A Sri Lankan newspaper has revealed that the US Navy aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower sought refuge after its crew was shocked by attacks from Yemeni forces. The article pointed out that the Red Sea battle is a losing one for Western countries.
The Daily Mirror reported that when the USS Eisenhower took refuge in the Saudi port of Jeddah following the attack in the Red Sea, the “question remains—was that a previously scheduled docking, or the carrier’s commander, feeling rattled by the Houthi attack decided to find shelter?”
The report noted that the missile attack on the US Eisenhower is already forgotten by the public, but it isn’t forgotten by either the attacker or the target because it’s a game-changing event in the annals of naval warfare, a mouse attacking an elephant and forcing it to retreat.
It also mentioned that the Armed Forces managed to damage a British landing ship during their maritime attacks.
The newspaper added that ten countries are now pitted in this battle against the Houthis, and the US Navy, geared since the Cold War to fight superpowers, is now pitted in a seemingly no-win battle against a small group with no navy. It has been forced to send the nuclear-powered Eisenhower, the world’s third-largest aircraft carrier with 90 aircraft, to the region.
It highlighted that if the Eisenhower was docked in Jeddah because it feared more Yemeni attacks, that would be a new chapter in the history of warfare, with relatively small armed groups (not even nations) able to threaten much larger, much-better equipped forces and force them into defensive action.
The Daily Mirror concluded that the aircraft carrier has been symbolic of a navy’s strength since World War II, but the lesson of just how vulnerable an aircraft carrier is has been displayed vividly by a group in Yemen.
