News - Yemen: The US military has been defeated in the Red Sea by the Yemeni Armed Forces, the American defense-focused website 19FortyFive acknowledged on Sunday. It emphasizes that the ongoing naval attacks by the Yemeni army in the Red Sea are one of the most significant turning points in military history.

The website explained that the Yemeni Armed Forces successfully blocked access to the Red Sea by employing innovative methods, such as long-range precision missiles and low-cost drones.

It stressed that the US Army should consider borrowing a page from the playbook of Yemen’s Armed Forces.

The site noted that the operations conducted by the Yemeni military proved that controlling the sea from the shore and denying access to it can be extremely effective, pointing to Yemen’s success in altering the strategy of war to include controlling the sea and denying access to it.

The site also indicated that the changes made by Yemen involved controlling the sea and blocking access by deploying long-range precision missile launches and using autonomous drones from land.

It highlighted that the Yemeni Armed Forces effectively combine a mix of anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones to compete for control of maritime communication lines along the Red Sea coast.

Urging US Military to Adopt Yemeni Tactics in Facing China

After highlighting the success of Yemeni military operations, which employ tactics never before used in military history to control the seas from the land, 19FortyFive called on the US military to learn from the lessons of the Yemeni army in facing China.

The website noted that the US Army’s Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) program and Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTFs) are well-suited for applying similar tactics in the Western Pacific against China.

It stated that the US Army should seek to achieve the same capability in a contested coastal environment against an enemy like China.

Additionally, it explained that the US army can draw on efforts that are already underway in the US military. It can, for example, take inspiration from the US Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept, in which ships are widely separated but act in unison. Army units might operate similarly in the Western Pacific.

In a maritime war in the Western Pacific, the site pointed out, the army would likely have to operate on distant island bases and attack shipping in much the same way the Yemeni Armed Forces are doing from the interior of Yemen. Geographic dispersal will be a vital aspect of survivability in the next war.

It added that the US army should apply the DMO concept to SMRF-equipped MDTFs and deploy them on bases outside the First Island Chain, the string of islands from Japan to Indonesia that hems in China.

The website concluded that this forward presence would contribute to integrated deterrence by forcing the Chinese military to cope with multiple operational dilemmas. It would, for example, have to track multiple distant targets simultaneously and defend against firing batteries distributed across the Western Pacific. Those batteries would demand attention because they’d have the range and lethality to strike and destroy high-value targets throughout the region.

Learning from Yemeni Tactics Could Shift the Course of War

It continued that the US army and its allied forces could achieve a game-changing advantage by learning from the Yemeni tactic of controlling the sea from the shore using inexpensive drones and long-range precision offensive weapons, if they can blend this technology with air mobility.

Since October 2023, following intensified violence in Gaza, Yemeni forces have launched multiple operations in solidarity with Palestinians, targeting areas in occupied Palestinian territories and intercepting ships believed to be headed toward Israeli-controlled ports. 

Observers consider the Yemeni Armed Forces' naval operations in support of the Palestinian people as one of the most important turning points in military history. They have changed the rules of naval engagement by using ballistic missiles for the first time in history to strike moving maritime targets, alongside the use of drones against enemy forces and ships.

Experts argue that just as the US is exploring the use of Yemeni naval tactics against its adversaries, particularly China and Russia, similarly, America's opponents are considering using Yemeni tactics against the US Navy and its allies' global naval presence. This highlights that Yemen has permanently altered the military rules for maritime engagement, ushering in a new era of domination and control of the seas, where US aircraft carriers, battleships, and submarines will no longer dominate.