How Yemen ended the Hundred Thousand Tons Diplomacy
Zakaria Al-Sharabi:
Usually, the movements of American aircraft carriers are exposed and accompanied by media coverage. An aircraft carrier is not just a military piece or a military airport; Americans treat it as a “diplomatic” tool to impose their strength and dominance on others. As Kissinger describes it, “equals one hundred thousand tons of diplomacy.”
The American military doctrine is based on the US being a naval power. Americans draw inspiration from the importance of “seizing the sea and tightening the grip on it” by naval officer Alfred Mahan, emphasizing that “naval forces are tools of international relations… The scope of naval forces… is much broader [than that of armies]. The presence of the navy can be felt where national armies cannot go, except under naval protection… The issue before the US as to the size of its navy is not so much what it wants to achieve as what it is willing or unwilling to give up.”
The latest edition of the American maritime doctrine states that “maritime diplomacy is the application of maritime capabilities in the pursuit of national objectives during cooperation and competition under conflict.”
Even before the appearance of aircraft carriers, the US relied on what is known as gunboat diplomacy to subdue others. In 1853, an American officer sailed with a fleet of four solid black warships to Tokyo Bay in Japan, which did not possess any warships at that time. Upon the arrival of the American force, Japan quickly agreed to open its ports for trade with the West for the first time in over two hundred years. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt sent a fleet of warships to support Panama’s separation from Colombia. Although these ships did not fire a single shot, the show of naval power forced Colombia to surrender Panama’s secession, and the US was granted the privilege to dig the Panama Canal.
“In the following year, Roosevelt officially endorsed the Monroe Doctrine, which relied on the use of military force as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. He announced the addition of ten warships and four destroyers to the U.S. Navy. In 1905, Roosevelt repeated the gunboat diplomacy experience to assert dominance over the Dominican Republic. However, American ambition and naval power display globally became more evident and symbolic in 1907 when Roosevelt launched the ‘Big Stick’ operation, sending 14 gleaming white battleships and seven destroyers on a 14-month circumnavigation journey covering 43,000 miles across six continents.
Since then, Washington has continued to assert its dominance over the seas with increasing force, transitioning from gunboats and ships to aircraft carriers, which have been deployed hundreds of times since World War II to support pro-American factions in conflict zones. It also played crucial roles in the Cold War, the Korean War, and when sent to support India in the Indo-Pakistani War in the 1970s, in addition to their use in supporting American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is attributed to US President Clinton that when news of a crisis anywhere in the world reached the White House Situation Room, he would always ask about the aircraft carrier closest to the site of the crisis, while former US President Donald Trump expressed the importance of aircraft carriers in the U.S. military strength, stating, ‘American aircraft carriers are the essence of American military power abroad. We stand today on 4.5 acres of combat power and on sovereign American soil, an area unmatched by anyone, an area that no one can compete with. There is no one to compete with this carrier. It is a monument to American power.’
Former U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus expressed, ‘It gets there faster, stays longer, and brings everything it needs with it without needing permission from anyone. It provides leaders of our nation with options in times of crisis.’
Yemen ends aircraft carrier diplomacy:
As the Israeli aggression on Gaza began, the US deployed its aircraft carriers, the USS Eisenhower and USS Ford, with the intention of intimidating any party and preventing it from supporting the Gaza Strip. The message behind the presence of these carriers, as explicitly stated by the U.S. administration, was directed towards Iran, Hezbollah, and the Republic of Yemen.”
The USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier embarked on a tour in the second week of the aggression on Gaza, covering the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Gulf. This tour was accompanied by a media campaign that kept pace with the sailing distances in miles. However, this showcase did not succeed as Yemen announced the commencement of naval operations targeting Israeli navigation, penetrating the depths of American naval doctrine and supremacy established for over a century. It was natural for the United States to act to reclaim what it considers its dominion over the high seas, protecting the Israeli entity from Yemeni attacks. Indeed, the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier, along with its warship group, returned to the Red Sea, extending towards the Gulf of Aden. They formed an alliance named the Prosperity Guardian Alliance, announced on December 19, 2023.
