Armed Guards on Ships in the Red Sea

The recent attack on the Eternity C that left crew members dead, kidnapped, or missing and the ship itself on the seafloor was more than another statistic in the Red Sea. For a professional perspective on the entire incident, check Sal Mercogliano’s youtube. I want to focus on a particular aspect - that armed guards were aboard. Among those caught up in the chaos were guards from Ambrey, the world’s largest private maritime security company. According to various news sources,

Three armed guards were also on board, including one Greek and one Indian, who were both rescued.

Their presence underscored both how indispensable private security has become to global shipping in some places and in some cases. This is certainly not new for the region.

I’ve been following private maritime security since it exploded onto the scene in response to Somali piracy - I wrote about it, presented at maritime security conferences, etc. There were changes in Somali pirate tactics but it all remained essentially the same - an attack by pirates armed with small arms approaching merchant ships in small boat to capture and ransom the ship and personnel.

The arrival of private security teams on merchant ships - and in some rarer cases a few companies that offered ships as security escorts - was effective enough that by the mid-2010s Somali piracy was largely under control. For years, that model held.

The threat posed by Houthis, however, changes that model. Even shipping companies have responded in some part. During the era of Somali piracy era, for example, ships were more likely than not to turn off their AIS so that their position, course, and speed could not be used by Somalis to better anticipate where the ships might be vulnerable to an attack.

It’s been interesting to see the changes in how ships are providing information that is available to anyone via vesselfinder.com or marinetraffic.com. For example, in one of the better “NO KILL I” modes, Chinese ships add basic information for the Houthis like their country and the fact that they have their country’s soldiers aboard.

KIRK: No kill I. What is that, a plea for us not to kill it, or a promise that it won't kill us?

Indeed.

The same is true for European or other merchant ships which are likewise announcing via this system that armed guards are aboard in the hope of deterring violent adversaries. During the era of Somali piracy, no ship with a private armed guard contingent was captured. It was an effective deterrent.

But the Houthis are not pirates. They’re not motivated by money but by politics. They’re less interested in capturing a ship than in the high-value publicity that a sinking ship offers to their cause. Since late 2023, the Red Sea has become a combat zone, and their arsenal - drones, anti-ship missiles, explosive boats - has changed the equation. They’ve expanded their target list beyond Israeli-linked shipping to vessels with even tenuous Western ties, making nearly every commercial ship a potential target. What worked against pirates simply doesn’t work against drones and precision-guided weapons launched from shore.

Armed guards may still have a role to play, but their presence alone won’t stop missiles or drones, or sometimes unmanned vessels. The stakes have changes and so too must the ability to respond in order to be effective for their clients. It raises hard questions about what role, if any, private security can play in conflicts involving state-backed actors, how much responsibility should fall to governments and navies, and whether the shipping industry is prepared to pay for the kind of integrated solutions the situation now demands.

What tools or commercially-available weapons be available to private maritime security companies to counter the Houthi threat. To be honest, I don’t know. I have some thoughts on some technologies but each time I look at it, there’s a cost associated the more complex a solution you find. And with those costs, shipping companies will weigh if it is simply more cost-effective to circumnavigate Africa (itself not so inexpensive) rather than risk a ship transiting the Red Sea conducting legitimate commerce. We’ve already seen changes during the Somali piracy era changed the cost of doing business as well as private security options.

At the height of the era, armed guard generally came from UK-, US, or other European-based security firms hiring former professional military. As the number of incidents decreased, shipping companies did not see the need to continue spending $100,000 or so for a few weeks for armed teams. The way the security companies responded to offer reduced rates was to hire from other countries instead, such as India, Sri Lanka, or elsewhere where the labor cost could be dramatically reduced. Such was the case with Eternity C where at least two of the three armed guards were reportedly Indian and Greek.

The better answer is state-sponsored counter-measures to protect that commerce. That has been the traditional role of navies, and the US Navy has recent experience responding to the Houthi threat. But the US, under current limitations, cannot be the region’s only guarantor of legitimate maritime commerce.

What worked in the Gulf of Aden in 2011 won’t work in the Red Sea in 2025. Flexibility, good intelligence, and a commitment to protecting those at sea are still essential, but the playbook needs to change. If the last fifteen years were about putting armed guards on deck, the next fifteen will be about rethinking what security at sea really means - and who’s responsible for providing it.