Western powers were unable to secure shipping in the Red Sea, Hormuz will be harder

The Western allies seeking to negotiate a solution to secure the Strait of Hormuz for the energy trade face the harsh reality: a similar campaign in the Red Sea, which began years ago, cost billions of dollars and failed to secure the waterway against the Houthis in Yemen.

The expensive lesson from the failed Red Sea campaign, four ships sunk, over $1 billion spent on weapons, and a waterway that the energy trade still avoids, looms over the more complicated Strait of Hormuz, the energy shipping lane for a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied gas output and now shut by Iran, a more powerful enemy than the Houthis.

Iran's threat to the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on energy infrastructure in the energy-rich countries of the Persian Gulf have driven oil prices to historic highs. Without the Strait's reopening, the energy shortage will only worsen, potentially increasing prices for everything from energy to food to a wide array of other products around the world.

"There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz," Kuwait Petroleum CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said in a video call streamed to the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on Tuesday. "It is the world’s strait, under international law and practical reality."

Members of the United Nations Security Council were in negotiations Tuesday regarding resolutions for the protection of the strait, with some, such as Bahrain, taking a strong stance that would include the authorization of "all necessary means" for the protection of the strait, which could include the use of force.

Reuters spoke with 19 security and maritime experts, who discussed the numerous challenges that the US and its allies will face in the protection of the strait.

Iran has far superior military capabilities compared to the Houthis, an arsenal of drones, floating mines, and missiles, and easy access from its steep mountainous coast to the narrow waterway.

"Defending convoy operations in the Strait of Hormuz is significantly more challenging than in the Red Sea," said retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, who was involved in US tanker escorts through the Strait of Hormuz in 1988, when the Iran-Iraq war was raging.