There have been a lot of condemnations of Ansar-Allah for hitting airports in Saudi Arabia. (They have hit every major airport except those in Mecca and Medina, multiple times and civilians have been killed.) I think a reminder is in order.
First, that this new war started when the Sauds hit Sana’a airport, but also:
The Saudi-Emirati coalition conducted more than 227 airstrikes on Sana’a Airport between March 26, 2015, and February 2022. (The airstrikes are documented in the United Nations)
2015: 67 airstrikes
2016: 62 airstrikes
2017: 7 airstrikes
2018: 47 airstrikes
2019: 7 airstrikes
2020: 15 airstrikes
2021: 12 airstrikes
2022: 10 airstrikes
Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni were killed by the Saudi/US blockade of food. The Sauds regularly hit hospitals, weddings, funerals — all the usual. They might as well be Israelis.
So I don’t want to hear crocodile tears now. The airports that are being hit are, unlike Sana’a during the siege, military targets. The Houthis have no airforce.
In addition to airports Ansar-Allah has been hitting refineries, pipelines and other oil infrastructure, essentially at will. The Sauds CANNOT protect their infrastructure. It is impossible.
This is a military revolution. Defense against missiles and drones is very hard, even Russia can’t stop constant attacks on their oil infrastructure, and they still have a decent stock of interceptor missiles. The Sauds are basically out, because America’s stocks are terminally low and Saudi Arabia is low on the priority list for what few there are (Israel gets first pick, then America.)
But even when there are lots of interceptors, drones and missiles are hard to stop, and the new offensive weapons are easier to make and cheaper than the defensive ones. This is especially the case for drones, but is also true for many missiles. In such a case, the strategy is to just to run the defenders out of missiles or overwhelm their launchers with huge strikes.
Over 10 years ago I wrote that drones would be a weapon the weak. This is half true, but it’s true enough, and it’s now been proved over the board.
Understand clearly that this IS a revolution in military affairs, and that it means that any nation which is serious and decent sized can create a missile and drone deterrent that is very hard to stop. If they have a lot of mountainous terrain, even better, but Ukraine is almost entire flat land.
Right now the US is still able to bully Latin American countries, but its clear that it’s lost the ability project power significantly bey0nd the Americas. The Iranians have picked up strikes against tankers, and it’s clear that the previous slow pace was a decision, and the decision has changed.
🇮🇷🇺🇸 Insane video of oil tanker burning after an Iranian hit https://t.co/03ieK5tVMk
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) October 10, 2026
During the initial part of the war they effectively destroyed all US bases in the Middle East, including radars. It would take tens of billions to rebuild them, but since they can’t be defended (the US had plenty of interceptors at the time) that’s pointless. Odds are that most of the permanent US military presence in the Middle East will never return.
It is impossible to overstate just how much the calculus of force has changed: the US can no longer simply sit aircraft carriers off any prepared country’s coast and bomb the hell out of them.
Likewise this makes building up troops for ground operations very difficult. Think about trying to invade Iran. Where would you stage the troops that Iran can’t hit even as you’re trying to bring them in? There will be no major invasion of Iran, because it’s straight up impossible. In the Gulf War the Americans spent months building up forces nearby, that can’t happen any more.
Now Iran and Russia and China and Ansar-Allah were early adopters of this technology, and there are still lots of countries which have no significant drone or missile forces, but only complete incompetents haven’t noticed how effective they are, and you can be sure the technology will spread. If Ansar-Allah, in the most impoverished country in the world, can build drones and missiles (with some Iranian help) and if Iran, the most sanctioned country in the world could do so, there are few countries which couldn’t do the same if they really wanted to, and there are plenty of helpers available for them: China, Russia, Iran, even Ansar-Allah.
So this military revolution will spread, and as it does, the ability of the US to project power will be radically reduced. Further, in time, the tech for long-range missiles capable of striking the US will be developed and spread, and the US will no longer be able to go to war and think “but they can’t hit the homeland.”
All of this will come to be. It cannot be stopped, only slowed. And with Chinese sanctions on the US and Japan crippling their war industries, plus the US’s pathetic financialized military-industrial complex being ridiculously expensive and slow to manufacture anything, the US will not even be able to keep up.
