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Notes -
Operation Poseidon Archer
Reported by CNN:
I have mixed feelings about this. It is clearly the responsibility of the imperial hegemon to protect global shipping lanes. But by that same logic, it's time for the imperial hegemon to force a settlement onto the Israelis due to their never-ending destabilization of the region. That would entail the EU forcing a peace onto Israel, performing a Special Military Operation within Israel if necessary.
Bring back the 117 AD borders, with EU administration of Jerusalem. Jews may live in Jerusalem, wail at their wall and study Torah in peace, but it is utterly nonsensical for the West to continue to bear the burden of Israeli destabilization of the region.
This washy middle ground of appealing to imperial obligations when it comes to Middle Eastern intervention, without control of the "vassal" state destabilizing the region, is a never-ending pattern that has to stop. The US and EU has more than enough leverage to force a settlement onto Israel.
Poseidon Archer is nothing if not a wishy-washy middle ground. It's the sort of operation that exists to satisfy the impulse to do something, without having the ability to solve- or resolve- the instigating factor(s).
The Houthis endure far more- and far worse- bombardment from the Saudis than the US operation is going to deliver... and the fact that the US is now dropping bombs on Yemen without Saudi help, after compromising relations with the Saudis in no small part over disapproval and pressuring the Saudis to stop, is stark irony. This is precisely the wrong sort of target for a long-range bombardment campaign to try and resolve, if the goal is to render the Houthis unable to continue attacking the naval route... which is already seeing mass and systemic divergences around Africa. That naval traffic flow isn't coming back unless the threat is resolved, and convoys alone won't be enough.
That's not to say that the attempt is all a waste. The Brits at least have done some successful test engagements with novel anti-drone ship systems which may evolve into cost-effective ship defense norms, and the real target of using things like stealth bombers isn't the Houthis the bombs are dropped on, but the Iranians who are having it demonstrated how easily the Americans could drop on them. There's an argument to be made on regional deterrence, and that in part goes back to the analysis that October 7 was an Iranian effort to start a broader intifada, and that it largely failed and everything since has been trying to cope and compensate for not getting the effects they anticipated.
But all the same, it's not going to stop the Houthis any time soon- the public-facing problem- and it's so easy for it to be framed as a failure regardless of outcome that it's hard to see it being counted as a success. Even if no ships are damaged, basic cost-comparisons of the Houthis attack drones/missiles versus ship defense systems can make some awkward cost-benefit propaganda to frame it as a net loss. If ships are damaged, it can be humiliation, and if critical casualties occured, it'd be very easy to see it spinning into a scandal (for putting the sailors in danger, for ineffective air campaigns, for not going after the broadly acknowledged source i.e. Iran). It's an invitation to mission creed, waste, and/or easy adversary propaganda.
At best, maybe it's a politically beneficial stall tactic that lasts for the next few months, while Israel continues to cut through Gaza. But even that may give it too much credit.
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