In this deep dive, LT Col Daniel Davis breaks down the shocking incident where a $60 million US Navy jet fell off an aircraft carrier. What caused this costly mishap? Learn the details of this high-stakes situation and the implications for military operations and aircraft safety. Don't miss this analysis! 🚢🔥💸
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NewsTranscript
00:00We have breaking news from the Red Sea today.
00:04A US F-18 fighter jet has literally rolled off the deck of the USS Harry Truman into the Red Sea.
00:13One of the most remarkable things that I can't even remember, it's been decades since we've heard anything like this has happened,
00:20and it really bears some examination of exactly what's going on, what happened,
00:25and what is the whole purpose of these ships being out there anyway?
00:30What is America's vital national interest, and is this working?
00:34Those are the questions that really need to be asked.
00:35Right now, everybody's kind of focused on what happens, and I do want to touch on that because it is important to discuss,
00:41but also we need to look at the bigger picture.
00:43That's one of the things we have this show for and why we have the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
00:48So let's first of all take a look at what's being reported as what actually happened.
00:52Now, as you may know, the USS Harry S. Truman, and there's actually two aircraft carrier battle groups in the region right now.
01:00One of them right now, at least the Truman Aircraft Battle Group, is operating in the Red Sea ostensibly to try and keep the Red Sea open to traffic.
01:10And there's been an ongoing situation really since October 2023 when the Houthis decided that they're going to stand in solidation with their brethren in Gaza during the Israeli Hamas war
01:25because they say, you know, you guys are killing too many innocent Palestinian people, and we want to, you know, do whatever we can to be in solidarity so that they said they're going to start attacking any shipping going to Israel in the Red Sea.
01:39And you may recall the Biden administration tried for a long time to try to bring them to their heels.
01:43The Israelis tried to bring them to their heels. None of it worked.
01:46Well, starting on about the 15th of March of this year, the Trump administration decided they would give their hand at it and that they would start attacking the Houthis.
01:55It was this big attack on the 15th of March, and we said it was going to be this relentless bombing campaign, et cetera.
02:03Well, problem is the Houthis didn't get our memo because they said, yeah, we've been doing this a long time and we're going to continue to do it.
02:11So now that we're really operating on almost a no-win situation, because the question is, now what are you going to do?
02:18Because we have already, our ships have been attacked several times and we've been able to knock the weapons down.
02:25There was one time reported during the Biden administration to where one of the missiles got so close that it was actually almost got to the ship
02:32and was knocked down by kind of like a Gatling gun right before it impacts.
02:37It was very close. It was a near miss. And I've always said, you know, one of our ships gets hit and it changes the game entirely.
02:44And so far that hasn't happened. But now then what's being reported by the Pentagon was apparently the Harry S. Truman came under fire from a missile
02:54and the ship had to take evasive action. And it's a remarkable thing that, Gary, if you can replay that video there,
03:01because I want to comment on a part of what happened there. You see right here, this is, I think this is the Gerald R. Ford actually going through time trials.
03:10And you see how sharp that thing is when it's turning like that. And these things are apparently very maneuverable.
03:16But when you make these huge moves with these very large ships, they list very heavily over to the side.
03:22From what we can understand from what's being reported, there was an in-process, yeah, that shot there is really the money shot
03:31because you can see how far over that thing is tilting. Obviously, anything on the deck that would be on there at the top
03:38has to be battened down or it can roll off. And that's apparently what happened.
03:42One of the aircraft, one of the F-18 Super Hornets, was being moved by a tractor on board
03:50when all of a sudden, apparently, the radar signaled that there was an incoming missile
03:55and they had to take evasive action. And as you can see there, when they have to do that,
03:59they don't have any time to do anything, so they, I'm sure, sound some alarm.
04:03But there wasn't time to get the ship knocked down or to get the aircraft battened down
04:08so that when they had that big, hard shift to the right, you saw there on that evasive maneuver,
04:14apparently, it literally rolled into the sea, both the aircraft and the tractor itself.
