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They're making life far more inconvenient for the USA than they have any right to, and gaining major credibility among global jihadis for themselves and Iran in the process.
Right now drones (military ones that are not super-cheap but cheaper than airplanes... or missiles, not the science-fiction swarms of ultra-cheap quadcopters) give an advantage to the aggressor, since they're expensive to shoot down and cheap to use. I expect we will see development of anti-drone technology which will negate this at some point. And then drone advancement to reinstate it, naturally.
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Sure, but the American navy could turn them into chunky salsa. It’s not doing that for whatever reason, but drones probably aren’t that reason.
The "whatever reason" is all the stuff Israel is experiencing trying to turn Hamas into chunky salsa.
International opprobrium isn't something that can just be written off.
They'd accrue less opprobrium when they're doing it for a clear goal (restore international shipping) rather than without a clearer objective than retaliation. And, I'm sure the countries wouldn't mind lower shipping costs too much.
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Eh, Putin can, and he's in a much worse situation. The US could handle a lot more opprobrium than it gets without much material damage. And did, during the Trump years, just because Trump. It's the USs image of itself (or Biden's image of the US) that's holding us back, that and Biden's (IMO reasonable) desire not to get into a long war in Yemen right after getting out of Afghanistan.
The US really wouldn't suffer much in the way of PR if we got a LOT more aggressive with the Houthis, at least if it was effective. It's not like they're particularly well-loved.
I'd like the "series of massive punitive raids" strategy tried out. I think it could have done the job in Afghanistan, and will work with the Houthis. They fire on shipping, the US kills everyone it can find involved in that operation. All the way to the top. Eventually someone will come to power who doesn't fire on shipping.
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