Predictably, the US/UK military coalition that attacked Houthi forces twelve days ago has been in action again. ‘Predictably’ because the initial strike was always unlikely to dismantle the Houthis now extensive capacity to attack shipping in the Red Sea. But, more importantly, because it is currently in their interests to keep up the belligerence, as it is very much in the interests of their main backer: Iran. And not just Iran.

Those questioning the financial wisdom of using high-tech western missiles costing millions to defeat rudimentary rockets and drones costing thousands aren’t quite drawing the right equation. If a million-dollar missile saves a billion-dollar ship then it is worth it – and global commerce, the world’s economic life-force, requires the Suez Canal to be kept open. But that is to cost the tactical battle not the enduring strategic confrontation, where the picture is more alarming.

Those first strikes included eighty US Tomahawk cruise missiles costing around $1.5 million each. More were used in subsequent US attacks that now number, including last night’s attacks, eight separate strike packages in less than a fortnight. No wonder US congressmen and the US navy are now lobbying the Hill hard for more money for missiles. This is money that cannot go to Ukraine, preparing Taiwan’s defences as part of the general increase in readiness in the Indo-Pacific theatre, nor countering Iran directly – all of which are genuine strategic concerns.

So, no wonder that Khamenei, Putin and Xi are happy to see such resource being expended on the relatively backwater country of Yemen, and the seemingly indestructible force that is the Houthi movement. This is why I posed the question of what the Coalition will do next in my last Spectator article. Can it continue indefinitely spending small fortunes on a series of irritate swats that do not alter the strategic balance, indeed when this might make it worse?

A much more comprehensive, coercive strategy against Iran, and its chief agents of terrorism, is now needed

The coalition has now staked much credibility on its ability to control the situation in the Red Sea, and so it cannot walk away. It could try and reduce the costs of the operation. It might negotiate use of air bases in the vicinity, and then use cheaper air-launched munitions in a form of ‘no-fly zone’ along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. But that would not be cheap either, and to reassure the global merchant marine and its insurers such an operation might have to be maintained as long as the Houthis present even a latent threat. The UK and the US could find themselves heavily distracted from their core interests – our competitors would rejoice while, of course, also benefitting from access to secure sea lines of communication.

So, one must look to what PM Sunak might have been referencing when he spoke today in the House of Commons of his conversations with President Biden over the ‘deep complexities’ of the current situation, and that we must look beyond the military to the ‘wider diplomatic and economic strategies’. Are those strategies wide and deep enough? Are we looking at ultimately who benefits, who pulls the strings, and how we might put pressure on them where it truly hurts? The pivot here is Iran, and a major beneficiary is Putin.

A much more comprehensive, coercive strategy against Iran, and its chief agents of terrorism, is now needed. That would include interrupting as far as possible the assistance it gives to Putin as part of the disruption of this axis of hostility that we now face. We should simultaneously send a strong and clear message over our ability to support Ukraine, via a much-increased effort to supply it with the materiel it needs to bring some decision to that war; versus our revealed preference to give it just enough to keep the war going. We need to start controlling these wars and confrontations rather than semi-effectively managing their consequences.

The alternative is to increasingly bleed national treasure in a series of semi-frozen conflicts and peripheral tactical distractions that our foes are only too keen to sponsor. Over time, given that discrepancy in relative costs incurred, these could add up to a slow death by a thousand cuts while we seek solace in individual acts of tactical brilliance: Trumpeting that ‘all last night’s targets were successfully destroyed’ could be, in an adaption of Sun Tzu’s famous aphorism, the tactical noise before strategic defeat.