Plus, a lot of countries are target poor. The US and its allies aren’t. One of the reasons Ansar-Allah is going hog wild hitting Saudi infrastructure is that after over a decade of being bombed to hell there isn’t much for them to lose. Their missiles hit targets which matter, while the Sauds mostly are reduced to terror bombing, which won’t stop the Houthis any more than it did the North Vietnamese.
The world is changing, things are happening, and the world order is changing completely.
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david lamy
If only candidates for elected federal offices would read and absorb this post!
Providing public health, education, and robust modern infrastructure in lieu of funneling money into the maws of our corrupt defense industry would be and is the only sensible course of action to take in these United States.
Feral Finster
Do you want to be nice, or do you want to win?
The Saudi barbarians and their American and Israeli overlords have already chosen, and they have *zero* qualms about open daylight genocide.
rkka
Marshal Ogarkov, Chief of the Soviet General staff, was working on the implications of conventional PGMs & Recon-Strike Complexes in ‘84, and for the first quarter century afterwards, these capabilities, at scale, were a US monopoly.
That monopoly is so very over, with dire implications for those who have built a global network of naves from which to exert full spectrum global dominance. Since 1945, strategic offense has predominated over strategic defense, for maritime powers could mass & project maritime & aerospace power over long distances, using those bases.
Now, strategic defense dominates, between the Great Powers, so the globe is regionalizing, both economically & militarily. This is already sucking hard for Central & South America, since no other Great Powers can dispute US predominance there, as the strike on Venezuela proved.
Carborundum
Reporting is that five Saudi airports have been struck: King Khalid International in Riyadh, King Fahd International in Dammam, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International in Jazan, as well as Abha and Najran. None of these look to be military airfields of any significance. The Jazan field has austere facilities for fighter dispersal and Najran looks to have had some in the past, but currently looks to be FOD-fest 2026.
I’m not so convinced that hitting these is a sign of high military capability. Why are they good targets? They’re spatially huge, so any hit within a couple of kilometres of the aimpoint gets attention. They’re relevant to Westerners, so any hit gets a lot of attention. A number of them have significant levels of civilian traffic, which complicates intercepts significantly and, probably most importantly, means you can’t use GPS jamming around them. All in all, a nice set of soft targets.
Capability-wise I’d be a lot more impressed if the Houthi were hitting the big military fields, of which there are quite a number – some of which are a within five or ten klicks of the civilian fields that have been struck – but they do not seem to be doing that. Notably they don’t look to have hit Prince Sultan, which actually is a dual civil-military field. This looks more psychological-operations than anything. Militarily, it achieves exactly zip.
spud
Ian:
all very well said. Ansar-Allah understands that they are fighting for their very existence, and the existence of their country.
they did not try to take on the Saudis head on when they did not have superiority. they fired warning shots to slow the Saudis down. but they knew they did not have superiority.
it looks like today, they have it, and are using it. are they worried about some neo-liberal garbage like GDP expenditures, what a bunch of crap that is.
either you understand your very freedom and sovereignty are at stake. or you let the WWE forum guide you into slavery.
the gorbechev people are still in charge in russia, to dense, arrogant and incompetent to understand, russia’s very existence, and the existence of the slavic people are at stake.
the mongels, the ottomans, the sweds, the germans, hungarians, the austrians, the poles, the french the italians and others, and now the americans, have always lusted after russias wealth, the soviets understood this well.
i hope Yemen can get back those three lost provinces, and be made whole again. if they are successful, latin america neo-liberals(fascists), will have a hard time defending themselves, when that technology will be used against them, from inside their own countries.
it will happen here. first it will be used against local engines of oppression, then it will accelerate up the ladder.
spud
it looks like the parasites are fleeing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGMsCHGrrIM
Saudi Airport SHUTDOWN: 14 Killed As Oil Execs FLEE Region
cc
Yes, the pro-Empire propaganda is strong here in the West, in the core of the Empire. Our establishment news media are completely Orwellian in their hypocrisy. Canada’s state news agency, CBC News, even used the word “terror” to characterize the event, starting their report with the line “The mundane routine of air travel turned suddenly into terror” – while giving none of the decade-plus context of US-Saudi-Emirati-Israeli terror that Ian pointed out.