04:19According to the reports, the crew was able to get out of the way.
04:23One person was slightly injured, but no one lost their lives.
04:25So it's really good in that regard. We're very grateful for that.
04:30I did take the opportunity today, we're going to have British Commodore Steve Jeremy on later this week.
04:37We've had him on many times, a friend of the show.
04:39But since he has actually operated on an aircraft carrier in combat,
04:43I reached out to him this morning and asked him if he could explain to us what may have happened here.
04:49If you could just tell us a little bit about what, as far as you know, anyway, from the media reports,
04:54what do you think happened and what's your experience with this?
04:59Yeah, I mean, the point about aircraft on aircraft carriers is that they need to be glued down onto the deck
05:08and that if the ship's moving a lot and they're not glued, I say glued, I'm using that as a sort of shorthand
05:14for chocking the aircraft, but also across an aircraft carrier flight deck,
05:20there are lots of hard points which you use metal chains to actually lock the aircraft on when it's on deck.
05:28And when you're moving the aircraft, you know, those chains are unleashed
05:32and you've got a handler, an electrical handler and the deck crew are working with it.
05:39But then when you've got the aircraft where you want it,
05:43and on a carrier you're always moving aircraft around, but when you've got it to where you want it,
05:48then you chuck it down, lock it down and it should be good to go.
05:51But, of course, the issue here is that if you're under attack or air attack and you're moving quickly,
05:59then those things can sort of fall out of phase.
06:02This actually happened to us in HMS Invincible during the Falklands War
06:06where actually we lost to Sea Harrier over the side.
06:10I think I was actually airborne at the time or actually we might have been in St. Carlos,
06:14but the aircraft, the flight deck was actually quite slippery
06:19and I don't think it was under air attack.
06:22And anyway, the nose mill on the aircraft actually pivoted
06:25and the aircraft went over the side.
06:27The pilot was in it at the time and he ejected.
06:29For this one, it's difficult to say without knowing about the circumstances, Danny,
06:34but if they were under attack and the ship was manoeuvring,
06:38then it could have been a breakdown in communications between the four key elements of this.
06:44So you've got in the ship, you've got the CIC, a combat information center in America.
06:49It's an operations room in Britain, but it's the same thing.
06:52Down in the bowels of the ship and there are the people who've got all the radars on
06:55and they're giving the warnings of stuff coming in.
06:58You've got the bridge who are actually handling the ship's rudders and engines.
07:02You've got what we call Flyco, and I guess it's the same in an American carrier,
07:08but where you coordinate from the flight deck.
07:10And when you look up on the island of a carrier,
07:12then there's a glass area where people can look out over the whole of the deck.
07:17And then last is the flight deck itself.
07:19And Flyco and the bridge and the operations room, CIC and the flight deck,
07:23need to keep each other in close conversations.
07:28If the ship suddenly makes a hard turn to port or to starboard,
07:31you need to make sure that all the jets and all the helicopters and everything that's on the deck
07:35is actually chained down.
07:38So I would guess that that's probably what's happened, but it's difficult to say.
07:41And how long, if you can say, from the time, let's say on the radar room,
07:46where they say, hey, we've got an incoming missile or a drone or something like that,
07:49how much time do you have before you have to start taking evasive maneuvers?
07:52Oh, they'll want to move quickly.
07:54But usually, unless it's a pop-up target, which is a target, which is you hadn't expected,
08:01then usually there's a bit of time because actually you'd expect to see it at range,
08:05especially if they've got Hawkeye's airborne.
08:08So the air surveillance aircraft airborne, if they've got those airborne,
08:13then you'd expect to see most targets at some range.
08:17But if it's a pop-up target, then you're talking probably sort of could be 10, 15,
08:2120 seconds or so before you take the maneuver at the most.
08:26You really want to be moving quickly, really.
