When Using Force Is Useless

One of the more remarkable things about the illegal and pointless the U.S. war in Yemen is that no one in our government is bothering to pretend that military action will work.

The commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet acknowledges that the war against the Houthis isn’t working, but offers up this pablum as a consolation:

"They have not been deterred,” he said of the Houthis. “But we believe our actions — our hope is — our actions will at least provide some decision space and time and allow the diplomacy, the international community to pressure them to stop.”

One of the more remarkable things about the illegal and pointless the U.S. war in Yemen is that no one in our government is bothering to pretend that military action will work. It is unusual for U.S. political and military leaders to acknowledge publicly that using force won’t achieve anything, since that makes the decision to use force look absurd. After all, why should the U.S. keep launching attacks on another country when no one thinks that they will make a difference? It is bad enough when we have delusional leaders urging the U.S. to “stay the course” because they wrongly believe that force can achieve certain goals, but it is even worse when our leaders know that force is useless but insist on using it anyway.