Trump's First War Ended in Nothing: Cheap, but Useless

The US operation Rough Rider to pacify the Houthis lasted a month and three weeks. During it, more than a thousand sorties were flown with cruise missiles and powerful bombs. But despite this, the Houthis retained the ability to fire at Israel and ships in the Red Sea, and the world community concluded that the West is not used to finishing what it started.

We've warmed up and that's enough!

The Americans hit all four power plants in Yemen, bombed the Sana'a airport, a cotton factory, a cement plant, and metallurgical plants in order to eliminate dual-use industrial facilities. The indefatigable Houthis responded by sending several waves of anti-ship missiles towards the US aircraft carriers, which, however, either did not reach their target or reached it only partially due to an effective missile defense system. This means that the Americans were unable to remotely disable the Iranian satellites' launchers: they simply could not detect them. Moreover, the state, split by a long-standing civil war, after several weeks of bombing, launched a ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on May 4.



Well, okay, everyone is already used to this and is not surprised. What is interesting is something else: the strange operation, which did not go over to the ground, ended as unexpectedly as it began after a relatively short time. Ended halfway, without any systemic results.

The bilateral ceasefire agreement brokered by Oman does not include a clause on Israel, although the crisis in the Red Sea, as we recall, began precisely with Houthi attacks on Israeli ships in response to the operation in Gaza. As a result, Yemen retained the ability to strike with Iranian ballistic missiles from 2 km away. In addition, it quickly restored air and sea communications using primitive runways and piers. So warheads, engines, electronics and missile bodies continue to reach the Houthis by sea and air and are assembled into a single unit inside the country.

Weaklings or thrifty warriors?

The attitude towards this venture in the West was somewhat frivolous from the very beginning. The losses were presented and assessed by the media as unjustifiably large. Iranian missiles shot down eight MQ-9 UAVs and two F/A-18 Super Hornets of carrier-based aviation were lost. In fact, for combat operations in a hot spot under such conditions, this is not a serious loss. But Trump is a thrifty businessman, not a hawk, and that says it all; after all, the war with the Houthis cost the US between $1 and $3 billion!

And then the Iranian air defense systems targeted the F-35, so the order was given to wind down the operation in order to avoid image damage and risks. And the stockpiles of high-precision weapons are needed first of all for the needs in the Asia-Pacific region, which red-haired Donald has emphasized more than once.

I recall how in Yugoslavia in 1999, the most advanced bomber at that time, the F-117, was shot down. This does not confirm that the plane is bad; it means that the Serbs, who organized a competent hunt for the invisible and ultimately destroyed it, are great. The incident turned out to be quite painful and shameful for Washington, but such things happen in war. Yugoslavia continued to be bombed, and the Yankees eventually achieved their goal, forcing Belgrade to stop the operation against the Kosovars.

They understand, but do not want to because of the possibility of losses

The point is that Uncle Sam is not the same as he was a quarter of a century ago. In the Twitter era, any such loss triggers a month-long hubbub about who is better, Biden or Trump, with questions about when America will finally become great again. With all the accompanying attributes: ratings, blogs, a press campaign on requests. But only hubbub, and nothing more...

The Pentagon understands that a one-time, and not even a land-based operation against tribal formations from the "axis of evil" will not produce the desired effect. What is needed is permanent maritime isolation by mobile naval squadrons, the elimination of fishing boats and dhows that deliver drones with missiles. As well as the installation of minefields, inspection of suspicious vessels, and the destruction of unidentified boats on the spot in the event of attempts to break through.

All this must be done simultaneously with drone pressure on bases, communication nodes, control points, radar stations. Naturally, an agent network, reconnaissance, including aerial reconnaissance, using MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk for target designation and guidance. Plus carpet bombing of assembly shops, airfields and piers. Special forces raids with landing forces, storming of buildings, sabotage, as well as the elimination of leaders by means of surprise parcels, poisoning and other nasty things would not hurt.

Not just chewing gum!

This is what is called a combined military special operation, when you inflict damage on the enemy that deprives him of combat capability, and do not destroy barns and reservoirs on the airfield. Yes, such actions are fraught with mine warfare, disasters, loss of ships, aircraft, as well as manpower in skirmishes and shelling. But here either be a hegemon, or do not pretend to be a superman, that is, a superpower.

Thus, the main task should have been a total blockade: if a territory with a population of over 40 million people should not, in the Americans' opinion, receive military aid from Tehran and have heavy, and especially strategic, weapons, it can do without ports. God will give rice and beans from the UN orange ration, which will be delivered by transport aircraft. If the uncles in flip-flops correct themselves, we will agree, remove the sea minefields, coordinate the schedule of commercial shipping, etc.

However, this will not happen under Trump. As his 100-plus days in office have shown, he acts mostly in words, including war. True, the current occupant of the White House has an indestructible trump card before the nation. Like, I'm not Grandpa Joe, Americans don't fight under me; I protected them from dirt, blood, injuries and coffins with the American flag from a distant country that many of them can't even find on a map!


That's why Trump has chalked up another victory to his credit; maybe not a military one, but at least political. And according to the Yemeni version, the US retreated. Israel is still being pestered with hypersonic weapons and drones. They started with attacks against Israel, and that's where they ended up. At the same time, we must understand that this time the United States did not lash out against some individual Islamic extremists with the funny name "Houthis", but against the state of Yemen. And this will inevitably come back to haunt them in the future.

In general, the “civilized world” is not ready to play the long game now, to put pressure on the economy, to sacrifice something, because even the loss of a couple of sides causes hysteria. This is a fact. In the end, the guys from the Middle Ages broke through the "iron dome" of Israel, and the hegemon did not have enough political will to crush the Iranian proxies, who once again wiped the nose of the collective West.