Did the Houthis Just Render US Air Strikes Useless?

Right, so has the defiance of the Houthis exposed the limitations of the Us military and is that going to be ever more the case the longer the US insists on attacking Yemen in defence of Israel? Well its not getting them very far is it? The Houthis, despite having no navy of their own can go toe to toe with US warships still and now it seems that for all of the airstrikes and the advanced weaponry; despite Yemen being the poorest nation in the Middle East the US has failed to have any meaningful impact at all in deterring further Houthis strikes both on themselves and on the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.
What the Trump administration thought, despite the historical precedents on the matter already set, would be a pushover to take the Houthis out, instead the US have turned multimillion dollar US operations into costly farces, with multimillion dollar drones getting shot down on virtually a daily basis, US warships getting struck and rendering US air superiority irrelevant, unused as they have been to an enemy shooting back at them and not just shooting back, but doing so effectively and much like Israeli troops have experienced through repeated and often ineffective rounds in Gaza, the mental strain takes a toll.
A failure of tactics, a waste of US money running into the billions, a total strategic failure for all thew world to see. Insisting on fighting the Houthis is not just failing to eliminate them, it is showing the entire world the limitations of US military might in todays world.
Right, so much of 2025 has been marked by ongoing US and UK strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, coming to the aid of the genocidal Israeli state as the Houthis dared to side with Gaza and the people of Palestine and dared to flex their own military prowess in doing so. Arrogance and the Western belief in their own military superiority saw the Houthis as an easy mark, these US and UK forces having launched hundreds of airstrikes across Yemen, targeting alleged Houthi military sites, yet so often targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure instead, begging the question of many people, including in the West of how doing such things and striking such targets makes them any better than Israel doing the same in Gaza and the West Bank.
Yet, despite the overwhelming firepower, the Houthis have gone toe to toe with Western forces and held them to a standstill, as has happened before, so we really shouldn’t be surprised they’ve done it again now.
Western strikes have repeatedly hit civilian areas, including recently a reservoir in Saana, disrupting water supplies for some 50,000 people, collective punishment as that ostensibly is in my view, a war crime, but in no way has it stopped Houthi retaliation and counter offensives.
The Pentagon has admitted that most Houthi missiles, drones, and launchers are hidden underground, making them nearly impossible to destroy from the air, negating these airstrikes even if the US were to learn where they were and despite heavier bombing raids happening now under Trump than ever did under Biden, the Houthis continue to launch attacks on US warships and Israeli targets without seemingly being troubled much at all.
As I covered in another recent video, the US has been burning through its stocks of advanced missiles, with massive price tags to match, to shoot down Houthi drones worth a few thousand dollars and on the other hand you have the Houthis shooting down MQ-9 Reaper drones, valued at $30 million apiece, three having been lost in the last week and another coming down overnight, another embarrassing loss as reported by The Cradle, stating that:
‘Yemeni Armed Forces announced the downing of a US MQ-9 drone over Al-Jawf Governorate using a locally made missile, marking the third such incident in ten days and the eighteenth since the onset of their support for Gaza.’
Locally made missile, probably costing a few hundred dollars, just created $30m worth of scrap. Aside from going toe to toe with the US, the Houthis are doing it on the cheap too, which is all the more embarrassing and actually the US has had plenty of forewarning about this.
A Pentagon funded think tank called the RAND Corporation, an organisation that supposedly conducts research and analysis to improve governmental strategies and decision making made this abundantly clear last year to a committee of non governmental experts in national security, by waving the 2022 National Defense Strategy, or NDS at them on current US military readiness and they absolutely eviscerated it. According to Kit Klarenberg’s Global Delinquents blog:
‘Fast forward to today, and the RAND Commission’s appraisal of the NDS couldn’t be more scathing. The Pentagon’s comprehension of the economic, military, and political threats to “US interests” posed by China and Russia, and the pair’s emergent, world-defining partnership - to the extent they were even acknowledged at all - is found to be hazardously defective, if not non-existent. And the NDS’ proposals for overcoming these issues, and maintaining the Empire’s worldwide dominance, are judged to be at best woefully inadequate, at worst outright delusional.’
RAND also said that the US is “not prepared” in any meaningful way for serious “competition” with its major adversaries and vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare. When even the Houthis can outmatch them, who certainly do not have the resources China or Russia have, you kind of get their point don’t you?
The Pentagon’s own assessments acknowledge that airstrikes have failed to degrade Houthi capabilities. Yet, instead of reevaluating, the US is escalating further, having now sent another warship into the area, the USS Carl Vinson to either take on the Houthis, or indeed Iran if it comes to it, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Let’s come back to another US ship first, one that’s been there with the Houthis and gone home again, the USS Harry S Truman having replaced the at one point claimed to have been sunk USS Dwight D Eisenhower.
The Eisenhower’s strike group were the first to learn about Houthi determination and face the unprecedented resistance in the Red Sea from the Houthis in their determination to blockade shipping heading to or from Israel in the Red Sea. Unlike the uncontested battles these US forces had faced before, they were now fighting an enemy that shot back—and did so effectively, even when they were doing so just from dinghies and with cheap short range drones.
Pilots flying from the Eisenhower reported that the intensity of Houthi missile and drone attacks was unlike anything they had seen before and other observers remarked that these naval battles the US engaged in with the Houthis were the worst they’d faced since the days of WWII.
The Houthis have successfully struck US warships, forcing the Navy into constant defensive manoeuvres and we’ve seen this again and again, but there has also been the toll on the US forces themselves, the psychological toll has been significant, completely unaccustomed to real combat after decades of firing upon opposing forces that by and large couldn’t stand up to them and couldn’t shoot back.
Yet instead of taking on board these findings, instead of learning from failure as the US has been facing against the Houthis over and over again, the US is doubling down. The USS Carl Vinson has now entered the Indian Ocean, signalling likely more airstrikes and just as likely if not more so, more futility.
The Houthis have already proven they can hit US ships and have no fear in taking them on, so handing them another ship is akin to giving them a new toy to play with.
Sending another carrier does not solve the West’s core problem, which is they still cannot locate and destroy Houthi assets, underground as so much of it is and if anything, it provides the Houthis with another high-value target to harass.
Functionally the biggest loss to the US in its absurd proxy war on Yemen, against the Houthis has been the shattering of the myth of invincible US military dominance. By both sea and air, the US cannot deal with the Houthis, and going in by land, a boots on the ground invasion which is all they have left to try, the Vinson’s presence not likely to alter anything as aforementioned, would send casualty numbers skyrocketing. The Houthis didn’t even need a navy to take on US ships, it hasn’t required an air force to deal with US airstrikes insistently striking the wrong targets, non military targets and racking up war crimes themselves in doing so. At every turn, the Houthis have outflanked and out strategized the US, who just think throwing enough in the way of munitions at a smaller enemy is bound to wrk and it just hasn’t. The Houthis in their resistance and their solidarity with Gaza have turned America’s billion-dollar military machine into a laughing stock and the whole world is watching. The only way the Houthis stop is when Israel gets out of Gaza. If you’re so in hock to the Israel Lobby that is unthinkable, then the Houthis will be more than happy to keep showing you up.
Meanwhile, speaking of adversaries that are not backing down, there’s the small matter of US rhetoric against Iran too. Israel want their nuclear sites bombed, The US and its military inadequacies have been warned not to try it with Iran because if matters are bad against the Houthis, Iran is a whole different ball game. Will they yet come to blows too? Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content, all whilst supporting the channel at the same time, which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.