The US believed that the alliance would intimidate Yemen and that Yemeni operations would cease, similar to those previously subdued by the “diplomacy of a hundred thousand tons.” However, Yemen escalated its stance, expanding its operations and rejecting American threats as well as enticements. By January 12, direct military aggression by America and Britain against Yemen commenced. Americans did not anticipate that Yemeni operations would persist beyond this aggression for only a limited period. They were compelled to acknowledge, as stated by senior officials, that the aggression against Yemen did not deter Yemeni forces and that their operations were continuing and escalating, and they even extended to include American and British navigation before expanding to the fourth phase.
What Americans also did not anticipate was their warships coming under attack and Yemen launching, as admitted by U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, over 300 attacks on American and allied warships in the Red Sea until early May, using weapons unfamiliar to the U.S. Navy, described by Fifth Fleet commander Brad Cooper as supersonic, giving American forces only seconds to make interception decisions. This battle was the most sustained since World War II, according to U.S. Navy officials. Even the USS Eisenhower’s commander, Chuddah Hill, expressed about this battle, “In some of these cases, I was wearing my pajamas the whole time—and I’m not afraid to say it—with my house slippers. I didn’t have time to put on my uniform.”
Eisenhower’s escape… Roosevelt’s disappearance:
The Yemeni battle with American naval vessels marked the end of the era of aircraft carriers and confirmed their vulnerability to targeting. Yemeni forces targeted the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier three times between May 31 and June 20. Although the US did not explicitly acknowledge this targeting due to its implications of the decline of American hegemony and what Yemen might represent as a model of its audacity in striking this diplomatic military vessel according to the American definition, Eisenhower group leaders admitted after the group’s return home, in statements to the U.S. Naval Institute, that it was “the first time an American aircraft carrier has faced a direct and sustained threat from an enemy since World War II.”
The Eisenhower aircraft carrier group withdrew after a complete failure, as confirmed by U.S. Central Command leader Eric Korilla in a message to the Defense Secretary, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. However, it wasn’t just a failure; it was targeted for the first time and hit, as confirmed by the Yemeni armed forces on May 31. It was forced to escape in a humiliating and degrading manner to the north of the Red Sea. Before fully withdrawing after twenty days from the first targeting, American warships turned from guarding Israeli navigation to guarding the Eisenhower.
The US states that Eisenhower’s withdrawal wasn’t due to being targeted but because its deployment was extended for an additional period, and it will be replaced by the USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier, according to the U.S. Central Command statement on June 22.
Despite the U.S. Central Command’s announcement that Roosevelt had already reached the operational area to protect navigation on July 12, it didn’t enter the Red Sea and remained hidden for days in the far east of the Arabian Sea before heading to position itself in the Gulf region off the coast of Bahrain, as shown by the latest satellite images. Unusually for American coverage of aircraft carrier movements, Roosevelt shut down its tracking devices and had its supply aircraft halt tracking signals midway.
Roosevelt’s direction towards the Gulf contradicted what was announced by the US, as the Gulf is not an area for Yemeni operations but a forced route, showing fear of the carrier being attacked by Yemen, an attack threatened by the leader of the Ansar Allah movement, Abdulmalik Al-Houthi, days after Washington announced its intention to move Roosevelt to the Red Sea.
The National Interest newspaper says that the Houthis panicked when Roosevelt moved from the Pacific Ocean to the Red Sea, but it is clear that Roosevelt is the one in panic, fearing real targeting if it crosses the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait. It fears a scandal if it enters the Red Sea via Good Hope, the Strait of Gibraltar, and Suez, so there is no harm in showing off in the media that she is there even if she appears as what the Chinese now describe as a paper tiger, although the scene of hiding is no less scandalous than the scene of Eisenhower’s escape, and it confirms that she was targeted.
Yemen’s breaking of American deterrence and the naval hegemony’s collapse have influenced the decisions of other countries, which have begun to move more boldly in the vicinity of Taiwan and the Philippines. As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he spoke mockingly about American aircraft carriers in a conference in St. Petersburg last June, affirming they no longer inspire fear and telling his interlocutor, “Let them spend money on them.”
The era of aircraft carriers has ended, as written by Yemen, and the U.S. Navy was humiliatingly expelled. Former U.S. Central Command leader Joseph Votel (2016–2019) said in an article published on July 23:
“It must be acknowledged that we no longer serve a vital interest in U.S. national security… The current situation is not only intolerable but also unsustainable. It is time to recognize that the Houthis are in a position to hold not only the United States but nearly the entire global system hostage.”