WASHINGTON DC 30MAR2026
20 attacks. $4 billion in allied defensive costs. And they just re-entered the war.
The Houthis fired their first ballistic missiles at Israel since May 2025 on March 27. Every analyst is covering it. None of them are asking the right question.
The right question isn’t what the Houthis can fire. It’s what they force Israel to spend intercepting — at the precise moment Israel is rationing Arrow missiles.
THE HOUTHI FACTOR is the full ledger:
→ 520+ attacks quantified, November 2023 – May 2025
→ Current magazine depth: 30–80 BMs, hundreds of drones, severed resupply
→ The command-and-control truth: proxy, partner, or freelancer?
→ Combined Iran-Houthi inventory — the ceiling, not the output
→ The Saudi free ride: $155B in US arms, zero offensive sorties
→ The pipeline trap: 7 million bpd through Yanbu, 30 tankers in Houthi range
→ The Yemen hypothesis: what a limited Saudi coastal operation actually looks like — and why scope creep is almost certain
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