Welcome to the second Great Game of the year. What an action-packed start to 2024 we’ve had in geopolitics, and the coming weeks are looking no less eventful. This week, we take a look at the status in the Red Sea as well as Taiwan and give our prediction as to what the coming weeks will bring.

Red Sea Rumblings

We’ve covered the financial and economic fall-out of the Red Sea Crisis extensively on our platform and the past two weeks have seen tensions rise and shipping traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal all but evaporate. All major shipping firms are now taking the long route south of Africa with massive increases to freight rates and renewed inflation concerns as a consequence. But what’s the outlook militarily and politically?

In recent days, the attacks seem to have slowed down, but of course, that’s a natural consequence of the massive decrease in shipping along the Yemeni coast. The Houthis simply have less ships to attack. Still, the rhetoric is flaming hot and the Houthis recently vowed to attack ships of all nationalities – well, maybe except Russian freighters who are seemingly unconcerned about going through the Red Sea.