US Navy admits that firepower alone won't stop the Red Sea conflict against the Houthis in Yemen.

 

An F-18 Super Hornet being launched from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Business Insider/US Navy Photo.

The US Navy has admitted that firepower alone won't stop the Red Seal conflict in Yemen with the Houthis. Business Insider. Vice Admiral George Wikoff, who commands the US Navy in CENTCOM, said that the solution for the conflict is not going to "come at the end of a weapons system", adding that the solution needed to be diplomatic. The Navy has been involved in heavy combat with the Houthis in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for the past eight months, since the Israel-Gaza war broke out and Yemen started attacking shipping. The US has used up a large amount of weapons in the battle, but have not been able to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. The Houthis are well supplied and able to build their own weapons along with the weapons they receive from Iran. 

My Comment:

This is a fairly stunning admission from the US Navy and a good example as to why our Yemen policy appears to be failing. I think the Vice Admiral is right, the end to the war in the Red Sea isn't going to come from us bombing Yemen. Short of a massive invasion, which might not even work, I don't see how you get the Houthis to stop just by bombing them. 

The problem is that there isn't really a diplomatic solution to this crisis either. The Houthis are not going to give up this war until the war in Gaza ends and not even then. And the Biden administration was powerless in the region even before Biden himself was confirmed to be senile. Very few countries joined the coalition to protect shipping and though they are losing money due to the conflict, they aren't willing to risk their own ships to do so. 

Iran is another problem. Though Yemen is able to create their own weapons, much of their more advanced tech comes from Iran. Again, the Biden administration has very little in the way of  influence in Iran, due to burning what little leverage they had by giving them back billions of dollars. If they still had that carrot hanging over Iran they might be able to have them rein in the Houthis and maybe stop the war. But that ship has long sailed. 

The situation in the Red Sea does not bode well for any US led war against Iran. It appears that we would be able to intercept most of the attacks against Israel or our forces in the region, but it looks like we would not be strong enough to prevent those attacks in the first place. It would turn into another grind like the conflict in Yemen... 

And I don't think we can use  an invasion to do anything about the Houthis either. There is zero will for another major war in the United States and I don't think that Biden would be able to sell a war there to the US people. Maybe if we lost a bunch of ships?

But even if it were to happen, I don't know that the war would go that well for us. The  Houthis essentially defeated the Saudi Arabians in their war and though our military is better and more advanced than the Saudis, it would be extremely difficult to win against them, even if Iran didn't help. And Iran would help. The Houthis pretty consistently fight above their weight class and though we would probably prevail in the end, at least to the point of ending the attacks in the Red Sea, we would pay a price for it...