THE US, ISRAEL HAVE LOST BATTLEFIELD CONTROL – HOUTHIS HAVE ATTACKED US DESTROYER, HIT GREEK-US OWNED BULKER; IRAN HAS HIT US BASE IN KURDISH CAPITAL, ERBIL, by John Helmer

You would think the U.S. would have learned from the wars its lost since World War II that doubling down on losing strategies just makes the loss that much more painful. From John Helmer at johnhelmer.net:

When your enemy dupes you into compounding your mistakes, without achieving your military objectives, he is leading you into an escalation of force which will defeat you, sooner or later. Later is more costly, defeat more ruinous, so the Arab-Iranian alliance against Israel and the US is waging the long war they were never before believed capable to fight.  

No matter how much force you use, every US Army manual on winning battles and wars says the same thing.   Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, the British Army strategist of a generation ago, advised that “for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.”

Today is Tuesday morning — and it is already plain on the Middle Eastern battlefield that the Anglo-American air attacks against Yemeni targets on Friday and Saturday have “dislocated” none of the capabilities of the Ansarallah government in Sanaa and the Houthi military units.  

For exploitation after the air strikes, the initiative has remained instead with the Houthis: they  are continuing their attacks on the US Navy fleet in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, keeping them on guard, but demonstrating they are ineffectual to protect US and Israel-connected shipping now diverting from the area.  “War is a two-party affair,” old Liddell Hart had said, “in order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.” In the Middle East the enemy has been taken off his guard. That’s to say, the Israelis, the Americans, and the British.

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