Paving the Way with Gold or Cannonballs
Applying Hindsight of the Barbary Pirates to Foresight of the Houthi Rebels and Iran.
Recently, national and international news reports have focused on the depredations of the Houthi Rebels of Yemen. Houthi activity that concerns the U.S. and its allies is concentrated on maritime targets, mostly taking the form of drone strikes and missile attacks directed toward commercial shipping passing through the Red Sea.
Looking back at U.S. experiences with the Barbary Pirates will prove a useful backdrop for comparison in producing a realistic and viable diplomacy and military strategy for dealing with the Houthi situation.
Peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.
– James Madison
The United States is engaged in a shooting match with the Houthi Rebels of Yemen. However, there is a man-behind-the-curtain. The Wizard, in this case, is Iran. The Houthis are certainly willing surrogates, but the sponsorship is Iranian. More ominously, the Wizard may mask another man-behind-the-curtain—Russia. Perhaps, there is even a third Wizard in the wings as well.
Attempting to neutralize the Houthi threat may prove to be a case of cutting off its head only to have another grow back each time like the mythical Hydra. It will also prove to be a long and drawn-out affair. Furthermore, however headless the Houthi Rebels become, they can, with Iranian backing, channel Frankenstein’s Monster and reappear as some new creature. The individual players may change but the overall threat tends to remain.
Two possible methods to deal with this dangerous situation are not new. In previous similar circumstances, William Eaton, a prominent player in our prolonged engagements with maritime commercial threats along the Barbary Coast, frankly and succinctly claimed that “no access to the permanent friendship of these states [is possible] without paving the way with gold or cannonballs; and the proper question is which method is preferable.”1 Critics of current U.S. policy claim that we have engaged with too much gold and not nearly enough cannonballs. Make no mistake, both approaches are costly—assuredly in treasure, possibly in blood.
Recently, national and international news reports have focused on the depredations of the Houthi Rebels of Yemen. In concert with Hamas and Hezbollah, “the Houthis declare themselves to be part of the Iranian-led ‘axis of resistance’ against Israel, the US and the wider West,” according to the BBC.2 Currently, Houthi activity that concerns the U.S. and its allies is concentrated on maritime targets, mostly taking the form of drone strikes and missile attacks directed toward commercial shipping passing through the Red Sea. A dangerous progression involves attacks on U.S. and allied warships—already producing limited but, still, violent responses.
Besides the obvious concern over disruption of global maritime commerce, potential angst with the current situation involves the chances and risks of continuing, possibly escalating, violent exchanges between U.S. and its allied forces and the Houthis and their sponsor(s). Clashes may result in a widening of the present but still not high-level confrontations into a much broader conflict—perhaps even crossing the threshold to open warfare.
Ever present, as a backdrop, is the reality of Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, Hezbollah’s military action in northern Israel, festering Israeli/Iranian grievances, U.S./Iranian tensions, and the rising threat of violent conflict in Syria and Iraq. Given all the players, their recent actions and rhetoric, and the availability of arms and provocations, the odds favoring serious repercussions grow daily. There is a real risk that reported logistical, intelligence, and planning support from Iran to the Houthis may provide the volatile tipping-point needed to propel the entire region into war.
Despite numerous warnings, the Houthis continued provocative, aggressive, and warlike attacks on international shipping, even in the face of U.S. and allied naval protection. These attacks have provoked reactions of self-defense and defense of commercial vessels from military warships. More recently, even during the compiling of this commentary, have been direct attacks by the U.S. and the U.K. against Houthi targets in Yemen. The extent and duration of the U.S., U.K., and any other anti-Houthi actors remains to be seen. Certainly, any direct Israeli intervention inside Yemen would be seen as a serious escalation by all.
