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Leading off, seems that 9 nation task force patrolling the Red Sea against errant missiles, pirates etc. is a bit larger than was originally reported.<\/p>\n
So far, 19 nations have signed onto what has been dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian<\/u> (OPG), instead of the initial nine that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin introduced on Monday, Lara Seligman of Politico <\/em>reported<\/u>. That’s because most of the nations don’t want to go public, she reported, citing a senior administration official.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The War Zone<\/a><\/p>\n
It is kind of understandable – if a country is big enough to have a Navy, no doubt they are big enough to buy oil – and we’ve seen how tenuous a connection to Israel is considered ‘attackable’ by the Houthis. Participating to help safeguard shipping while keeping a low profile is probably as good as it gets.<\/p>\n
Also saw a good response to the “why don’t we just blow the Houthis to kingdom come” question.<\/p>\n
The blanket notion of ‘hitting them back’ includes a huge spectrum of potential responses. These range from reactive, proportional responses to much more comprehensive and prolonged campaigns, with various velocities of escalation that can be overlaid on such operations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well, BTDT (been there, done that), right?<\/p>\n
The entire region is on extreme edge. Iran and its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon have not<\/u> yet entered the Israel-Hamas conflict with full force<\/u>, but there is still the possibility they might. Attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq<\/u> and Syria are also already a near-daily occurrence. The Houthis alone have the ability to drastically increase attacks on U.S. forces in the region, but more on that in a moment.<\/p>\n
So, on the one hand, one could argue that a kinetic response is exactly <\/em>what the Houthis and their Iranian backers desperately want. It very well could be that they want to get the U.S. directly involved and mired in a facet of the Israel-Hamas conflict.<\/p>\n
Houthis have a massive<\/u> and diverse long-range arsenal<\/u> that has evolved significantly over the better part<\/u> of a decade of conflict with the Saudi-led coalition. A major<\/em> U.S. installation sits just across the strait, less than 100 miles from Yemen, in the form of Camp Lemonnier<\/u> in Djibouti.<\/p>\n
The War Zone II<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are other fairly vital locations in the area, too, and as is pointed out, constantly dodging barrages of incoming would be,\u00a0 ah, inconvenient.<\/p>\n
Politico mentions something which is relevant, too. We are very proud of all these drones and low-end missiles we are shooting down, and we’ve racked up an impressive tally.<\/p>\n
U.S. Navy destroyers have shot down 38 drones and multiple missiles in the Red Sea over the past two months, according to a Defense Department official, as the Iran-backed militants have stepped up attacks on commercial vessels moving energy and oil through the world\u2019s most vital shipping lanes. On Saturday alone, the destroyer USS Carney intercepted 14 one-way attack drones.<\/p>\n
The cost of using expensive naval missiles \u2014 which can run up to $2.1 million a shot \u2014 to destroy unsophisticated Houthi drones \u2014 estimated at a few thousand dollars each \u2014 is a growing concern, according to three other DOD officials. \u00a0Politico<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Given that the Iranians seem to be pulling all the strings in the area to the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and any other H-guys, you have to wonder whether some smart mullah noted the resupply issues with Ukraine and the deterioration of our supply system.\u00a0 “Ya know, they shoot enough of those zillion dollar long-replacement missiles, we can bleed their stocks down to next to nothing – for peanuts”,\u00a0 safely knowing we can’t build replacements as fast as we use them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"