A good sandwich

If you see this and your first instinct is to side with the bugs, you aren't going to make it.

Unfortunately, the US Navy has been decisively defeated in the Red Sea. You can see it from the IMF Portwatch graph: This has been clear since Biden announced the failed Operation Prosperity Guardian in late 2023. The US now lacks the combined military and diplomatic strength to stop the Houthi blockade, for structural reasons that will be difficult for the Trump administration to reverse. Let's go through a few of them: (1) Technological disruption of the Pentagon. First, the Houthis have 1/1000 the cost structure. They can counter $2M in US military spend with $2K in technology spend. This means the ~$800B Pentagon budget may not be as effective as we think. It could be like any lumbering big company with a big budget that can be disrupted by a startup with better cost effectiveness. Except this time the "startup" is a group of heavily armed fundamentalists. (2) Diplomatic disruption of the State Department. Second, the Chinese have been on a diplomatic offensive since early 2023, negotiating a Saudi/Iran treaty (without US involvement!) that puts them at the pivot of the Middle East. This means China has leverage over Iran, who in turn has leverage over the Houthis: (3) Geopolitical disruption of the Red Sea. As a consequence, the Suez Canal is now de facto controlled by China, Russia, and Iran. Western ships can't get through, but the Houthis are allowing their allies through: There are many other factors one could enumerate: - the high level of organization of the Houthis - the political capital spent dealing with Oct 7 - the low appetite for US intervention in the region - the energy the US is already spending in Ukraine - the lack of US capability in domestic drone mfg - the failure of Navy initiatives like the LCS - the 200X+ Chinese advantage in shipbuilding - the level of fanatical Houthi commitment But the net is that the Pentagon lacks the military might to cost-effectively stop the Houthis, and the State Department lacks the diplomatic influence to halt the shooting. These are structural issues — rot that's set in for decades and generations — that the new administration will find difficult to fix. Fundamentally, undoing the Red Sea blockade isn't a matter of will, but of capability. Wish it weren't so.