The Houthi Rebels, taking their name from Hussein al Houthi, the rebel movement’s founder, are a Muslim subset of Yemen’s Zaidi Shia minority that have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s government since 2014.3 This may be interesting with respect to international politics perhaps, but why should the U.S. care? U.S. concern is geopolitical—the location, political aspirations, and actions of the Houthis combine to create a dangerous, even catastrophic, potential for the region—maybe the world. Politically, the Houthis are a viable revolutionary threat in a country in chaos. Closely allied with Iran, the Houthis are avowed enemies of the U.S. and Israel. By extension, and aggravated by the Sunni/Shia divide, the Houthis were at odds with Saudi Arabia as well. But there have been some overtures of peace between the Houthis and Saudis, of late.
U.S. concern with the Houthis, besides their allied relationships and political aims, is the fact that the Houthis are the de facto government in Yemen and are engaging in acts of war. Tactically, they are pirate-like in their operations in the waters adjacent to the critical Bab al-Mandab Strait at the south end of the Red Sea. So situated, with the Suez Canal at the north end of the Red Sea creating a northern chokepoint, the Houthis are positioned to make the Red Sea into a virtual dead-zone for maritime shipping if they can prohibit transit into the Gulf of Aden and, hence, into the Indian Ocean. The Houthi threat to Red Sea commerce is intolerable to the U.S.4 Free access to the seas has been an American mantra from the very birth of the Nation.
Figure 15
There is a tendency to lump together the Houthi Rebels, the Somali Pirates, and the “ancient” Barbary Pirate U.S. foes, in a single enemy genre. The headline of a recent CounterPunch article, “Yemen’s Houthis Become Today’s Red Sea Version of the ‘Barbary Pirates,’” is just such an example.6 Yet, although the Houthis are not “pirates” in the same sense as pirates of the Barbary Coast or Somalia, there are some useful comparisons.7
All three, the Barbary Pirates, the Somali Pirates, and the Houthi Rebels, represent varying degrees of maritime criminal enterprises. The Somali Pirates are a more traditional example of piracy for plunder while The Barbary Pirate model and the Houthis demonstrate a melding of crime and war. Further, the Barbary and Somali Pirates represent for-profit maritime endeavors; the Houthis are a tactical extension of a larger strategic effort to destroy Israel and expel the United States from the entirety of the Middle East region. The Houthis are not intending to fund their efforts through piracy; their surrogate model derives its funding through sponsorship.
Politics, diplomacy, commerce, and crime all act on somewhat overlapping, at least intersecting, continuums where violence—even war—are found at their extreme progressions. Certainly, the intersection of these four had, and have, much influence on U.S. geopolitical policy and practice. The very foundation of the same navy that is engaging the Houthis can be found in the intersection of these same elements.
This Ain’t Our First Rodeo: The Maritime Lineage of the U.S. Navy
The British American Colonies, being both coastal and part of a maritime empire that engaged in extensive and far-flung military and commercial trade across the globe, desired to develop a robust international maritime trade. Part of this trade involved significant commercial activities in the Mediterranean Region. During the pre-Revolutionary period, British treaties with the Barbary States protected American ships; after the Revolutionary War this protection vanished.8 A prominent British view held that the Barbary Pirates would eliminate American commercial competition in the Mediterranean.9 “The Americans cannot protect themselves” was the expressed British opinion which noted that the newly created United States could not even pretend to have a navy.10
The British opinion was correct but only for a time. In many ways, the initial rise of the U.S. Navy outside of the Atlantic littoral waters of North America came with the construction of naval war vessels meant to project U.S. power internationally against the Barbary States.
Figure 2
Once the United States declared independence, British diplomats were quick to inform the Barbary States that U.S. ships were open to attack. In 1785, Dey [the title of rulers of the Barbary States] Muhammad of Algiers declared war on the United States and captured several American ships.11
The Barbary States were not seeking war—they were seeking loot in the form of paid tribute. Thus, U.S. interaction with kleptocratic regimes is nothing new. However, at this time, there was no U.S. Navy to project power and protect American maritime commerce, and the government, under the Articles of Confederation, was unable to afford one—or the money to pay tribute to the Barbary States.12 The stress created by the demands of the Barbary States resulted in three somewhat overlapping efforts by the new American nation to deal with the problem after the Revolutionary War removed British protection of the American maritime commercial fleet.
