News - Yemen: Brigadier General and military expert Mujib Shamsan said the United States Navy is grappling with a profound crisis, which has become evident through its ongoing confrontation with the Yemeni Armed Forces in the Red Sea. He stressed that Washington is attempting to conceal the scale of its setback in the region.

Speaking to Almasirah TV, Shamsan explained that the core of the problem lies not in US naval manpower or tactics, but in the limits of its capabilities compared to the rapid strategic and technological shifts now shaping maritime warfare.

He said that the heavy naval structure — aircraft carriers and massive warships once seen as symbols of global power — has proven ineffective against Yemen’s evolving defensive and offensive strategies.

Shamsan highlighted that the US now lags behind China, which possesses roughly 360 warships compared to Washington’s 274, exposing the shrinking influence of what he described as the so-called “Golden Fleet.”

He added that the American Navy’s troubles extend beyond technical issues to include industrial and logistical deterioration, with shipyards suffering from poor maintenance, shortages of skilled labor, and years-long delays in refitting carriers due to lack of spare parts.

According to Shamsan, the emergence of low-cost and highly effective weapons — such as drones and ballistic missiles capable of striking moving naval targets — has overturned the conventional balance of sea power, rendering Washington’s multi-billion-dollar naval assets far less relevant.

He noted that these operational and industrial failures also carry strategic consequences, undermining the United States’ ability to project control across the Red Sea and other vital waterways.

Citing financial strain and unfulfilled government contracts with ship maintenance firms, Shamsan said America’s military-industrial complex is facing compounding challenges. He described the shift from heavy to flexible naval structures as a “strategic necessity,” quoting US officials who recently admitted that Washington has “lost absolute dominance in both sea and air.”

Shamsan emphasized that Yemeni operations in the Red Sea have fundamentally altered the maritime equation, as five US naval task groups deployed against Yemen failed to achieve any tangible results. 

The outcome, he said, shattered the myth of US naval superiority and exposed Washington’s claims of modernization as mere attempts to mask its mounting failures.

He concluded that the US Navy’s crisis encompasses every level — from shipbuilding and workforce shortages to financial and technological decline. According to Shamsan, Washington’s primary objective now is to restore its lost maritime dominance, yet the widening gap in its capabilities makes this an increasingly difficult task amid Yemen’s growing deterrent power in a region the US once considered its sphere of control.

The Red Sea has become a central arena of confrontation between the Yemeni Armed Forces and the US-led naval coalition backing the Zionist entity. Since late 2023, Yemen has launched a series of maritime operations targeting vessels linked to the Zionist enemy, challenging US and allied forces deployed in the region. 

Analysts say these operations have exposed the vulnerability of the once-dominant US Navy, forcing Washington to reassess its military posture in one of the world’s most strategic waterways.