Click to see the full-size image
Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant
Apparently, Israel’s allies will have serious difficulties confronting the Houthis in the Red Sea. Yemeni forces are succeeding in causing damage to Israel and preventing the flow of trade in the Red Sea from returning to normal. Contrary to what biased Western analysts predicted, the US does not seem capable of reversing this scenario so easily.
According to a recent report, the American government is concerned about the financial viability of fighting Yemen. Although it has launched a military operation with an international coalition against the Houthis, Washington does not appear able to face frictions in the region for long, as the costs of neutralizing Yemeni attacks are extremely high – and currently the US is not in a good financial situation.
The tactics of the Yemeni forces consist of simply attacking all Israeli and allied countries’ vessels using missiles and drones. Usually, the equipment launched by the Houthis is low-cost and does not generate major financial problems for the Yemeni government. But the same cannot be said about the US efforts to shoot down these weapons.
The costs of counterattacking are always higher than the costs of attacking. In the specific case of the war efforts in the Red Sea, the situation becomes even more complicated. Air defense systems require high operability and maintenance costs. Furthermore, there is a margin for error, with counterattacks failing to neutralize many of the weapons launched by the Houthis. So far, the US has managed to shoot down dozens of Yemeni missiles and drones, but even so, several Houthi attacks have been successful, resulting in clear financial losses for American and Israeli forces.
According to Politico, each ammunition used by the Americans is worth about a thousand times more than a Yemeni drone. The newspaper shows the data citing sources from the US Department of Defense itself, so there is no reason to distrust the information. Also, according to a CIA officer interviewed by the outlet, the situation is “quickly” becoming a problem for the US, with the final result of the fighting in the Red Sea favoring the Yemenis.
“The cost offset is not on our side (…) That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor (…) We, the U.S., need to start looking at systems that can defeat these [weapons] that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us”, Mick Mulroy, a former US Defense Department official and senior CIA agent, told Politico’s journalists.
Furthermore, the escalation of violence in the region appears to be a domino effect. The more the US and its coalition act in defense of Israel, the more the Houthis will attack and try to make the Red Sea an unstable zone, inappropriate for commercial navigation. Considering these factors, it does not seem surprising that the US has so far avoided bombing Yemeni territory, focusing only on shooting down drones and missiles launched by the Houthis. For Washington, a new total war in the Middle East with direct involvement of its troops would be absolutely disastrous and anti-strategic.
It is important to remember that the US is currently in a serious economic and social crisis, which is the result of all the problems faced by the country in recent years. Soon after the pandemic, Washington began a billion-dollar military aid campaign to the Kiev regime, sending successive packages of weapons and equipment in a completely irrational manner, without taking into account its own national interests. Now, faced with the crisis in the Middle East, the country is trying to promote a new similar military campaign, but financial resources are not sufficient to repeat the suicidal measures previously implemented in Ukraine.
Previously, pro-war activists and biased analysts were betting on a quick victory of the pro-Israel coalition against Palestine’s allies due to military superiority. Now, however, the reality is proving different. The US actually has more military strength than the Houthis, but the costs of maintaining this force are also much greater than the enemy side’s military expenditures. Likewise, Israel is indeed stronger than Palestinian armed groups, but the IDF depends on a much larger budget than that of paramilitary organizations with low firepower. In a war, military strength is not the only factor to be considered, with the economic viability of operations being also an important point to be analyzed. So, apparently, the Americans and Israelis made a mistake in their assessment of their economic capacity to back the conflict.
To prevent hostilities in the Red Sea from becoming a serious problem for the US and the entire West, the American government should simply stop its interventionism and avoid direct participation in the regional war in the Middle East.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
thats not like that. many countries are now sendings ships, airplanes and drones to pretect a main world trade channel.
next might be steppng up against iran i fx in a trump version.
most of the artickle is a low classed flee market. usa fx has not tyrkish inflation. and will ergodan changes his liras to rubles. are china and india well. they are in regression. eu is better by has big problems as well.
china does not have a problem with the houthis, nor do iran, turkey and russia. not sure about vessels registered under south american companies. if i’m not mistaken, china’s commercial fleet represents 1/3 of the world’s capacity, so in reality the situation is that more than a third of the world’s commercial fleet is allowed to enter suez. maersk and hapag are not allowed, because eu acts like an elephant in the room.
iran will move up its next pawn on the chess board and the us will scream in pain. don’t get all jumpy and uppitty. at the end of the day, the one who wins is the one who’s got the resilience. you understand? we saw this in iraq and then we saw this in afghanistan no?
the problem with the houthis is that handful of iranian hypersonic anti-ship missiles can take down the whole us aircraft carrier group and kill <10,000 us personnel, which would be equivalent of the sinking of the lusitania in ww1 and pearl harbor in ww2. so closing suez to western shipping companies and a low intensity attacks against us warships looks great on the paper, but the whole situation can escalate quickly if somebody in the us decides to stage false flag operation.
yes but must be proven.
and the houthis haven’t even started launching chinese weather balloons.
go old-school with dumb bombs. turn the lights out in yemen. make em work in the dark. make big craters at points of origin for launches. counterfire happens. the more shipping is attacked the more enemies the yemenis will have.
won’t work pal!
they’ve tried that since 2014 round the clock practically. made no difference whatsoever. you understand buddy?
the houthis decision to not allow israhell ships or western that commerce with them to not permit the passage is a sanction as the sanctions of western rogue nations to russia, iran, venezuela…… this is same behavior of western rogue entities in front of whatever actor that isn t servant of western shameful way of conduct businesses. so, why not shot demons with same weapons they uses?
yeah, the wealthiest nation on earth can’t afford to stop the houthis and your argument is an rt article and nonsensical rambling about how the us is an economic crisis (lol) if the us can’t handle a few sheep fuckers, they wouldn’t be the global power, above russia and china. but they are because they can.