Behold the Red Sea Clown Show

CDR Salamander Substack ^ | 18 Nov 2024 | CDR Salamander

[Rummyfan]

I’m still not quite sure what to say about this gobsmackingly amazing quote from Axios:

Houthi rebels are brandishing increasingly sophisticated weapons, including missiles that "can do things that are just amazing," the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said at an Axios event.

The big picture: The militant group has for a year used drones and missiles to strangle waters off Yemen, disrupting international shipping.

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante on Wednesday said the Houthis "are getting scary."

"I'm an engineer and a physicist, and I've been around missiles my whole career," he said at the Future of Defense summit in Washington, DC. "What I've seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that — I'm just shocked."

The Houthi?

In 2024, the United States’ Department of Defense (DoD) budget was $842 billion. The entire nation of Yemen’s GDP in 2023 was somewhere around $21 billion depending on your source. The Houthi are a rebel group in Yemen, so only a portion of that is in the control of the Houthi. A significant percentage of that is directly or indirectly related to foreign aid.

[Rummyfan]

It is not the resources or capabilities that are lacking. It is political will.

[Rummyfan]

Having the most advanced intelligence capabilities—I think, maybe like our Navy, we’re second best now—is useless if our most senior leaders cannot understand a threat that has been fighting us for over a year. I’m not sure what is worse, the failure to push information to senior leaders, or the senior leaders not pulling it to them.

Either way, another example of systemic institutional malfunction.

[Wuli]

What do the Saudis know? Why did they open relations with the Mullahs of Tehran and back off on THEIR war against the Houthi??

[PGR88]

If you think Americans pay extortionary rates for bad, government/crony health-care and a bloated, corrupt health-care bureaucracy - then you should look at the defense department...

[StAnDeliver]

" It is political will. "

Yes, going mafia on Houthis; going mafia on Ansar Allah in Yemen and abroad; buying up loyalties (the al-Houthi family notorious for accepting bribes and selling allegiances); and letting Abdul Malik know there are spies everywhere around him.

Close the port of Salif and mine the Yemen coastline. Restart the civil war with the Saudis as proxies from the east, and wring the Houthis slowly. Find their Iranian advisors in country and livestream their demise. Use the info that was sweated out of them first to destroy their missile depots.

Make it too expensive for Iran to continue.

[Leaning Right]

It is of course a concern to see the US do nothing in the face of these Houthi provocations. I would suppose that Trump 2.0 will take a hard look at this.

But I sure hope this won’t be a case of the United States doing all the heavy lifting while the other impacted nations just stand around.

[rdcbn1]

the Biden Admin failures in Afghanistan were bad but the situation with the Houthis is actually much worse.

Biden has allowed the Houthis to run wild with impunity and they have went from a joke to a very serious threat in the region because of Biden fecklessness.

People scream about the $80 billion of military hardware we left the Taliban but nobody is talking about the equally stunning number of of billions of dollars were blown by Biden over the last year on using state of the art missile interceptors to shoot down obsolete, cheap ass shit stick missiles and drones the Houthis are lobbing at our naval forces and commercial shipping in the Red Sea as well as into Israel.

Everyone of these we could easily have destroyed cheaply and easily (relatively) in their bunkers or on the launch site before they could be used.

We have actually depleted the magazines on all the missile defense ships in the fleet and have had to have them re loaded numerous times.

It's not just insanity, it's dereliction of duty

It's almost like the Biden people want to disarm the US by depleting our reserves on worthless targets. Given the large number of fanatically pro Iranian elements in the Biden Administration, this is not unlikely

[The Great RJ]

The SuezCanal and Red Sea are vital lifelines for Western Europe and certainly the Brits and French have the means to wreak havoc on the Houthis and open the Suez Canal. Why have they not taken charge?

[Roadrunner383]

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is operating in Yemen, and Yemeni sources have said the Guard are actually operating and firing some of the weapons themselves, so it’s not just the Houthis.

I hope President Trump tells Iran to start withdrawing the IRG from other countries and stop supporting terrorists. If Iran doesn’t comply, start out by destroying Iran’s port facilities. If Iran still doesn’t comply, destroy their nuclear facilities, refineries, oil pipelines and power stations.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Please, will someone explain why Biden allows the Houthi to carry on? I know the reasons may be stupid and this forum will take issue with the reasons. But what are they? No matter how dumb or outrageous.

[ModelBreaker]

“It’s almost like the Biden people want to disarm the US by depleting our reserves on worthless targets.”

The enemy is China. Using up anti-missile resources weakens us dramatically in the war that China may start.

OTOH, I don’t worry so much about artillery shells to Ukraine. Artillery shells will not be a significant factor in a war against China.

[cpdiii]

Blockade Yemen, take out their offshore oil production which is most of their production and take out their refining capacity, the blockade would starve them out. Yemen is only about 20% self sufficient in food. They will cooperate or starve in the dark.