The Battle for the Red Sea: Arabian Elite Forces and the Struggle to End the War in Yemen

by Michael Knights

Overview

The Hodeida campaign is a story of military victories that could not be fully realized because of the global opposition to the completion of the Red Sea liberation battle. Today, with the Houthis threatening global shipping with advanced Iran-provided missiles, the original wisdom of the Hodeida campaign is recognized by growing numbers of analysts, including many who opposed the operations at the time. The Battle for the Red Sea sets the record straight. Some chapters focus on the battle itself; others focus on the diplomatic clashes and the struggle to tell the truth in the halls of the United Nations in New York, in Congress and the White House in Washington D.C., and in the global media. One important aspect of the book will be taking a deep and honest look at the humanitarian concerns around the Hodeida campaign, including critical assessment of whether a famine was likely and what the hidden humanitarian costs of inaction have been since 2018. Would accepting more risk then have saved more lives later?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781805226468
Publisher:	IPS - Profile Books
Publication date:	06/09/2026
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr Michael Knights is a military historian by training, an expert on the Middle East by chance, and a front-line observer of modern warfare by choice. He came to this crossroads by a long and winding path. Before graduating from King's College London Department of War Studies, Mike had done pretty much every low-paid job under the sun, between periods of wandering the Arab world as an itinerant backpacker. He graduated with a new PhD on Saddam's Iraq just as the invasion happened in 2003 and the rest is history. Mike's life since then has been a classic post-9/11 story: embedding with the US-led coalition and the armed forces of Iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga, Yemen's tribes, Lebanese fighters, the UAE and Saudi Arabia as they fought enemies like Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Iran-backed militias amidst the chaos of occupation, withdrawals, the Arab Spring, and the ISIS war and its aftermath. He is called upon as an advisor to Western government, military and the intelligence community decision-makers.