Pentagon blows $1bn in 'unsustainable' naval campaign against Yemen
Yemeni forces are attacking Israeli commercial ships and US and UK naval destroyers in the Red Sea in response to Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza
The US military says it has spent about $1 billion in an unsustainable campaign to fight the Ansarallah-led Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported on 15 June.
Since November, Yemeni forces have attacked Israeli-linked commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea, the world’s most important commercial sea route, in response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
After US and UK naval warships began carrying out attacks on the Yemeni navy and sites in the capital, Sanaa, Yemeni forces began attacking the warships as well.
To defend against Yemeni attacks, the US Navy has conducted more than 450 strikes and intercepted 200 drones and missiles in a campaign that US officials worry is not sustainable.
“Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long,” said Emily Harding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game.”
The Wall Street Journal provided details of a Yemeni attack on a US naval destroyer on 9 January, one of 80 attacks overall, which illustrated the difficulties US personnel face.
“It was just after 9 p.m. when radar operators aboard this U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea spotted a tiny arrow on their screens: a missile hurtling toward them at five times the speed of sound,” The Journal reported.
“The crew of the warship with 300 sailors aboard had just seconds to shoot it down. As the projectile closed in, the Laboon launched an interceptor from silos beneath its deck, destroying the incoming missile in flight.”
Yemeni forces launched 18 drones and cruise missiles, along with the ballistic missile, at four American destroyers, a US aircraft carrier, and a UK warship throughout the 12-hour battle that day.
“These things are telephone pole-sized, you get three minutes of flight time, you detect it for 45 seconds, you get like 10 seconds to determine whether you’re going to shoot at it or not,” said Capt. David Wroe of the US carrier strike group in the Red Sea.
The longer the Yemeni attacks continue, the more likely it is that a US warship could be hit, Frank McKenzie, a retired Marine general, told The Journal. “There’s always a chance that something happens and one of our ships could be struck, and that chance only increases the longer we allow the situation to continue,” he added.