Iran-backed Houthis enter the month-old war and could further threaten global shipping

From what I've read, they really are not. The Houthis have their own goals independent from Iran. Liberation/Control of Yemen for the Shia population. While heavily reliant on Iran, they are able to make/assemble their own drones and cruise missiles. Iran is more than willing to transfer knowhow/expertise/materials in that regard. They are getting better and better on being more independent. They have at minimum a small stockpile in the hundreds for drones and dozens for missiles. It could be far more, we don't know. Iran is indeed a very helpful ally to the Houthis. That is why they were always going to enter this war. They would lose future support if they didn't. That being said, the Houthis are in control of when they would enter this war. Iran has accepted this because they want to use the Houthis as part of their escalation ladder. The Houthis are able to close down the other strait that oil flows through. Price of oil would skyrocket if they did that. We're already seeing demand destruction at current prices. People are shutting down industries and working from home to save on fuel. The Houthis were incentivized not to enter the war earlier because of their limited stockpile. But now that interceptors are being used up against Iranian and Hezbollah attacks, any attacks the Houthis make are more likely to hit their mark. They'll have an outsized military contribution if they play their cards right.

90%

A year ago I think.

It will go just as fine as it did last time.

Max IQ of a Listnook user discusssing this war 👆👆👆

You know, Houthis have a limit of how many people they are willing to kill. After about 50k soldiers, 10k women, or 5k kids they just stop and lay their weapons down. Then, that is when the US is going to strike. They won't have a chance

>At what point do western governments just not care and blockade Houthi ports if this happens? They are heavily dependent on foods and import for their civilian population. you would need to withdraw from the Geneva convention and accept a new reality that every civilian on your side of the war is now a legitimate target if you desire to deliberately starve a population as a tool of waging war

They’ve done this before. The Saudis with US assistance blockaded Yemen and ~150,000 Yemenis starved to death.

Never. Western populations would not be supportive of starvation being used as a weapon of war by their governments. Especially given that the motivation for doing so would be saving money on shipping, as opposed to some more tangible threat. It is never going to happen (except maybe as an ill-fated US solo effort), and for good reason.

Has that type of strategy ever played out as you hope it would?

Honestly ripping the bandaid off is better than month/ year/ decade long battles of attrition that waste everyone’s time and resources Either full send or go home  The down side is that weapon manufacturing companies won’t be able to produce as many munitions