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Houthi armed forcesThe U.S. military has become an "indestructible cockroach". It is facing endless combat missions in the Red Sea. Questions have been raised in the United States about the current Red Sea crisis: just to deal with the Houthi armed forces, the U.S. military has consumed a large number of missiles in the Red Sea, and the cost is very high. If the fighting continues like this, the U.S. missile inventory for dealing with "great power competition" will be exhausted.

The Houthis have become an "invincible cockroach", and the US military continues to invest resources in the Red Sea

Last OctoberIsraeli-Palestinian conflictAfter the outbreak, the Houthi armed forces in Yemen announced that they would attack any Israeli-related ships passing through the Red Sea in order to support Hamas. The Houthi armed forces did not just threaten, they did what they said, taking advantage of Yemen's advantageous geographical location of controlling the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and launched a ship attack war in the Red Sea.

In order to deal with the Red Sea crisis, the United States began to send troops to the Red Sea last year, and even launched a direct air strike against the Houthi armed forces at the beginning of this year. However, this operation has lasted for 9 months, but there is still no prospect of ending. The endless consumption and increasing costs have caused great controversy in the American political arena.

According to a report by the US Political News Network, in order to deal with the Houthi armed forces in Yemen, the US military has launched about 800 missiles against the latter and carried out 7 air strikes on Yemen. The "Eisenhower" aircraft carrier strike group has been deployed to the Red Sea twice in the past 9 months. At that time, it launched more than 135 "Tomahawk" missiles at the targets of the Youth Movement, each costing more than 2 million US dollars. The aircraft carrier strike group also launched 155 different types of missiles, each costing between 2 million and 4 million US dollars.Carrier-based aircraft60 pieces usedAir-to-air missilesand 420 air-to-ground weapons, and the USS Roosevelt, which took over the mission, also used missiles to intercept Houthi drones almost every day.

According to domestic estimates, the United States has spent tens of billions of dollars in the Red Sea to deal with the Houthi armed forces, but the key issue is that they still see no sign of the end of this crisis.

The Red Sea crisis forced the US military to deploy military resources in the Red Sea

In fact, the U.S. military is currently caught in an "asymmetric" war with the Houthis, who use drones, unmanned boats,Anti-ship missilesShip attacks are frequently staged in the Red Sea, and the weapons used by the United States to intercept are all missiles. The Houthi armed forces' drones and the US military's missiles are weapons of different prices. The former has a very low manufacturing cost, while the US military's missiles are high-value weapons.

U.S. lawmakers have expressed dissatisfaction with this. Democratic Congressman Courtney said that due to the extension of the Red Sea operation, Congress is under pressure to increase the defense budget, which exceeds the requirements of the Biden administration. Republican Congressman and former Green Beret Waltz also criticized that the United States has consumed tens of billions of dollars in war preparedness costs in order to deal with Iranian proxies.

For the United States, Operation Red Sea also brought two major problems: First, the US military was forced to take aCarrier Battle GroupAlthough the US military currently has the largest number of aircraft carriers in the world, it needs to dispatch aircraft carriers to Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East. If the maintenance of aircraft carriers is also taken into account, its aircraft carriers are always insufficient and it often falls into an "aircraft carrier shortage."

Second, the Red Sea crisis has indeed consumed a large amount of the US military's military readiness resources, especially missiles. Republican Congressman Waltz said: The precision anti-ship missiles andAir-to-surface missilesThese are the core weapons that will be used in dealing with potential conflicts between major powers in the future. However, the United States is now using these weapons in the Red Sea and against the Houthi armed forces, and it is unable to stop the Houthi armed forces' actions in the Red Sea. This is very worrying.

Before AmericaPentagonRod, an official from the United States, also stressed that the United States would face huge costs if it continued its Red Sea mission, which not only involves the actual strategic cost of U.S. combat readiness, but also includes the opportunity cost of the United States' ability to project influence.

The Red Sea crisis forced the US military to directly take on an aircraft carrier battle group

Biden is now under great pressure. There seems to be no prospect of ending the Red Sea crisis. The Houthi armed forces have become "indestructible cockroaches". Some US congressmen pointed out that the real problem of the Red Sea crisis lies not with the Houthi armed forces, but with Iran.