The British website “UnHerd” confirmed that Yemenis have come to dominate the Red Sea, and that the naval blockade imposed by Sana’a has become stronger, with the United States and the West failing to lift it.
The site noted that the problem is not a lack of will but rather the inability of the U.S. and the West to do anything, and the embarrassment of admitting this failure is the reason for the lack of extensive media coverage of what is happening in the Red Sea.
The website published a report on Monday stating that those referred to as “the Houthis” have come to “control the Red Sea.”
The report mentioned that “the blockade imposed by Ansarullah in Yemen on the Red Sea has become stronger than ever, and the U.S. military has despaired of trying to lift it. Just two weeks ago, despite the deterrence supported by U.S. aircraft carriers, the Houthis managed to board a Greek-flagged oil tanker, plant some explosives, and chant: ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’ while the ship was burning.”
It added that “this should have been major news” given that these operations are taking place on one of the most important trade routes in the world, and that “the U.S. Navy sailed away in surrender.”
According to the report, the reason why the media is not talking about this is “the growing sense of embarrassment.”
The report continued: “We no longer know how to talk about what is happening; the U.S. Navy is supposed to be the strongest navy in the world, and as every war movie over the past two decades has insisted on reminding us, all it takes is one aircraft carrier to force a developing nation to its knees. America may not be great at nation-building, but it knows how to bomb everything until resistance stops.”
However, the report explained that “in Yemen, these narratives collide with reality,” pointing out that attempts to lift the Yemeni blockade in the Red Sea “are not the kind of optional war that we can simply walk away from when bored. If the blockade continues, the entire world will receive dramatic evidence of the West’s growing military and political impotence, which will have real consequences for Western diplomacy in regions like the Pacific.”
The report confirmed that “this is exactly what has happened, and this time it is clear that the United States does not know what to do. In December of last year, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Central Command launched Operation Sentinel Prosperity for the first time, which was supposed to protect shipping against missile strikes. In January, when this mission began to falter, Operation Poseidon Archer was launched, designed to bomb the Houthis and subdue them, deterring them from launching further attacks on trade, but the result has been largely disappointing,” noting that the United States lost several expensive MQ-9 Reaper drones due to Yemeni anti-aircraft missiles.
The report stated that the issue is not that the United States “lacks the will and is playing with gloves on,” as it “tried its best to identify and target the Houthis’ weapons and launch sites within Yemen with precision, but there is only one problem: It cannot.”
It added: “In the era of drone warfare, mobile launch platforms, and advanced tunnel infrastructure, the United States simply lacks the capability to locate and destroy the majority of drones or missiles before they are launched. This problem is not entirely new either; tracking down Scud missiles was a significant enough challenge during the First Gulf War, and Scud launch platforms were massive and heavy. Today, with new drone and missile technology, finding a drone launch platform within a mountain range is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
The report also highlighted another more obvious problem: drones are cheap, while U.S. interceptors and precision-guided bombs are expensive. Additionally, the way these bombs are delivered—manned jet aircraft—adds another layer of cost, as fighter jets may cost more than $100 million in flight costs and much more when considering pilot training (at least $10 million for basic proficiency), maintenance, and infrastructure.
“In other words, the more America fights the Houthis, the more it loses.”
The report considered that “if the U.S. Navy is unable even to lift the blockade imposed by Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, then the idea of lifting the blockade around Taiwan is pure fantasy.”
Similarly, the report explained that if the United States is “unable” to compete with Yemeni weapons production, then “the idea of outpacing China in any way must immediately come to an end.”
It concluded by saying: “This is the reason for the silence surrounding the Red Sea defeat; more than any other ongoing conflict today, this defeat highlights the crisis within the Western military establishment, as well as the reality that there is no real way to fix it.”
It added: “Admitting our impotence means admitting that the era of Western dominance is indeed over, and in the face of few alternatives, we will continue to allow the ‘Houthis’ to blow up our ships, then pretend that none of this really matters.”