08:28So if it's a situation to where they were already towing,
08:32because apparently there was a tractor that was moving an aircraft somewhere on the deck,
08:36so it could be that there wasn't time to actually warn them, hey, get that thing locked down.
08:41We have to maneuver now.
08:42I mean, is that a fair possibility?
08:44It is.
08:46I mean, if it's actually the tractors are actually, they're electric, battery-driven tractors,
08:55and they're usually on the nose of the aircraft or the tail of some helicopters.
09:00So they're quite flexible.
09:02But when the aircraft's being moved, then you've got, as well as the tractor driver,
09:07you've also got a number of people who are walking with the aircraft,
09:11with chocks and chains ready to lash it down.
09:15And as soon as it's in position, then you'll lash it down.
09:18So, again, without knowing, I mean, it could have been a failure of a lashing or something like that,
09:23or on incorrect lashing.
09:25But, again, I would suspect that if the aircraft was being maneuvered,
09:28then it was in transit from one lockdown position to another lockdown position,
09:32or, indeed, for a launch.
09:36It's difficult to say.
09:37Again, as the aircraft are coming, especially with an American carrier,
09:40you've got a large number of launch.
09:43You might be launching some of eight jets, you know, all in a stream ready to go onto the catapult,
09:49or recovering them as well.
09:50It makes for a very, very busy time on the flight deck.
09:53And if something comes in during that, and it's a short-notice target,
09:57then I can imagine that an accident could have happened.
10:01Well, let's say it was a pop-up situation.
10:03What are the defensive measures that a ship of that size can engage in?
10:09And how much time does it have from the time they identify the target or the incoming missile
10:15before it, I guess, I don't guess impact is the right word,
10:18before it reaches the aircraft itself?
10:20Meaning, how much time do you have to take these kind of maneuvers?
10:23Yeah, I mean, it depends on the missile.
10:26And if it's a high-level missile, so it's, you know, it's not what I would call sea skimming,
10:33then you've usually got a lot of time because you see it a long way out.
10:36You know, you might see it sort of 40, 50, 100 miles out,
10:39which time you do have time.
10:41Depends how fast it's going.
10:43If you've got a low-level missile, then you could be talking about sort of 30 seconds.
10:47I mean, XSX was a, in my time, was a low-level missile.
10:51It's coming in at about 12 meters.
10:54So you don't, because of the curvature of the Earth, you just don't see it on radar
10:57unless you've got airborne early warning there.
11:01But I would have expected the Hawkeyes to be airborne.
11:03And if that's the case, you would have expected them to pick up the missile.
11:07The point about the missiles, they're coming in fast.
11:10So the radars that you tend to use to identify them are pulse Doppler radars,
11:15which means that they react to speed.
11:18And they get the speed of the radar return, tells them that somebody's coming in quickly.
11:22So you'd expect to see it at low level.
11:25But again, the other problem they have, though, of course, is that operating deep water,
11:31so that's away from the shore, you've got more time.
11:35Whereas if you're operating close to shore and the missile's coming off the shore,
11:40then often you can't see it in the clutter, the radar clutter offshore.
11:43So they've got much less sea room in the Red Sea than deeper waters out in the Indian Ocean or elsewhere.
11:49And one other kind of defensive measures is I assume there's some sort of counter-missile missiles.
11:55Yeah, there's rough.
11:57Again, bear in mind I'm pretty out of date.
12:00But there are, broadly speaking, three, really, I suppose, arguably four.
12:05But the firstly is what we call soft kill.
12:07So that's where it's jamming or decoying.
12:11So you can either jam the missile head or jam the targeting system, which is targeting the missile.
12:16Or you can put chaff, classically, chaff rockets.
12:23So the chaff rocket essentially goes up in the air, comes down,
12:26and it makes a cloud of chaff particles, which look like a ship.