Here in Oceania (the Five Eyes-led Empire, UK/US/Canada/Australia/NZ), the words “terror”/”terrorist” are applied only to characterize the Resistance to the Empire, but never to those disproportionately carrying out far, far more terror every day for years: the US-Israel-Saudis-UAE. When have the establishment news media used the word “terror” for the endless horrors that have been inflicted upon Gaza or the West Bank for years and decades?
When our side inflicts terror daily for years and decades, the word is completely avoided. The moment the other side tries to fight back and manage to return some fire in self-defense, our Ministry of Truth news media trot out the words that they reserve exclusively for others.
In another report last night, our state news agency’s latest propagandist Alexandre Silberman had this line while reporting on the Empire’s front against Russia using Ukraine: “But after Trump’s announcement, Zelensky said Russia had struck another power plant with no public acknowledgement of the deal from the Kremlin.” There was zero mention of the fact that it was, in fact, Ukraine/Zelensky that had attacked a Russian refinery immediately (hours) after the Trump announcement. He turned reality completely upside down in Orwellian fashion.
Silberman followed by claiming “In Ukraine, repeated attacks on the power grid during winter have been punishing for civilians, and counterstrikes on Russia’s diesel refineries have caused severe shortages and hurt the economy.” His slipping in of the two syllables “counter” served to again flip reality completely upside down, as anyone who follows this knows that it is Russia now conducting counterstrikes in response to the constant US-NATO-enabled “Ukrainian” strikes on Russian energy facilities deep in Russia, and on civilian online-retailer Wildberries’ warehouses in Russia, etc.
The Orwellian propaganda inflicted upon us is relentless here in the West.
Feral Finster
Sort of, but not entirely OT: remember how we were assured a few days ago that Russia was tired of negotiating no really this time?
Well, that one aged like milk.
Yes, the West is agreement-incapable. But Russia falls for the okey-doke, over and over.
cc
It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada.
Thankful that we still have a few brave people like Ian trying to tell the truth in the face of the massive Orwellian system of lies (for now, but how much longer?)
Thankful that we can still dissent to a tiny degree (for now, but how much longer?)
Thankful that some parts of humanity are still able to resist the Empire, the “Resistance is futile” Borg, and the Hegemonists that seek totalitarian control over the entire world while telling themselves that they are justified and virtuous:
“A trillion sensor in space, in the air and on the ground will allow us to know anything, anywhere, at any time. There will be no hiding.. A good thing… Humans behave better when they’re being watched.”
Seen in https://youtu.be/5BLnM-gxj-o?t=1423 (Ben Norton video 34m)
The oligarchs, the plutocrats, the hegemonists are not being watched. A few try to watch them, but these hegemonist oligarchs control the media, the internet, the AI, the agencies, the government, and carry out crimes against humanity with impunity. As Ian pointed out, nothing can be done when people believe lies.
StewartM
I have an acquaintance in Germany who’s Greek, and rabidly anti-immigrant, believing in all the false tropes about “violent radical Muslim immigrants”. In part I think that’s because Greeks trained to believe that they’re “good Europeans” and not “terrible Muslims” just like the Poles think that they’re “good Europeans” pitted against the “terrible Russkies”. What makes him sympathetic to AFD is even more troubling, as he and his Vietnamese spouse are gay, and yet I very much doubt that the AFD would welcome either of them with open arms (like the Venezuelans and other Latinos that supported Trump thinking “oh, of course he isn’t talking about ‘good immigrants’ like US”. Uh-huh).
But one of the things I’ve tried to tell him is that Tiktok and Facebook aren’t accurate sources of information on “Muslim crime” in Europe, that the Muslims who fled West and sought asylum often are the very ones fleeing radical Islam, and finally that it’s us, the West who for generations have sought to make the Middle East a sh*tshow like you describe, that created the refugee problem. Libya was the most prosperous nation in Africa….that is, before we got involved. And it’s all because (as Trump has let out at times) that we want to “take their oil” (i.e., steal their oil) all to cheers of righteous Christofascist crowds.
