A New York Times report posted yesterday claiming that despite their greater intensity, the U.S. strikes on the Houthis are no more effective under President Donald Trump than they were under his predecessor Joe Biden, while threatening to deplete the Navy’s stock of munitions. In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies, the Times reports. The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.
But instead of backing down, the Houthis have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea. In just three weeks, the report continues, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said. The total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week, and the Pentagon might soon need to request supplemental funds from Congress, one U.S. official said.
So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.