12:33And what you'd often do with those, if you fired a set of six chaff missiles, for example,
12:40you would then turn the ship so the ship ran in the same direction as the wind,
12:46and so suddenly the missile, instead of having one target, which is the ship, has seven targets.
12:52And usually they'll tend to pick up one of the closest targets,
12:55which is not the one in the middle, which is the ship.
12:56So that's soft kill.
12:58And then there's hard kill, which is either sort of medium to short range hard kill,
13:04which was called air defense, which can be, I don't know what block standards that the cruisers will be with the carrier group have got.
13:15But anyway, they're quite long range missiles and got good performance at short range as well.
13:20You need to fire a couple per missile.
13:22But then you get into shorter range where you've got the ship's own missiles.
13:25I have a feeling that the current system used by the Americans is called RAM,
13:31Rolling Airframe Missile, which is a German device from memory.
13:36But they can be in the sort of the order of two to three to five to ten kilometers, that sort of range.
13:43So that's about half of those, roughly speaking, for miles, a little bit less than that.
13:47Then finally you get a point defense, which is a classic phalanx weapon system,
13:53which is a Gatling gun and this phalanx or goalkeeper.
13:56If I like from memory, I had two on board HMS Cardiff.
13:59They're both 20 mil with a range of about a mile, very effective, but a range of about a mile.
14:06And they're very good at taking down a missile and then taking down another missile.
14:10But it really is why it's the eyes when you're into that sort of missile for a ship.
14:15Now, I know that I believe it was in the year 2024 during the Biden administration
14:19when they were first taking on the Houthis here.
14:21There was at least one situation where one of the American ships, and they never gave all the details,
14:27had to use that phalanx gun because all the other levels of things had not stopped the missile.
14:32And it was apparently very, very close to hitting our ship at that time.
14:36Just as best as you understand, what is the risk to the American flotilla
14:40that are conducting this operation in the Red Sea to the Houthis?
14:43Again, without knowing what sort of attack it would be, it's difficult to say because I wasn't aware of that.
14:52I think I had heard that there have been some quite successful attacks.
14:55But if you're getting into point of defense, I mean, that's what it's designed for.
14:59So it's designed and it's good at shooting down things at the close range.
15:03The problem, of course, though, is that it is your last line of defense
15:08until you actually get into damage control.
15:13So you really want to avoid that if at all possible.
15:16I mean, it's there for a purpose, and it sounds like it worked.
15:19But in terms of what were the flotilla or what were the carrier strike group,
15:26what's the level of threat they're at?
15:28Well, for a missile to get that close, you would have been a fairly high level of threat.
15:31What's difficult to know is whether that was an individual leaker,
15:34which is a missile which gets through and people haven't spotted,
15:38or whether it's part of a larger coordinated attack.
15:42And there things get more difficult because you've got more weapons in the air to actually engage.
15:48And generally speaking, you engage the closer ones first and the leakers later on.
15:54Right.
15:55And so, last question, what is the threat to, and we'll just keep it at the aircraft carrier
16:01since that's what's involved here, to not just one missile coming from the Houthis,
16:06but what if they, say, launch five or 10 or 15?
16:10Is the system, the defense system, capable of defending against that many targets at the same time?
16:15I would expect that, yeah, the answer is yes.
16:18I would expect the, I would expect, because I would expect the cruisers and the destroyers,
16:26the surface air missile cruisers and destroyers to be capable of taking down a number of missiles.
16:33I wouldn't like to give you a figure.
16:35But, again, the, the, it's not quite as simple as they'll get straight through,
16:41because, of course, those missiles have to be targeted.
16:44And the key thing is what's called terminal phase guidance.
16:47So, it's, it's, you, it's no good firing the missiles, just a sort of rough area of sea
16:51and hoping that it'll hit the ship.
16:53It's got to be extremely precise.
16:55And it's not like onshore, where, you know, if you're firing it at an airfield,
17:01then, you know, it doesn't change its address.
