After more than two years of diverting its shipping around the Cape of Good Hope due to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, Maersk recently announced that it would again operate in the Red Sea. However, this is a tentative step, and other carriers have scaled back similar plans, at least in the short term, due to ongoing risks. A new open-access article in Middle East Policy explains why the Red Sea corridor has become a hybrid security complex that cannot be resolved without major progress on land-based governance. This indicates that international shipping is not likely to return to the status quo ante.
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In his open-access analysis for Middle East Policy, Federico Donelli argues that the major disruption to shipping—estimated to add as much as $20 billion to the costs each year—shows that the Red Sea corridor has evolved into a hybrid security complex where land- and sea-based threats, actors, and logics are converging.
Previous analyses distinguished between the two domains, he explains:
The land-based dimension, particularly in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, exhibits features of a conflict formation, including weak institutions, border disputes, overlapping ethnic and sectarian ties, and interference among neighboring states. By contrast, the maritime dimension, especially after the anti-piracy campaigns of the 2000s, has exhibited elements of a nascent security regime supported by shared economic interests and multilateral naval coordination.
With the dichotomy no longer holding, Donelli contends, we need to conceive of the Red Sea area as a hybrid regional security complex.
The article shows how the terrestrial- and sea-based elements interact. On land, colonial boundaries disregarded local dynamics of religion and ethnicity, and the post-independence states emerged fragmented and mistrustful while competing with neighbors and external powers for resources. Militaries act as domestic instruments for regime preservation, as well as tools for intervening in cross-border affairs. This security complex operates under the “logic of mutual suspicion and encourages the formation of ad hoc coalitions, which are often aligned by identity or ideology, to counter perceived threats.”
The maritime order was supposed to be different, shaped by mutual interests. “The uninterrupted movement of goods, energy, and data is essential not only for regional economies but also for the broader global trading system,” Donelli notes. Because of this, states cooperated in response to the Somali piracy of the early 2000s, coordinated not just by the United States but multilateral bodies like the United Nations, European Union, and NATO. This security regime “became an example of stability in a high-risk zone.”
However, Donelli shows, this shifted as civil wars spilled across the purported land-sea barrier, resulting in an “increasing maritimization of armed conflict.” While primary evidence comes from the Houthi attacks in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, the article shows that many other subregions are becoming hybrid security complexes:
Port cities like Hudaydah and Mokha are no longer just logistical hubs but dual-use zones for civilian trade and military operations. The Bab al-Mandeb Strait is not just a chokepoint for container ships; it is also a strategically important area influenced by actors whose power base lies inland. The same is true of other regional nodes. Djibouti’s maritime infrastructure is shaped by cross-border rivalries, while Eritrea’s coast is part of its conflictual relationship with Ethiopia and the UAE. Infrastructure projects on land and at sea, designed to integrate the region, are now also vectors of competition and vulnerability.
The effects of these hybrid orders reverberate across local land and sea areas and into regional and global economics and politics.
Given the range of actors involved, Donelli offers three types of responses:
- sustainable governance: investment in conflict resolution and coastal state capacity, aimed at addressing root causes on land
- alliance strategies: backing particular factions to contain conflict and secure chokepoints, even if governance remains fragile
- transactional arrangements: short-term deals or payoffs to local actors that allow shipping to continue without addressing deeper instability.
While sustainable governance is the best way to stabilize the hybrid security complex we observe in the Red Sea, in the short term, “fragmented alliances and transactional deals are more probable, as they require fewer resources and provide immediate relief from commercial pressures.”
Donelli’s findings lead him to conclude with a blunt warning. “Policy makers must adopt integrated, cross-domain strategies combining short-term crisis management with long-term governance initiatives,” he argues. “Without such an approach, the Red Sea will continue to be a region where local insurgencies have global consequences and fragmented responses fail to resolve structural interdependencies.”
Middle East Policy, Winter 2025
THE REGIONAL REORDERING
From Rebuilding to Restoring Political Order: A New Agenda for Failed Arab States
Guilain Denoeux | Robert Springborg—open access!
Saudi Arabia’s US-China Hedging Strategy and Its Regional Impact
Xiaoyu Wang | Salman K. Al-Dhafeeire | Degang Sun
Maritime Disruption in Yemen: The Making of a Hybrid Red Sea Order
Federico Donelli—open access!
The Struggle for Syria: Strategic Rivalry and the Risks of Escalation
Buğra Sari | Avnihan Kirişik
THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE
The Israeli Peace Movement in a Time of Crisis
Natalya Philippova—free to read!
The Role of Postage Stamps in Palestinian National Identity and History
Ido Zelkovitz | Yehiel Limor—open access!
TURKISH NATIONALISM AND DOMESTIC POLITICS
Why the New Turkey-PKK Peace Process Is Likely to Fail
Michael M. Gunter
Turkey’s March 19 Protests: An End to Competitive Authoritarianism?
Göktürk Tüysüzoğlu
Athlete Queens of Modern Turkey: Beauty Pageants and Modernization
Muhammet Nurullah Çakmak
Countering Extremism in Iraq: The Influence of Ali Sistani
Hogr Tarkhani | Isaac Andakian
BOOK REVIEWS
Sareta Ashraph, Carmen Cheung Ka-Man, and Joana Cook, Holding ISIL Accountable: Prosecuting Crimes in Iraq and Syria
Reviewed by Usman Anwar | Muhammad Atif
Samer Bakkour, The End of the Middle East Peace Process: The Failure of US Diplomacy
Reviewed by Hamdullah Baycar