The billion-dollar shipping war nobody voted for

 How a conflict in the Red Sea is quietly jamming the global economy

A few weeks ago, a friend messaged in frustration: her favourite skincare serum, shipped from a premium brand in Copenhagen, had suddenly been delayed. 

No shipping update, no estimated delivery date - just a vague promise of arrival "sometime in July." She assumed it was a typical supply chain hiccup. I joked that maybe pirates were to blame.

It wasn’t a completely ridiculous idea. In fact, that serum is now part of a global game of logistical roulette, stalled by a conflict in one of the world’s most crucial shipping lanes - a conflict that most people never voted on, and many still don’t fully understand.

Since late 2023, the waters of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden - a corridor that handles roughly 12% - 15% of all global trade - have become a target zone. The Houthi rebel group in Yemen, backed by Iran, has been launching drones and missiles at commercial ships, claiming to attack vessels linked to Israel. In response, the United States has led a campaign of military retaliation, with the UK joining in sporadically. The result is a billion-dollar disruption to global shipping - and rising fears of a wider, undeclared war playing out at sea.

The consequences have been immediate and widespread. According to the UK’s Ministry of Defence, there’s already been a 55% drop in shipping traffic through the Red Sea. To avoid attacks, commercial vessels are rerouting around the southern tip of Africa, adding up to 10 days of travel time and inflating freight costs by more than 300%. Every extra day at sea costs money - in fuel, insurance, labour and spoilage - and those costs are filtering down to retailers, logistics firms, and ultimately, consumers.

What makes this conflict so unusual is its political murkiness. The US began its latest wave of strikes in March 2025 under the directive of president Trump, who has called the operation "decisive and powerful." Since then, over 800 targets have since been hit, with hundreds of Houthi fighters and leaders reportedly killed. But civilian casualties have surged too, with reports emerging of dozens killed in a detention centre strike and further deaths at a Red Sea port. The Pentagon has confirmed it's "aware" of civilian harm claims, but offered little detail beyond that.

Last week, the UK joined a round of strikes targeting what it said were drone manufacturing facilities south of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. It was the first military action authorised by Britain’s new Labour government - and its messaging was deliberate. Officials described the strikes as carefully planned, carried out at night to minimise civilian harm, and focused on defending the "freedom of navigation" for international trade. The subtext was clear: this is an economic intervention as much as a military one.

Despite the serious risks involved, public scrutiny seems to have been minimal. In both the UK and the US, updates have mostly come through official statements and tightly controlled press releases, offering limited insight into the decision-making process behind the strikes. While military officials point to national security concerns and the need to protect global trade, the broader implications - on regional stability, on civilian safety, on the future of Western interventionism - are rarely addressed in detail. The silence is striking, given the scope of the campaign. Hundreds of targets have been hit, shipping routes have been redrawn, and the potential for escalation remains dangerously high. Yet for most people, the war exists only in footnotes.

The Houthis, for their part, aren’t just making random threats. They’ve found a low-cost way to wield disproportionate influence. By targeting ships in a tight maritime corridor, they’ve triggered a cascade of global knock-on effects. Oil prices have fluctuated. Shipping lines are facing major scheduling challenges. Luxury goods, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and food imports have all seen delays. And companies from Maersk to Amazon are now factoring in new risk premiums just to operate normally.

This isn’t the first time a narrow waterway has become a global flashpoint - the Suez Canal blockage in 2021 showed how vulnerable the world’s supply chains are to single points of failure. But the Red Sea conflict feels different. It’s not a freak accident or technical glitch. It’s a deliberate disruption, weaponising geography and logistics in a way few military actors have done before.

At its heart, this is a political problem disguised as a supply chain crisis. Governments say they’re acting to protect commerce, but it’s consumers and small businesses who bear the hidden costs - in pricier goods, stretched delivery times, and shrinking margins. Meanwhile, Yemeni civilians are once again caught in the middle, casualties in a war that has shifted from land to sea without any pause in its human toll.

Back in Copenhagen, the skincare brand still hasn’t restocked. My friend’s order is, quite literally, adrift. Her expensive serum is now a symbol of something far larger: a global economy that can be rocked by a handful of drones, a conflict few understand, and a war that was never formally declared.

This is what modern warfare increasingly looks like - not declared with flags or headlines, but embedded in spreadsheets, shipping manifests and missing parcels. A war fought on Slack threads and radar screens. 

A war most of us never voted for, but now live with every time we click ‘Buy Now’.