17:04You know, the lat long is always the same, whereas if you're firing a ship, it's moving all the time.
17:07So, that's why we may well have had zigzagging, which is that,
17:10depending on how that terminal guidance was delivered, if, indeed, it was delivered,
17:15then, if it's, if it was provided by the missile itself, its own radar seeker head,
17:23then it's more difficult to decoy, rather than if it's provided by a third party,
17:27which is providing guidance to the missile,
17:29where you've got more opportunities to actually get into the kill chain between,
17:33or the comms chain between the missile and the third party guider.
17:37And that was, that was Commodore Jeremy.
17:45Listen, I really appreciate him on short notice, and I, especially, he was in his office there.
17:50He just literally just kind of turned his computer sideways and had that,
17:54that blank wall back behind him.
17:56That's, some of you may have made a comment about the background being kind of sparse.
18:00Well, that is why, because he agreed to come on on really short notice.
18:04So, we're very grateful for his expertise on that.
18:06Very fascinating information here.
18:09So, that's basically the bottom line about what happened.
18:12Now, then, I want to take a look at what is the context of this,
18:16and does it make any sense to continue making these kinds of risks?
18:19If our military is taking on an operation that is related to American national security,
18:25then losses, combat losses, or accidents, or however you want to characterize this one,
18:30could be very much worth it.
18:31It could be just the cost of doing business.
18:33That's just how it works.
18:34That's why you have a military.
18:35But if the mission itself is not related to American national security, or is failing,
18:41then you have to reevaluate, is this something we want to keep doing?
18:45Now, I think you probably know where this is going with us already,
18:47because we've been talking about this mission has been going on for a long time,
18:51and not just since March 15th.
18:54But we actually have to back it even before the Biden administration,
18:57because this goes back to 2015 when the Saudi Arabians got into a tift with the Houthis
19:04and basically got into a war with them.
19:07And it was primarily an air war.
19:09They used all kinds of aircraft, and they got lots of help from Obama
19:13because he decided it was kind of a quid pro quo deal.
19:16We were trying to get them to help us out with something, and they wanted our help with that.
19:20So he said, yes, sure, whatever, we'll do that.
19:22We'll take care of that, too.
19:24And so for a long time, we were doing all this.
19:27We were helping them with aerial refueling, with ammunition, I think, intelligence support, etc.
19:33You know, we tried to say there's a degree of separation, but there was so many people being killed in Yemen.
19:40I mean, it was just a horrible situation.
19:42Well, Saudi Arabia never succeeded in knocking the Houthis out.
19:46That was their stated objective, and it didn't work.
19:48It was just, I don't even know how many thousands of airstrikes there were over those years,
19:53but they never stopped them.
19:55They never got them out.
19:56So then they just kind of like just stopped one day.
20:00They didn't really announce a whole lot.
20:01It didn't, like, come to an end.
20:02I think they just moved on, and so it was dormant for a period of time.
20:07Now comes October 7th, 2023, where the Hamas fighters, you know,
20:12had that terrible terrorist attack against the Israeli civilians, killed a lot of people,
20:17and then Israel decided to respond.
20:20Now, as we've said all the time, if a country is attacked by a terrorist attack,
20:25and especially when over 1,000 civilians are killed, there's no country on the planet
20:31that's not going to respond to that, and so they had every right to do so,
20:34even if I can say it was not done in a vacuum, and there was a lot of things that led up to that,
20:39which didn't make it a surprise.
20:41But once that has happened, it's in the inherent right of anyone to defend themselves.
20:45But what is not in the inherent right of everyone is to go overboard
20:50and to just go on this systematic situation where you're basically taking advantage of this
20:54and now killing large numbers of innocent people and killing large numbers of civilians,
20:59and that's what's been happening here.
21:01As a consequence of that, you had the Houthis saying,
21:04hey, we're not going to just sit passively by and allow Israel to continue killing so many people
21:11in Palestine areas and to destroy, you know, basically just start eliminating their ability
21:17to even sustain life in the Strip.
