons need to be applied.
A peer-competitor fight will be vastly different
China is unlike any other adversary the US, or its allies have faced, either individually, or in aggregate. The rising superpower is buoyed by an increasingly dominant industrial capacity, a world-leading shipbuilding capability and a suite of advanced weapons systems designed to mitigate the traditional strengths of the United States and its allies should they pose a threat to Chinese ambitions in the western Pacific.
Highlighting this, Ziezulewicz, speaking to Jan van Tol, a retired forward-deployed warship captain and current senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) think tank, who detail, "expenditure rates of guided munitions will be “far worse in a China fight,” van Tol said. Exacerbating that reality is the fact that the PLA’s weapons are more sophisticated than the Iranian-derived munitions that the Houthis rely on, which will likely increase the number of American SAMs expended per engagement with the Chinese."
Unpacking this further, Ziezulewicz details the implications and realities of a confrontation with Beijing further, saying, "China has far more anti-ship missiles than the Houthis, in a variety of iterations. It has developed short, medium, and intermediate-range anti-ship ballistic missiles to help exert authority over its broad territorial claims and deny opponents access to vast areas during conflicts. If Beijing attempts to invade Taiwan, it will rely on a variety of munitions to keep U.S. surface combatants and aircraft carriers far from the East China Sea and South China Sea. This is all part of the PLA’s overreaching anti-access/area-denial strategy that is currently heavily dictating what a war would look like in the Pacific."
Adding further complications to allied war planning is the inescapable reality that American, Australian and allied warships will undoubtedly be required to retreat to safe harbours to undergo critical resupply of consumables (namely munitions), repairs and upgrades in the event of any conflict, which, the operations in the Red Sea have show to take approximately a week turn around per vessel.
Now yes, the US Navy and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) have recently made some ground when it comes to conducting the at-sea replenishment of vertical launch cells, that progress has been done, during peace time, at-sea, without the added complexity of facing down incoming adversarial weapons, so lets call that out for the time being.
This once again brings us back to the need to rapidly expand and accelerate the production lines for critical munitions, both within the US mainland and, critically, closer to the "front" in the Indo-Pacific, like in Australia to offset, at least in part the Chinese industrial advantages over the US and its allies.
Ziezulewicz highlights this in some part, saying, "The Red Sea has hammered home the need to increase production of Navy munitions, van Tol said. A peacetime effort to increase precision-guided munition production of all kinds would help to identify component subcontractor chokepoints and other hiccups that would metastasize into a major problem when a surge in demand happens during a war with China. Military leaders have warned of how missiles fired in the Red Sea and elsewhere are eating into stocks that could be used for a war with China too."
This only becomes more important given the scale and scope of any potential Chinese attack against the US or allied forces in the region, including parts of the Australian Defence Force that may be deployed either directly in combat scenarios, or as part of regional presence missions at the time conflict breaks out and raises significant questions about the planned capabilities across the 'Focused Force'.
Implications for the whole ADF
Front and centre, it becomes abundantly clear is that as it stands, critical capabilities such as the Australian Army's NASAMs, Navy's Hobart and Hunter destroyer and frigates, and Air Force's own limited air and missile defence, airborne early-warning fast-jet capabilities are not necessarily being acquired in sufficient numbers, or with the required magazine capacity to survive in a peer-competitor threat environment.
That is an inescapable and concerning reality.
Now yes, there are programs like the LAND 156 program to provide counter-unmanned aerial systems capabilities for Army, the acquisition of the SM-3 and SM-6 for Navy's Hobart and Hunter class vessels and planned upgrades to the E-7A Wedgetail, F-35A Lightning II, coupled with in development programs including directed energy weapons, electronic warfare and cyber capabilities that go some way to helping defending Australian assets.
The reality is, if required, the vast bulk of Australia's assets will be deployed to defend forward operating assets in the region, leaving the Australian continent exposed, while other platforms will require double (at least) the amount of time in port to undergo critical resupply, thus significantly limiting the meaningful contribution Australian forces can provide independently.
This last point is particularly critical when one accepts that Australian forces will not be guaranteed of the protective aegis of American forces in the region and in all likelihood will be required to operate independently as a solely Australian taskgroup/taskforce for protracted periods of time, in the face of a highly capable, well supplied and advanced peer competitor.
So maybe, just maybe, the AU$330 billion plans outlined in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, the 2024 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program are not fit-for-purpose and haven't been from the outset.
Final thoughts
The world is undeniably shifting toward a multipolar order, with the Indo-Pacific emerging as the most contested region globally.
This transformation is driven by the rising economic, political, and strategic influence of nations such as China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam, alongside the established and resurging capabilities of South Korea and Japan. Together, these dynamics are intensifying competition in Australia’s immediate neighborhood.
Given these evolving challenges and opportunities, both the Australian public and policymakers must move beyond the narrow perspectives that have historically shaped the nation’s diplomatic, strategic, and economic policies since Federation.
To fully harness the potential of the Indo-Pacific’s transformation, Australia must adopt a long-term strategic vision. The key questions now are: When will we see a comprehensive analysis and response to the region’s challenges and opportunities? And when will a clear narrative and strategy emerge to better inform both industry and the public about the path forward?
As tensions rise and China continues to assert its influence and ambitions close to home, Australia must decide—will it remain a secondary player, or is it time to step up and embrace a more prominent, independent role in this era of intensifying great power competition?
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at
