Not enough, hence a lot of DoD logistics is now done on civilian shipping via Maritime Partners program. Including Maersk who was dropping DoD contracts in September, the few ships on contract by DoD in region was refusing to go a couple weeks ago even with US escorts. The big revelation is Houthis has demonstrated US Transportation Command / US military's sealift ability is being challenged by small time Iranian proxy, so good luck on an IndoPac campaign against PRC. At least in terms of optics, feasibility of US DoD maritime logistics especially in protracted war looks to be in atrocious state. Regardless, the problem isn't really how many ships US owns, irrespective of flag - US can buy all the ships if they have to. Issue is US doesn't maintain enough dedicated personel for bulk of military transport (primarily due to working conditions despite being paid well), so they rely on civilian shipping, and it's start to look like civilian shipping increasingly uncertain of US ability to protect in SLOC choke points against TBF not particularly modern weapons.
> The big revelation is Houthis has demonstrated US Transportation Command / US military's sealift ability is being challenged by small time Iranian proxy, so good luck on an IndoPac campaign against PRC.
This is pretty common takeaway from martime analysts. 90% of US transport command missions are run by commercial operators. Maersk contracted DoD vessels refused to transit red sea pre Prosperity Guardian when they already had USN escorts is pretty big red flag on US ability to rely on civilian shipping (and air) for protracted conflict. And right now a lot of rear logistics has been outsourced to civilian sector, frequently international crew, whose interests are not always aligned with US DoD. And since they're civilian, and frequently not American, US can't leverage/pressure them to go into active war zones. Some of civilian shipping is run by US agencies, but again civilian with retention issues. They might get drafted but overall there's large margin of uncertainty on current model of US sealift if Houthis can disrupt so much.
> Maersk contracted DoD vessels refused to transit red sea pre Prosperity Guardian when they already had USN escorts is pretty big red flag on US ability to rely on civilian shipping (and air) for protracted conflict.
A protracted conflict would involve significantly more pressure from the US government to comply. There's nothing so critical right now they need to make a big fuss with Maersk. If we go to war with someone like China, shipping's not going to get to opt out of transits of the Red Sea. That's what stuff like the Defense Production Act are for.
US has dramatically less ability to pressure NON-US crew on NON-US vessels to go on even more suicidal mission in peer war. That's what large segments of the outsourced 90% sealift is coming from. Non-Americans whom US gov have little pressure and can't draft to do military logistics missions during a war. Defense Production Act doesn't apply to them - and with respect to purely DoD/domestic sealift, the issue is US currently lacks significant amount of American hulls and American sailors to fulfill DoD logistics. Both of which has multi year lead time.
The other 10% that's firmly under US control is military sealift command, which is around 130 ships. The concern isn't shipping not going through red sea in protracted PRC scenario - it's if 90% of US DoD logistics capacity won't go to Japan, Korea, Philippines, even Guam etc. Like how DoD contracted Maersk ships initially weren't going up the red sea to presumably supply US interests in region. And now that another Maersk ship got hit, they're doing another 48 hour pause to reevaluate. US needs all the logistics to operate smoothly in a peer war. Not be uncertain whether 90% of military sealift will evaporate because private interest doesn't align with US foreign policy. Even worse considering alterantive is waiting a few years for Defense Production Act to buy/build new ships and train new sailors.
The US isn't protecting its own ships, in particular. They are protecting international trade, on which they are highly dependant (like almost everyone but North Korea).
What makes you say that? At least, a significant amount of world trade passes through there, and the US is dependent on economies of its trading partners and of the world in general.
If you mean, not many countries ship directly to the US via the Suez Canal, I can imagine that. Europeans sail west across the Atlantic, East Asians sail east across the Pacific. India, perhaps, might go west through the Canal, but I don't know that the US imports much material goods from India (lots of services, of course).
What makes me say that is the fact that none of the top US trading partners are in that region. Almost all of our overseas trade is on Atlantic and Pacific routes, very little through the Suez Canal.
