Securing the Seas Is Deeply American

National Review Online

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

 

‘I just hate bailing out Europe again,” Vice President JD Vance said in the group chat Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to. Vance’s comment was in reference to ramping up strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, which the Trump administration has been doing in recent weeks.

 

Vance pointed out that far more European than American cargo transits the Suez Canal and said the strongest reason for the strikes was to “send a message,” implying that he believes real American interests are slim. “I think we are making a mistake,” the vice president said.

 

The U.S. is not making a mistake, and it must continue the fight against the Houthis so that all vessels can once again use the Suez Canal safely. Defending international shipping isn’t some kind of plot hatched by globalist utopians in the 1990s. It’s as American as apple pie, baseball, Broadway musicals, and ice-cold light beer. It goes all the way back to the Founders’ generation.

 

The “shores of Tripoli” in the Marines’ hymn is a reference to the Barbary Wars, fought by the U.S. in the Mediterranean against pirates from North Africa beginning under President Jefferson. Those pirates attacked U.S. ships as well, but their primary victims were Europeans who were captured and sold into slavery.

 

The U.S. did not view its actions then as “bailing out Europe.” Jefferson had a higher purpose in mind. He told Congress in 1801 that America’s actions in the First Barbary War were motivated by “a conscientious desire to direct the energies of our nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not to its destruction.” The principle of free, unmolested navigation likewise led President Adams to fight the “Quasi War” with France and President Madison to fight the War of 1812 with Britain. There are few foreign policy questions on which the Founding generation was more unanimous.

 

It is one of the oldest principles of international law, extant centuries before the United Nations, that one who attacks peaceful shipping vessels is hostis humani generis. According to the U.S. Maritime Administration, the Houthis have attacked commercial vessels from over 60 countries at least 113 separate times since November 2023, costing four mariners their lives.

 

Attacking peaceful commercial vessels means picking on large, unarmed, slow-moving targets that serve nearly all countries and are crewed by innocent, hard-working people from around the world. It’s one of the most despicable forms of large-scale violence. The villains who practice it are eligible to be destroyed by any country, and the U.S. has more military capability than anyone else to make that happen.

 

But even if you don’t believe in this bedrock principle of modern civilization, the Houthis have directly attacked U.S. Navy vessels. Sailors on the destroyer USS Carney were awarded combat medals after shooting down 14 Houthi drones that attacked them at sea in December 2023. The Houthis targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman earlier this month.

 

The Houthis don’t keep it a secret as to why they behave this way. “Death to America” is in the group’s slogan, alongside “death to Israel,” “curse upon the Jews,” and “victory to Islam.” The folks most famous for chanting “death to America,” the Islamic Republic of Iran, are the Houthis’ top supporters. So not only are they enemies of all mankind, but they are also enemies of the United States, and they are backed by other enemies of the United States.

 

It also isn’t even true that Europeans aren’t involved in this defense effort. U.K. Maritime Trade Operations is the first point of contact for merchant vessels in need of military support in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Arabian Sea. It’s a legacy of Britain’s one-time colonial possessions on the Arabian peninsula, and it’s a constant source of comfort to mariners in some of the world’s most dangerous waters. And several strikes against the Houthis have been joint efforts between U.S. and U.K. forces.

 

The U.S. Navy is very big, and it should be even bigger. The U.S. doesn’t finance the construction, maintenance, and operation of hundreds of ships and airplanes to create jobs in shipyards and factories or so that a bunch of folks wearing cool uniforms can do drills. The U.S. has a big navy so it can project force anywhere in the world, at any time.

 

The Houthis’s ability to hinder global commerce is a black eye from the Biden years and a major hit to America’s standing as the protector of maritime trade, a title it inherited from Britain after World War II. You don’t want to live in a world where the U.S. doesn’t perform this vital task, because that’s probably a world where China does it instead, and it won’t be to Americans’ benefit. Restoring the safety of the shipping lanes through the Suez Canal isn’t “bailing out Europe.” It’s making America great again.