The first of these efforts was an attempt to replace the vanished British protection with that of the French. This was accomplished through provisions of the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce, crafted through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin and others, whereby France was to use its powerful military reputation and its diplomatic influence to “protect captured sailors and persuade the leaders of the Barbary nations to refrain from capturing American ships.”13 Over time the effectiveness of this French protection approach diminished to such an extent that the United States felt compelled to try another strategy.
With protection afforded by the French fleet dwindling, a second attempt, spearheaded by Jefferson, was mounted hoping to build a coalition of the U.S. with some of the lesser powers in Europe. This attempt had failed by 1787, as all weak coalitions must in the absence of a strong state around which the coalition can be built, and from which power can be projected and respect obtained. A significant contributing factor to the failure of Jefferson’s proposed coalition was that the United States had no warships to offer in support.14
The third attempt was also diplomatic. However, the United States had nothing of real diplomatic value to bring to the table—no ability to leverage European nations in ways to benefit the Barbary States and no method of coercion to bend them to its will. Adopting an analogy often attributed to Napoleon, novelist Robin Hobb wrote that “diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.”15 Unfortunately, all the U.S. had then was the glove. Still, some kind of “diplomatic” solution was the only real option at the time.
The inability to gain free maritime commercial access by any of the three efforts mentioned left the United States, in a position of obvious weakness, and it attempted to negotiate its way out of the situation in the Mediterranean by using the faux diplomacy of appeasement to alleviate the pirate threat from the Barbary States.
The Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission, consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.16
Appeasement, a corrupted form of diplomacy devoid of any leverage, is an attempt to satisfy extortion. In reality, the U.S. attempts to appease the pirate kleptocracies, not surprisingly, failed. As with modern “protection rackets,” the extorted payment from the weak in exchange for not being attacked by criminals, or with blackmail, the payments never stop. Attempted appeasement of the Barbary Pirates was the classic case of a school yard bully taking a kid’s lunch money in payment for “protection” against being beaten up—by the very same bully.
The trouble was that the U.S. had no real way to force compliance on the part of the Barbary States to any treaties. This circumstance amounted to treaty by extortion—the criminal enterprise of a protection racket. The second problem was the U.S. had a serious lack of available cash to buy its way out. There was no real reason for the Barbary States to continue to comply with a treaty after they had what money the U.S. could offer. They could (and would) simply keep demanding more—witness a criminal enterprise at work.
The two commissioners most involved in tribute treaty negotiations were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams favored paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce moving again in the Mediterranean. Jefferson disagreed. He saw no end to the demands for tribute. 17
At first it seemed as if the Adams approach might work.
In 1787, the United States signed a tribute treaty with Morocco. This proved to be a reasonable treaty, costing the United States a one-time only tribute of about $20,000. Except for a few brief disagreements, Morocco never again harassed American shipping.18
Morocco was an exception. Over time, Adams’ preferred method demonstrated the weakness of appeasement disguised as diplomacy when there is no iron fist within the velvet-gloved hand. For, “in the summer of 1785, pirates from Algiers captured two American merchant ships and held the 21 men aboard them for ransom.”19 The U.S. offered $4,200 to satisfy the ransom while the Algerian demand was more like $60,000.20 “The Americans refused, and negotiations dragged on for more than 10 years.”21
With additional ship and prisoner seizures, a serious debate ensued in the newly formed United States Congress over the need to build a navy. Finally, “in 1794, in response to Algerian seizures of American ships, Congress authorized construction of the first 6 ships of the U.S. Navy.”22 However, navies are not built overnight—a problem that the United States must continue to be aware of today. There is significant lag-time between the identification of the requirement and the actual construction and deployment of warships. During this lag-time,
in 1796, the United States signed a peace treaty with Algiers. The United States agreed to pay $642,500 plus annual tribute of naval supplies and presents to the Dey. In exchange, the Dey promised to release the American captives and protect American shipping.23
From the $4200 offer in 1785 the actual payment extracted from the U.S. came to well over $642,500. Worse, the U.S. had to borrow the money.24 Similar treaties were negotiated with Tripoli and Tunis—thankfully for less money. However, all these treaties began to unravel in the face of the Barbary States’ recurring demands for higher payments and more presents.25
Thus, did Adams’ approach ultimately fail. As previously mentioned, Thomas Jefferson saw no end to tribute payments as a criminal enterprise akin to kidnapping and ransom. Jefferson, a proponent of, what would become some years later, a Clausewitzian understanding of war as an extension of politics, initially preferred decisive action against the Barbary Pirates “through the medium of war.”26 Unfortunately, in the absence of any real naval fighting force, Jefferson too was left with the distasteful option of appeasement.
