The Houthis, the gang of terrorists ruling over parts of Yemen, fired anti-ship missiles at USN combat ships in the Red Sea.

The Navy engaged three ballistic missiles provided to Yemen’s Houthis by Iran. It was the first time the Navy shot down an incoming anti-ship ballistic missile in combat, officials say.
Naval assets, including the USS Laboon and F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down 12 one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack missiles fired by the Houthis over a 12-hour period, US Central Command said.

What troubles me about this, aside from Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s cowardice in not responding to these attacks in any serious manner, is this. There are three combat ships of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy in the immediate area.

Those three PLAN ships aren’t there to stop pirates or to protect commercial shipping from terrorist activity. They’re there to watch the US Navy engage anti-ship missiles and rockets. And to learn. This as the PRC prepares its invasion of the Republic of China and its…neutralization…of the USN in support of that invasion.

The PLAN—and the Russian navy, et al.—are going to watch what we do and where we do it; that’s unavoidable. Done right, though, the watching could be a deterrent as they see how capable we are and how we’re willing to use that capability. But done right, particularly in the present case, necessarily includes using our capability as a coup de main to eliminate Houthi ports and launch sites and the Iranian ports in a matter of some hours or a day or two, to eliminate the threat altogether.