As Houthi rebels escalate threats to Red Sea shipping, echoes of past maritime tensions reveal the strategic stakes for global trade and energy stability.
By Alex Brummer
As a correspondent in Washington in the 1980s I vividly recall taking a call from a source at the British Embassy asking me to come over as they had something urgent to share. The UK government was alarmed by reports that the US Administration, in its battle with the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua, was considering mining the country’s strategically important ports with access to both Caribbean waters and the Pacific Ocean.