21:20And so they said, until you stop that attack, we're going to attack Red Sea shipping.
21:25Anything going to Israel through the Red Sea, we're going to start attacking it.
21:29And they attacked a number of ships.
21:31There's a number that were actually hit.
21:33And then it significantly lowered the amount of traffic going through there.
21:37Instead of going up through the Red Sea and going through the canal up there,
21:42most of the shipping was going around elsewhere.
21:45Well, the Biden administration said, hey, we don't like that.
21:48So they started using American aircraft carriers to try and keep it open.
21:52And they started attacking the Houthis.
21:53They shot down lots of missiles, lots of drones that were going into some of these shipping,
21:59but they never stopped the Houthis.
22:01And then Israel tried the same thing.
22:03And there was several times they made big attacks inside Yemen itself.
22:07It never stopped the attacks.
22:09The only thing that stopped the attacks is when Israel finally had a ceasefire with Hamas.
22:14And the Houthis said, that's what we've said all along.
22:16That's what this was all about.
22:18You have a ceasefire.
22:19We all have a ceasefire.
22:20So they stopped their attacks.
22:22Well, toward the end of the ceasefire, before it actually fell apart,
22:27Israel said they started having some claims against the Hamas people.
22:32And they said, all right, we're going to cut off food aid.
22:34And so the Houthis said, hang on, if you're going to cut off food aid to the people,
22:39the civilians in the strip, then we're going to resume our aerial attacks onto the shipping
22:45back in the Red Sea again.
22:47Before they could actually act on that, the Trump administration launched this big,
22:52big, huge operation on the 15th of March that was designed to, quote,
22:56do what the Biden administration was unable to do.
23:01You may recall, I think we've shown part of this before, but to remind you of what
23:04the original statement was from the Trump administration, here is Secretary of Defense
23:10Pete Hegseth on the 15th of March.
23:13I want to be very clear.
23:14This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence.
23:20The minute the Houthis say, we'll stop shooting at your ships, we'll stop shooting at your drones,
23:24this campaign will end.
23:26But until then, it will be unrelenting.
23:29We got the reports last night, Maria, the Houthi capital felt like an earthquake.
23:35Dozens and dozens of precision-heavy munitions dropping precisely on the targets that we wanted
23:40to hit, sending a very clear message.
23:43And the message is clear to Iran as well.
23:45And the president said it in his truth.
23:47Your support of the Houthis needs to end immediately.
23:52We will hold you accountable as the sponsor of this proxy.
23:56And I echo his statement.
23:57Okay, so that's really this bold and brash statement that we're going to bring a lot
24:02of heavy firepower.
24:04And even though the Obama administration or the Biden administration couldn't succeed,
24:07even though the Obama effort along with Saudi Arabia since 2015 couldn't succeed, we're
24:13going to succeed on there.
24:15So we're going to bring that firepower to bear.
24:17And there have been some huge strikes in the area.
24:20There's been big ones in the capital city.
24:23There's been some at various ports, etc.
24:26There's actually been quite a few more on that in just a second.
24:30But I want to show you also that here is a comment from the Houthis from March where
24:36they said that they had previously taken the Harry S. Truman under fire.
24:41And then I want to tag into the back of that is a U.S.
24:44three-star general who kind of mocks them for the effort.
24:47You know, the Houthis claimed to have tried to attack the Harry S. Truman.
25:16Quite frankly, it's hard to tell because while we're executing precision strikes, they missed
25:20by over 100 miles.
25:21So I would just tell you their effectiveness.
25:23I would question anything that they claim in the press that they're doing or not doing.
25:26It's very hard to tell what they are just based on their level of incompetence that
25:30they've demonstrated.
25:31Based on their level of incompetence that they've demonstrated.
25:36What exactly is this level of incompetence?