Mark Level
A very important and timely post, thank you, Ian. Reading Tony’s curated information this morning when I first woke, I was not surprised that all the worst assumptions about a Trump domestic coup over the midterms are being rolled out, since Trump has destroyed the domestic and worldwide economy by not accepting that he had to cut a deal with Iran, as he (very briefly) admitted once the “MOU” was signed, then threw in the trash a few days later, then stupidly pursued intermittent attacks on Iran, let the situation in Western Asia spiral out of control with nearly all the US Bases destroyed and not soon, if ever, to be rebuilt. Exactly the topic of your post of course.
I’m out of the US now and likely for nearly the entirety of my future, so fortunate as I’d hate to face the cliff that the Deep State (I won’t even say Trump, he is deranged and I have no idea if he’s actually “in control” of anything, except the podiums he’s always spewing complete bullshit from) is plummeting off of.
Your point about the Saudi strikes on the Houthis, going back to an open genocide more than a decade ago, not being admitted by the MICIMATT press is entirely valid, & we can repeat, Who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind. And ‘Muricans don’t care, pay no attention, have little if any idea where Yemen or Saudi Arabia is, nor why the latter is a (perfidious and Extremist) U.S. “Ally.”
I do have a morbid interest in the US’s spinning out of control, and Trump in particular being an accelerationist in that process. 3 days ago, my interest was piqued by one of DJT’s hopeless gambits, the weird, sudden zigzag to a Putin “agreement” to send the US “tons of oil” to dig us out of the Crisis we’ve entered last February (as covered on this site). The best coverage I saw was arguably John Helmer talking to Nima Alkorzid about this “deal”, the Russians had already dispatched a ship full of diesel that was within (supposedly) 24 hours’ distance from a US port. Helmer thinks that the Real Triad of crooks, beyond profiteering by juicing up then crashing the US oil markets, Trump + his “family”, Jared Kushner and economic family Witkoff, had secretly cut this deal days prior. But per Helmer, and others, the “huge” tons full of oil Russia is sending us (while we continue to direct Ukro attacks “deep into Russia”) in fact is very little (as so many of Trump’s antics prove to be a grift), several sources I’ve seen say the October (Surprise) take will equal in quantity about 5 hours’ of daily US use . . . basically a mirage more than anything.
So predictably, the little Cocaine Comedian lost his shit and called Trump “weak”, someone from the press brayed this at DJT when he was getting off his plane, and then DJT began calling the Z-Man a failed leader who should be ousted. How much of this is reality (not much, clearly) and how much Kayfabe and the usual endless distractions. Or Hopium, Rovian “We create our own reality,” and a Naked Emperor?
I can’t imagine an actual US invasion of the Mideast, Iran in particular, I can’t credibly imagine that the Trump-ICE clowns will shut down the Midterms, allow voting and counting votes only in Red States (the only scenario that could possibly work) or declare a Coup and perhaps dissolve the pretense of a “Republic” (sic) under “National Security” pretenses. That NatSec word (what word does it sound like?) is a Universal Get Out of Jail and Passkey Card for every abuse this country has directed at its own underclass since at least the time of JFK’s public execution in 1963.
All I know is “the Center cannot hold.” There is no center in the US, there’s no way the small Minority of actual CHUDs (about 1/3 of the populace) could ever create a workable system, while the Dimmies stand idly by and plan how to purge their party of the Dirty Fucking Hippies, “Socialists”, anyone to the Left of AOC, who was fine with lying that “Joe and Kamala are working tirelessly to End the Genocide” at the Dimmie Convention and elsewhere, every word a lie. The B-Team Washington Generals will never guide the Titanic even an inch more away from the Iceberg.
It’s morbid of me to watch the Slow-Mo Car Crash from a distance. No problems here in Mexico with petrol costs, no shortage of food, fuel or basic social solidarity where I’m living now. Best of luck to all of you, that Shit Show seems to be very near a giant crash quite soon, and I don’t see any rescue coming. From whom would it come? The DSA? The Tech Bros? Elon Musk? That would be the Bill Gates style “Great Replacement” idea, which at one time seemed pretty paranoid and unlikely. Less so when the entire Misleadership Class is insane, however.
” . . .the world order is changing completely.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Best wishes to all of you there, hope you make it through.
TM
@Carborundum – This reads more like a political / optics attack in retaliation to the bombing of the airport in Sanaa rather than an attempt to degrade Saudi Arabia’s mighty and famous military machine.