[Rummyfan]

The Houthis should have been annihilated in one week.

[null and void]

Where’s the money in that?

[A strike]

‘Midrats’
haven’t heard that in a looong time

was never impressed

[AndyJackson]

It is time to bring systems to see that allow us to economically engage civilizations that can out-produce us"

For all the war mongers out there who want the US to dominate the world, however idiotic the goal, you can’t do it by sending manufacturing abroad at the behest of the McKenzie consultancy. It was and remains lunacy. Of course the belief was the seignorage based upon the petro dollar would allow us to continue to buy stuff and charge it to the world. But that was all based upon a time when the US was the world’s dominant manufacturing power.

[Paul R.]

"It is time to bring systems to see that allow us to economically engage civilizations that can out-produce us"

Well, letting a typo like that sneak by hardly inspires confidence...

That said, the thought is a good one, but then gets rather lost. What we need is to go asymmetric ourselves, in a big way, with existing technology. Consider that the USS Reagan cost around 4.5 billion dollars. What would be the cost to take a medium age cargo ship, say, a car carrier, and turn it into a drone carrier? Not Reapers or Predators -- something like the better of the drones in each range class the Ukies are using should be sufficient for "difficult targets, lesser version would be used . Throw in a few anti-sea-drone sea-drones, and a few conventional sea drones. Maybe a few small auto-cannon for close-in defense, some Manpads, and some modified Javelins or similar. Further defense can be via our existing AD destroyers. Even a middle age car carrier is a big ship: Converted it would have the capability to launch and operate at least 500 drones a day, and I'm not so sure 1000 is unreasonable. (A 10 y/o car carrier is a big ship!) Put two of these off Yemen. What the hell are the Houthis going to do about 2000 drones a day, almost every freaking day? (I know that sounds like a lot of drones, but consider the West is working on and well on the way toward arming Ukraine with 3 million drones a year.)

The above is just a suggestion. It surely needs refinement, and better ideas should be out there. Think outside the box, in big ways...