The New War

[donquixote99]

If the goal is to stop missile attacks on ships, I don't think bombing will do it. Missiles are concealable and portable. Troops on the ground will be needed, and not just a few. Oh by the way, same is true of Iran and straits of Hormuz, and they are fairly likely to respond to the moves against their allies in Yemen. So that's two places to invade, the second one being fairly big and fairly well-armed.

[RickeyM]

I think the goal here is to stop or discourage those who're shooting the missles. Notice the attack we carried out was against land targets and not missiles in air.Just stopping the missiles is playing whac-a-mole.

[donquixote99]

The Saudis bombed the Houthi for years, and no special discouragement achieved. I've got a bad feeling about this. I think Biden is panicky based on the threat to shipping as a threat to the world economy, and therefore a threat to his economic miracle, which is mostly what he has to run on.

I remember the old saw, about Republicans crashing the economy, and Democrats getting us into wars....though of course Bush the Younger managed both. Anyway, the real answer is to give the Houthi what they want, which is the right thing to do anyway. A *really* clever President would do this while bombing the Houthi at the same time, to look strong while he did it. Don't think Biden's clever that way though.

[RickeyM]

Different goals are being sought. The US and Brittan aren't trying to take down the Houthis but just get them to stop attacking shipping. By not doing anything we come off as looking weak. Lots of factions, domestic and abroad, would like Biden to look weak at this point.

[BigElCat]

Pakistan is coming in, and they have nuclear weapons at their disposal, along with hypersonic ship-buster missiles.

Russia is going to have to go after Turkey, to stop the Black Sea from being opened up to NATO aircraft carrier groups.

[RickeyM]

Originally Posted by BigElCat

Pakistan is coming in, and they have nuclear weapons at their disposal, along with hypersonic ship-buster missiles.

Russia is going to have to go after Turkey, to stop the Black Sea from being opened up to NATO aircraft carrier groups.

So you're saying Russia is going to have to go after NATO? At this time that wouldn't be wise.

[Rajoo]

Netanyahu is itching for an all out war to keep his job and looks like everyone there is cooperating, especially Iran. And while all this missile exchange is going on, Israel will annex Gaza in bits and pieces.

I think part of the reason the US had to hit Houthi launch sites is because it was getting extremely expensive to shoot down their low tech drones using our uber expensive missiles.

Destroyers Shot Down 24 Houthi Missiles And Drones: That’ll Be $17 Million

Their drones probably cost less than $20K each.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericteg...h=16bf03836bdc

[BigElCat]

Originally Posted by RickeyM

So you're saying Russia is going to have to go after NATO? At this time that wouldn't be wise.

It would be for the survival of their way of life.

The Communist aren't going to just surrender.

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by BigElCat

It would be for the survival of their way of life.

The Communist aren't going to just surrender.

If Russia wants to survive, the last thing they would want is a war with NATO, which is one country against seven well armed and equipped with superior weapons and intelligence? They neither have the arms nor the money to support such an adventure and Putin is too smart for that.

But he did invade Ukraine and is still bogged down there, so perhaps not very smart indeed. Actually he miscalculated Ukrainian resistance badly and is paying the price.

[Oerets]

Putin is very smart, knows the west very well. With the dependency on oil and gas plus how quickly the will to fight is forgotten once the initial treat is over. Or conflicts like Afghanistan in resent history show our lack of military cohesiveness.

Stay in power and wait it out is all he needs do to win in the end.