Policy Paper - The Red Sea: Britain’s uncertain

9 While shipping between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific can be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, the interdiction of free passage through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden carries a significant cost – the Houthi attacks in December 2023 and January 2024 are estimated to have increased the cost of container 6 C arol A. [...] 11 In response, i n 1799 H M Government a ttempted to occupy t he small island of Perim in the middle of t he Bab-el-Mandeb to block the passage o f a h ypothetical French fleet out of the s outhern e ntrance of the R ed Sea. [...] 12 This move proved to b e the start of a p attern which w ould b e repeated throughout t he course o f the 19th century, as s uccessive British governments annexed territory in the region to m aintain the Royal Navy’s supremacy over the s ea lane between Suez a nd the Indian Ocean.1 3 For the same reason, a s attempts by rival p owers to establish naval footholds in the sea intensified following. [...] Combined w ith t he decision of H arold Wilson, British Prime Minister (1964-1970, 1 974-1976), to withdraw a rmed forces from outposts ‘east o f Suez’, t he permanent B ritish p resence in the Red S ea ended with the cessation of S outh Yemen, i ncluding Aden – the ‘ Gibraltar of t he East’ – leaving France and the Soviet U nion as the o nly E uropean powers w ith n aval facilities i n the r egio. [...] 15 Moreover, by the 1970s the S oviet Union h ad attempted to project its own influence over t he B ab-el-Mandeb b y establishing naval a nd a ir b ases on: the island o f Socotra; in Berbera, the former capital o f British Somaliland; the Royal Navy’s traditional base a t Aden; and later in the Dahlak a rchipelago – then under Ethiopian a dministration.