25:38Because they have caused the U.S. aircraft carrier to have to go on an emergency ship
25:45or an emergency shift to where they're trying to evasive control to try to prevent getting hit.
25:51We know that there's been a number of attacks on our ship so far.
25:54Up to this point, our defense mechanisms have succeeded.
25:58We've been able to either shoot down the missiles or avoid them through the maneuvering that we've been doing here.
26:04And now you see that it's cost an F-18 fighter jet.
26:08So who's the incompetent one now?
26:10I mean, you have to ask that question.
26:12Hey, if these guys are so incompetent, why do we lose an F-18 aircraft and a tractor
26:17and possibly even lost some troops or could have risk doing it because of these incompetent people here?
26:25See, we're rolling the dice here that that missile didn't get through.
26:30So far, we know of at least some cases where the missiles have gotten very close, dangerously close.
26:36So far, none of them have.
26:38But what has been the other cost?
26:40Aside from this now, somewhere around $60 million jet that just fell in,
26:44along with the other tractor that moved in there, we've also had issues with drones.
26:49So we've had just since March, since we started this process here, we have lost seven of these predator drones
26:57have been shot down by the incompetent Houthis since March the 15th.
27:03Those things, folks, are about $30 million a pop.
27:07Some versions are a little bit more than that if they have different packages on them.
27:11But in every case, those things are really expensive.
27:13There have been 15 of them going back to October 2023 when we first started trying to take the Houthis under fire
27:20during the Biden administration.
27:2315 of these things from the incompetent side of the Houthis.
27:27And all of these strikes that we keep having haven't seemed to make any difference.
27:31And I want to look at some other costs here.
27:34This is from Responsible Statecraft.
27:36It just came out this morning in response to all this.
27:38If I can pull it up.
27:40Sorry, I thought I had it posted in front of me.
27:42Oh, there we go.
27:43It says, to date, the U.S. has spent about $3 billion in its recent anti-Houthi campaign since it began in mid-March.
27:51$3 billion since the mid-March.
27:54They don't have the figures about what the Biden administration had spent before that time.
27:59But at least $3 billion since March.
28:02It's barely a month and a half from now ago.
28:05Hitting over 800 targets.
28:08800 targets we've hit in Yemen.
28:11And we have not compelled them to stop doing what they're doing.
28:16Where do we go?
28:17In killing hundreds of civilians in the process.
28:20And now the accidental loss of a fighter jet adds tens of millions of dollars more to that.
28:26The billions the U.S. has spent in this campaign have resulted in questionable outcomes.
28:29Sitcom says its efforts have degraded the Houthi fighting capacities.
28:33Yet CNN reported from last month suggested that the campaign had only limited results.
28:38Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that in closed briefings, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there have been only limited success destroying the Houthis' vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones, and launchers.
28:53So what we're trying to say is that we've degraded them and, you know, we're showing them a thing or two and we've got a signal, a strong signal to Iran.
29:02And you've got to ask, what is the message being received?
29:06That's the message you want to send.
29:08But what's the message being received?
29:10Is that they have all these underground facilities.
29:12Which means that through all the process of us supporting the Saudi Arabians to try and attack them means that they learned how to minimize those capabilities.
29:22Now, you can hit targets on the surface all day long and you can kill lots of innocent civilian people in the process.
29:29But you're not getting at the core function of it here.
29:32And by the way, if you actually want to keep the Red Sea open, there's a way to do that.
29:36And that's to put pressure on Israel to end its war against the Palestinian people.
29:41That will work.
29:43The Houthis have shown they mean it.
29:45When you had a ceasefire before, they were good to their word and they stopped.
29:50So if you want the Red Sea to be open, then we have to look at other alternatives.
29:54Because what sense does it make to keep on risking an American aircraft carrier or any other naval vessel that's part of that strike group or the loss of any other aircraft or the loss of our drones, these multimillion dollar platforms?
