As USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) left the Red Sea, on its way home, the Houthis attacked, sinking the ship. Or at least, that’s what the Yemeni-based group claimed, according to social media posts from the group’s leaders and their supporters.
The Houthis never struck Ike, which arrived home safely in Norfolk, Va., on July 14.
The fake strike on Ike is part of a disinformation campaign the Houthis have used as part of their tactics in the Red Sea, where they are striking commercial ships, Vice Adm. George Wikoff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, said during a Naval Institute and Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday.
The Houthis have been aggressive when it comes to bending their narrative to fit their needs, Wikoff said. It’s been a tactic for about a decade, he added.
The claim of sinking Ike is not the first time the group, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed to take down the aircraft carrier. The group sent off a number of posts on social media site X with Eisenhower Commanding Officer Capt. Christopher “Chowdah” Hill combatting the rise of disinformation with his own posts about Taco Tuesday or memes, USNI News previously reported.
The Houthi use of propaganda and a calculated narrative evolved as early as the Sa’ada Wars, which began in 2004, between the Houthis and Yemen’s government., according to a report from Yemen-based Sanaa Center, which examined the Houthi’s media strategy.
In 2014, the Houthis took over government channels and newspaper offices and expanded their propaganda, according to the report.
“In the years since the 2014 takeover, a calibrated media campaign has emerged, in which the Houthis seek to use “Popular Revolution Day” on Sept. 21 to eclipse the celebrations and commemorations of the republican revolution marked on September 26, with events and recurrent messages designed to legitimize their rule,” reads the report.
When it comes to the Red Sea, the Houthis have used government-controlled news sites and social media sites, like X, to share claims of attacks on commercial ships, with Houti spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare’e posting almost daily.
The Houthis narrative focuses on their cause — in the case of the Red Sea attacks, justice for Palestine — while ignoring the own problems they’ve caused, including the food crisis in Yemen caused by the civil war between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, Wikoff said.
“They’re seeding tremendous unrest,” Wikoff said. “They don’t care for the people that they’re claiming to represent with widespread dire humanitarian assistance requirements, the worst famine in 40 years in the region, 30 million people at risk of starvation, and they just seem to continue to threaten shipping and those very ships that will bring aid to them and bring aid to people.”
The Houthis can argue that they are raising their profile with the Red Sea attacks, retired Navy Capt. Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher with RAND in early July. While they may not have global ambitions, their attacks have made it so they are getting focus as a player in the Middle East region.
Houthi claims vs effectiveness
Based on Sare’e’s social media account, the Houthis have waged an effective campaign against commercial ships in the Red Sea. Reality tells a different story, with many Houthi missiles and drones either shot down by Operation Prosperity Guardian participants or falling into the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden,, according to U.S. Central Command and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization.
Based on maritime data and Wikoff’s comments Wednesday, the Houthis have been effective at discouraging commercial ships from traveling through the Babe el-Mandeb Strait due to the risk of attacks. Traffic dropped around 50 percent between November, when the attacks began, and February, Wikoff said. Ships began choosing to go around the Cape of Good Hope instead of risking potential Houthi disruptions.
While the Houthis have sunk at least three ships and caused the death of a mariner, the attacks that do hit ships have generally caused little damage. Operation Prosperity Guardian has also been effective at shooting down Houthi drones and missiles, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters in June.
The Houthis claim to hit ships even when their weapons miss, Martin said, adding they are not worried about accuracy like U.S. Central Command, which puts out daily updates on Red Sea activity.
“Perception is reality, and that’s what the Houthis are creating,” he said.
The Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. Between December 2023 and February 2024, the number of container ships transiting through the Red Sea dropped by 90 percent, according to a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency released in June.
The Houthis first attacked commercial ships connected to Israel, expanding to those with ties to the U.S. and United Kingdom following coordinated strikes by the two countries, in partnership with other nations. The Yemen-based group then began to attack any ship going to or from Israel, as well, before declaring they would attack nearly any commercial ship transiting through the Red Sea, as well the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, USNI News previously reported. The Houthis have also claimed they would target some ships in the Mediteranean Sea.
There has been some stabalization in the region since February, Wikoff said, with 1,000 ships passing through the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait versus 2,000 before the Houthi attacks, but it is not an “acceptable solution.”
“So right now the idea is, continue to maintain that decision space, try to preserve the where we are right now, to allow other levers of government, other levers of the international community, to pressurize the Houthis to stop what they’re doing in the maritime,” Wikoff said.
Commercial shipping companies do not want to go through the Bab el-Mandeb until there is more stabilization in the region, Wikoff said.
There was not a huge spike in inflation as a result of the shipping changes, he said, so there is less pressure on commercial companies to sail through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with some companies calling it the “strait of convenience,” Wikoff said.
Companies also do not want to have to pay the insurance premiums associated with going through the strait, Martin said.
Operation Prosperity Guardian, the coalition of international partners, inlcuding the U.S. to protect commercial ships, and attacks on Houthi infrastructure and weapons by the U.S., the U.K. and other allies are degrading the Houthis’ ability to strike ships, Wikoff said.
But they have not stopped them, he said, adding that it is difficult to find the center of gravity that can be used to have more effective deterrence.
“So trying to apply a classic deterrence policy in this particular scenario is a bit challenging,” he said. “What we’ll continue to do with the operations we’re doing will be a shock absorber, and that’s what the military has provided.”
But while the Pentagon says the U.S. is degrading the Houthi abilities, they continue to be able to attack ships, Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told USNI News in a statement this week.
“The United States has continued to destroy Houthi offensive capabilities in Yemen, but the terror group continues to have sufficient means to threaten shipping. This offers insights regarding the size of the terror group’s arsenal and suggests that the Houthis continue to enjoy a supply of arms from its patron in Tehran,” Bowman said in the email. “An effort to destroy capabilities in Yemen that does not devote sufficient attention and resources to interdicting weapons shipments from Iran to Yemen is not unlike the homeowner cleaning up puddles but ignoring the hole in the roof.”
Bowman said that a majority of vessels that continue to travel through the Red Sea are able to do so safely, in part because of the Navy and Operation Prosperity Guardian.
“But the Houthis only need to succeed every now and then to achieve their objectives,” he said.