It all came down to either pay up or fight. Fighting meant building a navy capable of distant operations in the Mediterranean. With passage of the Naval Act of 1794, in many ways a direct result of the influence of the interference of the Barbary States on U.S. shipping, the first lasting step to build the U.S. Navy was taken. Although allowing for only six frigate-sized warships, the intention, construction, and deployment of a credible navy stands as a major inflection point in U.S. history. The fledgling U.S. Navy, largely built to confront the Barbary Pirates, is the progenitor of the incredible U.S. Navy of World War II and the U.S. Navy of today. Acquisition of a real navy placed an iron fist within the velvet glove, and extortion payments to pirate states could end.
Barbary Coast piracy was not the only geopolitical involvement that contributed to the development of the U.S. Navy. Creation of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet also harkens back to “piracy and other dangers;” this time the ones that threatened the “expansion of American trade routes in Asia.”27
The U.S. Navy’s Asiatic Fleet traces its origins back to the East India Squadron which began deploying to the Far East in the 1830s. As early as 1831, piracy and other dangers threatened the expansion of American trade routes in Asia. President Andrew Jackson established the East India Squadron in 1835 to protect American lives and property.28
The East India Squadron was reorganized in 1868 and renamed the Asiatic Squadron. “In the years following the Civil War, the small squadron continued its antipiracy mission in an area spanning from Japan to the South China Sea.”29 Mission requirements in the early years of the twentieth century necessitated that the Asiatic Squadron expand to Asiatic Fleet status. The U.S. gunboat mission on the Yangtze River had its beginnings in 1854, and in the 1900s, brown-water Navy “gunboats traveled the Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chungking, protecting American shipping from bandits, pirates, and other lawless elements during an era of political unrest.”30
The counterpiracy mission of the U.S. Navy continues. According to Rear Adm. Terence McKnight, first commander of the counterpiracy Combined Task Force 151, “Somali pirates are nothing new to the Gulf of Aden.”31 Adm. McKnight went on to say that “the strip of water between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula was plagued with Somali pirates in the 2000s.”32
Moreover, in its article quoting Adm. McKnight, the U.S. Naval Institute acknowledged the cascading effect of Houthi actions noting that “Somali pirates have been known to take advantage of situations like the high tensions in the Middle East.”33 The article hinted that the Somali pirates may benefit from prior knowledge of Houthi attacks—thus, the possibility of coordination between maritime terrorists is a likely reality.34
Conclusions: Looking Forward by Glancing Behind
For the U.S., conflict in Southwest Asia has been, and will be, protracted. The Houthi Rebel threat to shipping in the Red Sea may be partially, even temporarily, squelched—but this certainly will not end it. Perhaps, there is no foreseeable end to conflict with adversaries with motivations rooted in history and religion. The micro threat from the Houthis may be completely neutralized; not so the Hydra-like macro threat of present and potential adversaries that share an expansionist Islamic
mindset. Purely geopolitical approaches favored by the U.S. must be expanded to geopolitical-theology approaches. This is by no means implying that the U.S. should understand Islam as the basis for any action taken anywhere along the diplomatic-military continuum, rather that, where conflict occurs, the religious worldviews of a competitor or adversary must be given credence along with every other factor considered. Applying exclusively secular weight factors in a potential or active conflict while ignoring any religious weight factors of the opposition is incomplete and, therefore, failure prone.
