📝 🇾🇪 🇺🇸 Why do I think the Houthis are such a force to be reckoned with? Why do I think there is actually a chance they could defeat a US led coalition? | Calvin Froedge
🔶️ The Houthis seized power in 2014 following a coup, and after taking the capital of Sana'a, moved southward to begin an offensive against government forces.
🔶️ In 2015, A Saudi-led coalition of Arab states—including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, and Kuwait - with the material support of the US - joins the Yemeni government in fighting the Houthis.
⬛️ The coalition attacked by land, air, and sea.
🔶️ Despite an all out "scorched earth" war against the Houthis by virtually the entire Arab world and increased US arms sales to the Saudis, the Houthis remained undefeated and continued to gain ground against the Yemeni government.
🔶️ The Houthis would claim numerous victories over the coming years, not only against the Yemeni ground forces, but against coalition ground forces, coalition air forces, and even coalition naval forces.
⬛️ No matter how much they got hit with, the Houthis kept winning.
🔶️ In 2016 the Houthis even managed to completely destroy a coalition warship, the Emirati HSV-SWIFT 2.
⬛️ The ship was targeted by a Houthi anti ship missile.
🔶️ By 2019, the coalition has fallen apart. The Houthis have assassinated many key figures in the Yemeni government. They landed a huge blow against the Saudis in the 2019 Abaqiq attack. UAE forces have completely withdrawn from Yemen.
⬛️ The coalition decides to let the Houthis win.
🔶️ On March 30, 2022, Saudi Arabia announces a cessation of all military operations in Yemen.
🔶️ The Houthis have won. Against all odds, against the whole Arab world, against the United States, from a small city in Northern Yemen, the Houthis have conquered the country.
🔶️ Fast forward to today, are the Houthis weaker than they were a decade ago? Far from it.
🔶️ The Houthis now enjoy mass popular support and have inherited vast Yemeni weapons arsenal as well as supplies from Iran.
⬛️ They enjoy a strong strategic position at a vital choke point.
🔶️ My reasoning for thinking the Houthis are a force to be reckoned with is simple - they have already proven it, over and over again, while vastly outnumbered against foes supplied and supported by the most powerful empire the earth has ever seen.
⬛️ The Houthis are the Fremen.
🔶️ The Houthis have proven that they cannot be starved. Years of blockade were ineffective.
🔶️ They have proven that they cannot be defeated with technology - they have downed countless modern European and US built aircraft.
🇾🇪 This enemy will fight to the last man.
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...