30:08What are we getting for this?
30:09Is American national interest even involved in this?
30:13The answer is no.
30:15We have a general interest in keeping the global commons open.
30:18That is true.
30:19That's a general truism.
30:21But a very small percent, I think the number is actually 3% of traffic that has to do with American commerce is affected by the traffic in the Red Sea.
30:313%.
30:32That means that 97% is going elsewhere in the world.
30:36What if the other countries who had something to do with that, whose economics were affected, maybe they should be trying to do something to open that up?
30:44Because imagine we're spending all this money, billions of dollars, apparently every month that this thing's going on for the benefit of other countries.
30:54And even that's not even really working because it is only limited and minimized some of the attacks.
31:00It has not stopped them.
31:01So we are spending our money.
31:04We're risking our troops.
31:06We're risking our platforms.
31:07We're risking our Navy for something that's not even related to American national interest that costs us billions of dollars that even to the limited extent it works, primarily benefits other countries.
31:19Now, why would we want to keep on doing that?
31:22Because, listen, we keep going down this path.
31:25It's almost inevitable that at some point one of these missiles is finally going to get through.
31:30You heard Commodore Jeremy there talking about how this Gatling gun is like the last line of defense, and that is effective out to about one mile.
31:40And, you know, these missiles travel it very fast, so it takes only seconds to cover a mile.
31:46So if one of them finally gets through, and just imagine if all of a sudden at 12 meters off the deck, they slam into an aircraft carrier.
31:55I mean, there's going to be how many Americans killed.
31:58It's going to be a tremendous gash on the symbol of our power.
32:03Our aircraft carriers are one of the absolute symbols of American global power that we're able to send ships all over the world and influence matters, et cetera.
32:12And it's like the symbol, which has never even been touched.
32:14Now, imagine if that gets gashed over something so stupid is trying to keep the Red Sea open to transit that's not even primarily American.
32:26It's barely a fraction of anything that represents American commerce.
32:31Why would we want to risk this damage to our credibility?
32:33And already, the Harry S. Truman actually ran into another ship about a month and a half or so ago, so that's already kind of an embarrassment.
32:45Now, this, because apparently we don't know all the details yet, but it appears that we were in the process of just doing some normal movement on their aircraft carrier,
32:54and all of a sudden the alarm goes off and they find out that we have to immediately get into evasive maneuvers or risk losing the ship.
33:00So you see that how fast things can turn.
33:04And I'm telling you, we don't want to find out what happens if one of our ships get hit and one of our sailors get killed.
33:11Why should we risk the life of one American, whether Air Force or Naval pilots or Navy personnel in these ships?
33:22Why should we risk any lives over something that's not even related to American national security?
33:28Because this isn't.
33:29I don't care what anybody in the Pentagon wants to say.
33:31This is about arrogance.
33:34We want them to stop.
33:35We want to tell, you're going to do what we tell you, or we're going to bomb you.
33:38So that, I guess, feeds your ego, does nothing for American national security, and it costs a huge amount of money.
33:46Because that money is coming out of somewhere, folks.
33:48That's money that we shouldn't have had to spend.
33:51And now that it's gone, and that's just a net loss.
33:55And I just don't want us to ever get to the point where we have to explain to somebody's mother, somebody's wife, somebody's brother or husband or father,
34:04that their service member was killed because we want to look tough.
34:09It's just not going to play well then.
34:10And we shouldn't have to do that.
34:13Anyway, that's where we are today.
34:15We're going to come back with Andrei Martianov later in the afternoon.
34:17We're going to talk about some updates and some things that have been happening with the Russia-Ukraine war.
34:22That'll be at 4 p.m. on the Eastern Time.
34:24Thank you very much for being with us today.
34:26Be sure and like and subscribe.
34:27That helps us out more than you may know before you leave today.
34:30Thanks, and we'll see you on the next episode of Daniel A's Deep Dive.