U.S. attention must be given to the sticking power of religiously based adversaries. Religious consideration is not a prominent factor in U.S. military strategy—it should be. The U.S. tends to ignore that one of the core motivations for Islamic opponents is religion. Read history. The attractiveness of Western culture has not proven to be much of an incentive for lasting change in Southwest Asia—the establishment of religiously based government has. The persistent history of religiously grounded adversaries (e.g., in Afghanistan) can be compared and correlated to the persistent history of deeply ideological adversaries (e.g., North Korea, China, North Viet Nam).
The United States can benefit from meaningful glances into its past. Diplomacy is most effective when backed by knowledge and power. There is a real need for American diplomacy combined with U.S. military might to be employed not as polar opposites. Gold, applied for appeasement, will prove ineffective. It provided no lasting relief in the case of the Barbary Pirates and, in fact, not only will it embolden the Iranians, in the present case, it will enrich them—not a desirable combination.
On the other hand, cannonballs hurled without careful consideration of the “four major tasks” so ably defined by General David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts derived from their historical look at conflict from 1945 to the presentis condemned to failure in the long term.35 U.S. inability to adequately accomplish these four major tasks: 1) getting the big ideas right; 2) communicating the big ideas to all stakeholders (I would add, in this case, the government must view citizens as stakeholders); 3) overseeing implementation of the big ideas; and, 4) determining how the big ideas must be refined, adapted, and augmented will lead to prolonged agony as a best-case scenario—the worst case scenario may be too awful to contemplate.
Resorting to cannonballs as a tactical solution to a strategic problem will fail, in the same way that trying to teach a pig to whistle will fail. In the latter, it is impossible—and it annoys the pig. In the former, the results of a tactical-only response of cannonballs will result in an undesirable combination, much the same as the Gold for appeasement approach. This time, tactical-only cannonballs will not change Houthi behavior, and, at best,it will only annoy the Iranians. Worse, it will play into their hands. Proxies are employed to keep the principal outside of arms reach, and the Houthis are a proxy. Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, al-Qaeda, et al, are Hydra heads—simplistic perhaps, but useful if they are only seen as tactical targets.
There are certainly some striking parallels in the Barbary Pirates/Houthis comparison. However, unlike the Barbary Pirates and the still active Somali variety, pirates engaged in activities primarily aimed at profit by plunder and booty do not belong in precisely the same genre as the Houthis. The Houthis do employ some piracy tactics—especially when they take to sea. Moreover, the Houthis’ tactical piracy lends itself to their designation as pirates by the U.S. and other Western states for some very practical reasons. One of those reasons is that it likely avoids directly identifying a Houthi lash-up with Iran. While it may serve current American policy, this reluctance runs counter to decisive U.S. action and hampers world perception of American strength and resolve. Pirates are notoriously independent or, at least, semi-independent operators. So, presently, while it may seem useful to promote the notion of Houthi independence from Iranian influence, it masks the much more serious notion of Iran as the Houthi puppet-master.
Iran has the Houthis right where they want them—in Yemen. Geographically, the narrow Bab al Mandab Strait makes the Houthis location a strategic asset of Iran.36 This critical location is right in the backyard of the Somali pirates as well. Sporadic targeting of Houthis sites in Yemen will not materially affect Iran’s continuing to supply the Houthis with high grade weaponry in a seemingly never-ending flow. Iran will swap Yemeni targets for restricted Red Sea traffic all day long. It is also doubtful that current U.S. diplomacy will rise to the level that would dissuade the Houthis from their Red Sea attacks—neither is it likely to persuade Iran to quell its Houthi support.
John Cody Mosbey
February 3, 2024
Notes
1 Quoted in Simon Webb, The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam, Pen and Sword Books, Ltd. (Yorkshire-Philadelphia), 2020. Cf. Glenn Tucker, Dawn like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the US Navy, Bowsprit Books, 2019.
