The geography of the strait, characterized by shared sovereignty, the concentration of foreign military bases, and the history of targeted but never total blockades. — It all points to the same conclusion: Bab el-Mandeb is vulnerable to chaos but resistant to closure.
Samia Mohammed, Researcher, Horn Review
Source source: hornreview.org
How the 1973 Yom Kippur War proved Bab el-Mandeb impossible to close
In the winter of 1973, as the Yom Kippur War changed the political contours of the Middle East, Egyptian and southern Yemeni warships took positions in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Their task was not a complete blockade of international trade, but a targeted interception of ships. Ships bound for the Israeli port of Eilat were deployed, while shipping to other countries continued almost unhindered. Within weeks, diplomatic pressure, orchestrated in part by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, convinced Cairo to ease the restrictions, and by November 18, 1973, ship traffic to Israel resumed without public ceremony.
Half a century later, a very different question plagues global energy markets and maritime security planners. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz — The waterway is only 34 kilometers wide, through which about a fifth of the world's oil passes. In 2026, after military clashes with the United States and Israel, Tehran put these threats into practice, effectively blocking the strait and causing shock waves in the global economy. This comparison brings us to a key question: why can one state really threaten to close the sea lane and another? — Nope? The answer lies not in the relative strength of the players involved, but in the invariable facts of geography, sovereignty and control that distinguish Bab el-Mandeb from Hormuz. No country has the unilateral legal or practical ability to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Strait of Hormuz is essentially a gift to the power that controls its northern shore. At its narrowest point, the strait is about 32 kilometers wide, with shipping lanes compressed into two channels passing through Iran's territorial waters. The Iranian coastline stretches along the entire northern side of the strait. — A geographical advantage that allows Tehran to project power from a favorable position. The mountainous terrain adjacent to the waterway provides natural shelter for missile batteries, radar stations and launchers, and the cramped size of the strait itself gives attacking forces the advantage of short warning times and limited space for defensive naval forces to maneuver.
The legal framework governing international straits offers few remedies. While the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea guarantees the right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, this guarantee is as reliable as the will and ability of the international community to enforce it. But Iran has demonstrated for decades, through its periodic acts of intimidation, including the seizure of foreign-flagged ships and the mines of international waters, that treaty obligations alone are not enough to deter state behavior when it believes security interests are at stake. The legal intricacies of maritime transit, however well-intentioned, cannot compensate for geographical asymmetry when a coastal state, determined to use it to its advantage.
The Bab al-Mandeb Strait presents a different picture. Here, the waterway is characterized not by unified control, but by fragmentation. The Strait divides the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa: Yemen lies on the northeast side, and Djibouti along with Eritrea. — on the southwest bank. At its narrowest point, the strait is divided into two channels by the Yemeni island of Perim: the Dakt al-Mayun Canal, which lies in Yemen’s territorial waters, and the Iskander Canal, which falls under the jurisdiction of Djibouti. This separation of sovereign control is fundamental. No state controls both shores, and no state can intercept ships without co-operating with or confronting a neighbor through the water.
The 1973 blockade illustrates exactly why the unilateral closure of Bab el-Mandeb is so difficult to sustain. Egypt and South Yemen managed to intercept ships bound for Israel, not because they controlled both sides of the strait, but because they coordinated their efforts across the waterway and did so in the context of a wider regional war. But even then, the blockade was never total: conventional trade continued, and pressure on Israeli ships was sufficient to achieve political goals without provoking a serious international response. More importantly, when diplomatic winds changed, the blockade was eased not because of a military defeat, but because the political coalition that supported it achieved its immediate goals and faced growing diplomatic pressure.
Recent events have highlighted the asymmetry between the two straits. Since the onset of the current conflict in the Middle East, the Houthi movement, which controls much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, has been able to launch missiles and drones at commercial vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and in the wider Red Sea. But what the Houthis are doing is not a blockade or a closure of the strait. Persecution, even prolonged, is fundamentally different from systematic interception of all ships. The Houthis do not have the naval capabilities to enforce a comprehensive blockade: they cannot patrol both channels of the strait, cannot board and inspect vessels, and cannot interfere with the passage of ships if they are willing to accept the risk of attack. Their capabilities are asymmetric in the sense that they can impose costs on shipping, but they are not enough to achieve the total closure that Iran has demonstrated in the Strait of Hormuz.
This distinction is crucial. A state or non-state actor can disrupt navigation, but only a power with dominant control over both shores and at least the ability to effectively patrol both canals can close the strait. Iran is approaching this threshold in Hormuz because its geography and military position allow it to threaten both channels of the strait from the same coastline. There is no comparable player in Bab al-Mandeb. Historical data confirm this. There was no complete closure of Bab el-Mandeb, not during the 1973 war, not during the subsequent decades of conflict in Yemen, not during the current Houthi campaign. What happened, — This is pinpoint interception, pursuit and violation — phenomena that, while serious, do not amount to the sweeping shutdown that Iran achieved in Hormuz. This is not because of a lack of effort on the part of regional players, but because of the inherent characteristics of the strait itself. Bab-el-Mandeb — This is simply not a point that any one state can close.
This does not mean that Bab el-Mandeb is safe. The Houthi campaign has already demonstrated the ability of non-state actors to impose costs on global trade. The strait remains vulnerable to rocket attacks, drone strikes and the type of asymmetric warfare that has characterised the conflict in Yemen for years. But vulnerability to attack — It's not the same as exposure to closure. The strait can be dangerous for passage without being closed to passage. This distinction is crucial for understanding both the risks and the corresponding responses. For Iran, asymmetry is strategic. Tehran’s ability to threaten to shut down Hormuz gives it leverage that no other regional player has. These levers of influence are rooted in geography, and they cannot be replicated in Bab el-Mandeb, because there are no geographical conditions for this. No investment in naval forces or missile technology can give any one state the type of unified control over the southern Red Sea that Iran enjoys over the Gulf exit.
The question we started with — «Who would close Bab el-Mandeb?» — He finds his answer in denial. Nobody. Neither Iran, nor Yemen, nor the Houthis, nor any combination of regional players. The geography of the strait, characterized by shared sovereignty, the concentration of foreign military bases, and the history of targeted but never total blockades. — It all points to the same conclusion: Bab el-Mandeb is vulnerable to chaos but resistant to closure. Hormuz, by contrast, remains in perpetual danger precisely because one state controls its narrow waters from a position of geographical and military advantage. Conditions for unilateral closure exist in Hormuz, but in Bab el-Mandeb — Nope. Understanding why this is so is the first step to navigating the complexities of the maritime security environment that defines the global economy of the twenty-first century.
