In a rapidly changing situation, the Houthi movement in Yemen has seized control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden after seizing all of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and a number of islands in the strait. The Houthis now have effective control over this vital chokepoint, through which almost 9% of all global seaborne trade passes, including 20% of both cars and containers and some 15% of crude and refined oil products—though they are claiming that only Saudi Arabian–linked vessels are subject to the blockade.

This is compounding an already dire situation for global trade, given the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the near-total stoppage of Russian and Ukrainian grain and fertilizer exports through the contested Black Sea. Following the Houthis’ action, on Sept. 11 Iraqi resistance forces severely damaged Saudi Arabia’s East-West Crude Oil Pipeline, which had become a major lifeline for Saudi exports following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi pipeline is the largest in the region by at least a factor of two, carrying some 4% of global oil. Taken together, it should be obvious that the reckless policies of war and proxy-war waged by Western nations are not only threatening to blow up the whole world, but are hastening a meltdown of the world’s physical economy.