2 BBC, “Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking Red Sea ships?,” January 22, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67614911.
3 BBC, Who are the Houthis?
4 This is not a U.S. exclusive. The U.K., France, and other countries depend upon Red Sea transit and are willing to engage in force, if necessary, to keep safe passage in this vital sea-lane safe.
5 Peter Hermes Furian, https://stock.adobe.com/images/middle-east-political-map-with capitals-and-national-borders-transcontinental-region-centered-on-western-asia-and-egypt also-middle-eastern-near-or-far-east-illustration-english-labeling
vector/160529146?prev_url=detail
6 Barbara G. Ellis “Yemen’s Houthis Become Today’s Red Sea Version of the ‘Barbary Pirates,’” CounterPunch, January 2, 2024, https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/02/yemens-houthis become-todays-red-sea-version-of-the-barbary-pirates/. There is valuable content in this article. It is mainly the title I take issue with.
7 Cf. Kenneth G. Pringle, “Houthi Attacks: The Long History of Piracy at Sea,” Barron’s, January 24, 2024, https://www.barrons.com/articles/houthi-attacks-the-long-history-of-piracy-at-sea-5c7f8ea5, Charles Dragonette, “Somalia, The New Barbary? Piracy and Islam in the Horn of Africa,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 64: No. 3, Article 12, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc review/vol64/iss3/12/.
8 “The United States and the Barbary Pirates,” Teach Democracy, Fall 2001, https://www.crf usa.org/online-lessons/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-18-1-a-4.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 “Barbary Wars, 1801-1805 and 1815-1816,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/barbary-wars.
12 Barbary Wars, 1801-1805 and 1815-1816.
13 Josh Clark, “What was America’s first Terrorist Threat: Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates,” How Things Work, https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/first-terrorist threat2.htm Cf., “Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and France,” Yale University, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fr1778r.asp.
14 Cf. A.B.C, Whipple, To the Shores of Tripoli: The birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines. (New York: Marrow, 1991).
15 Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden (writing as, Robin Hobb), Fool’s Fate, (London: HarperCollins/Voyager, 2003).
16 Teach Democracy, Bill of Rights in Action.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid. Cf. Barbary Wars, 1801–1805 and 1815–1816.
19 Teach Democracy, Bill of Rights in Action.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Barbary Wars, 1801-1805 and 1815-1816.
23 Teach Democracy, Bill of Rights in Action.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Wendy Arevalo, “The U.S. Navy in the Far East—The U.S. Asiatic Fleet: From Its Origins to World War II,” Naval History and Heritage Command, June 21, 2023,
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and operations/early-20th-century-conflicts/asiatic-fleet.html.
28 Arevalo, The U.S. Navy in the Far East.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31Heather Mongilio, “Pirates Who Attacked Merchant Ship in Gulf of Aden Were Likely Somali, Says Pentagon,” USNI News, U.S. Naval Institute, November 27, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/11/27/pirates-who-attacked-merchant-ship-in-gulf-of-aden-were likely-somali-says-pentagon.
32 Mongilio, Pirates Who Attacked Merchant Ship in Gulf of Aden.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, HarperCollins, New York, 2023. Cf. Conflict, “Introduction.”
36 Cf. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/SHIPPING ARMS/lgvdnngeyvo/?v=2 for an excellent interactive presentation of the maritime situation.
37 John F. Kennedy, “Address at the University of Washington's 100th Anniversary Program,” www.jfklibrary.org, November 16, 1961, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic speeches/address-at-university-of-washington.
38 This maxim works both ways it seems. Cf., e.g., “All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.” Zhou Enlai, Saturday Evening Post, March 27, 1954, and, Oleg Svet, “Public Diplomacy: War by Other Means,” Paper presented at Tufts University, November 5, 2006, file:///C:/Users/airce/Downloads/m900p7888.pdf.