We spend $1 trillion on defense and can’t keep shipping lanes safe

As the Biden administration obsesses over every last Israeli troop movement in Gaza, international shipping and our own naval vessels are under assault from Hamas’ Iranian proxy allies in the Red Sea.

Meanwhile, over 60 U.S. troops have been injured in at least 73 attacks in Syria and Iraq since October, as our soldiers remain there with no discernable mission. Isn’t it time we get our own military strategy in order before we meddle in Israel’s fight against Hamas and its human shields?

In general, the United States needs to divest its resources from refereeing Middle Eastern civil wars and focus a lot more on our borders. But one paramount foreign policy goal, going back to America’s founding, has always been to keep the shipping lanes open. We spend more than any other nation on defense by a mile and squander billions on operations well outside our national and strategic interests. When it comes to the ultimate national security threat of Iranian proxies blocking shipping lanes, however, our government is feckless in not immediately neutralizing the problem.

On November 19, the Houthis hijacked the Galaxy Leader, a Bahamian-flagged cargo ship, as it was traveling in the Red Sea. The crew, composed of nationals of allied countries, is still being held hostage.

Several days later, the Iranian-backed terrorists that the Biden administration inexplicably de-listed from the terrorism designation tried to attack a Malta-flagged container ship with a drone as it traveled on the other side of Yemen in the Indian Ocean.

On November 27, two missiles were fired at the USS Mason after terrorists tried to hijack the M/V Central Park, a Liberian-flagged tanker.

Finally, on Sunday, the Houthis fired missiles and suicide drones at several commercial vessels and the USS Carney in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the critical outlet from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. According to one government source quoted by the Associated Press, the attack lasted for five hours.

None of this is unexpected. On November 14, the Houthis issued a warning in English, Arabic, and Hebrew: “We will sink your ships.” Yet the Biden administration officials are so busy bullying Israel they refuse to respond to direct kinetic action against our own troops and assets from the same forces aligned with Iran.

In the early years of our republic, Americans had a slogan: “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” But today, we spend nearly $1 trillion on defense but then fail to use it when it’s appropriate to do so.

Our military doesn’t perform well when precariously stationed in isolated areas on land between Sunni and Shiite civil wars with no civil society to hold our gains. That’s why we need to remove our troops from Syria and Iraq.

On the other hand, our air and naval assets are perfectly designed to create a kill zone in maritime waters to destroy anything that threatens our ships and the free flow of commerce. If we don’t use our naval and air assets to keep shipping lanes open, then what is the purpose of continuing to bankrupt this nation to pay for the military?

Four government officials told Politico that ships are constantly under attack, but the administration has made a concerted effort to downplay the nature of the threat and to de-escalate rather than deter.

“If our ships see something is coming near them or toward them, they are going to assess it as a threat and shoot it down,” said one Pentagon official, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another time” U.S. ships have been this challenged in the region.

“We are not taking this seriously,” said retired Vice Admiral John Miller, former commander of Fifth Fleet. He added that the attacks both at sea and in Iraq and Syria “have gone largely unanswered.”

“We’re not deterring anybody right now.”

Hence the Biden administration is pursuing the worst possible mix of policies vis-à-vis military deterrent toward Iran. The government is refusing to respond to either the land or sea-based attacks but won’t at least withdraw our troops from Iraq so they don’t remain vulnerable to the undeterred attacks, all in pursuit of an aimless mission — a mission that was designed to protect those very Iranian-backed militias from the Sunnis.

Congress is currently putting the finishing touches on the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. Lawmakers continue to fund everything we shouldn’t be funding: troop deployments in Iraq and Syria; assistance to Hezbollah-backed Lebanese forces; State Department missions promoting a Palestinian state; border security in Jordan but not the United States. And on and on. Nobody has bothered to ask what the purpose of our military is and what it should be used for.

The threat to shipping lanes is a much bigger problem than Ukraine, even if one believes Ukraine is worthy of our attention. Yet Ukraine is consuming the entire debate over military aid and strategy. After House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Senate leaders he wouldn’t tie Ukraine aid with anything less than H.R. 2, which abolishes catch-and-release at the border, red-state Republicans like Senator James Lankford called it “not rational.”

No, what is not rational is uniparty senators’ obsessing over every foreign theater but the ones that most directly threaten American interests.