The Houthi attacks have produced a series of inevitable reactions: the collapse of the profitability of the Suez Canal, a much-needed inducement to a re-elected but financially shaky Sisi; the immediate rise in commodity prices with an inevitable worsening of inflation in already shaken economies; the inevitable Western reaction which cannot allow further attacks on freedom of navigation. It is not just a question of principle, but a problem of economic and social survival in a context already hit hard by the Ukrainian invasion and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The geopolitical fragmentation of the theaters has led to regional polarizations which have definitively led to full awareness of the anarchy of international relations, a political phenomenon now in a laboratory.
A few considerations. Polarization has not made regional actors more trustworthy who, while dreaming and desiring greater assertiveness, are becoming aware of the objective difficulty of managing extremely complex balances of power: Houthis and Hamas could represent the loose cannons of a context outside the control of hegemonic fomenters but in fact unprepared and placed at risk the same as an apprentice sorcerer at the mercy of the multiplication of unstoppable brooms; it is no coincidence that the Ayatollahs have prudently distanced themselves both from the havoc of 7 October and, in particular, from the aggressiveness of a pervasive paramilitary apparatus.
The other consideration concerns the need for yet another indispensable recourse to the military instrument, where a more powerful and fearsome force remains the only functional leverage to contain crazy trajectories, contrary to those who think of any type of inconclusive negotiation. If it is true that the pursuit of national interest remains prevalent and constant, it is necessary to take as a paradigm the Italian inclusion in the Prosperity Guardian, the operation activated for the Red Sea requirement.
The Mediterranean, therefore, is no longer enlarged, much less hyperbole, infinite. It is a sea, and the sea is the means through which to materialize the idea of the fulfillment of national interests, net of demagoguery and thanks to an operational naval instrument. We have to deal with it.
Photo: US Navy
