Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen fired dozens of missiles and drones at U.S. Navy ships this week after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Friday afternoon.

“Three U.S. Navy warships shot down nearly two dozen incoming missiles and drones launched by Iran’s rebel army in Yemen earlier today while transiting the narrow entrance to the Red Sea,” said Fox News defense correspondent Lucas Tomlinson.

No U.S. ships were hit, no sailors were hurt, and it appears as though all of the projectiles that were fired were either shot down or missed.

“A pair of guided-missile destroyers, the USS Stockdale and USS Spruance, along with a littoral combat ship, the USS Indianapolis, were transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait when the American warships came under attack from a barrage of incoming ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones,” he added.

Three U.S. Navy warships shot down nearly two dozen incoming missiles and drones launched by Iran’s rebel army in Yemen earlier today while transiting the narrow entrance to the Red Sea.

None of the American warships were hit and no sailors on board were injured, U.S officials…

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) September 27, 2024

The attacks come as the Houthis have fired on U.S. war ships dozens of times over the last year over U.S. support for Israel following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack.

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MI) responded to the attack by calling it nothing less than an act of war by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Today’s Iranian-backed terrorist attack against American Navy ships is nothing less than an act of war. The Biden-Harris administration’s months long effort to ‘play defense’ in the Red Sea has completely failed,” he said. “It is time to act decisively to punish the Houthis and let the world see the consequences of attacking the United States.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said this week that the U.S. needs to learn from global conflicts that have erupted in recent years to make needed adjustments on the battlefield to be ready for the future of warfare.

Cotton made the remarks during a Hudson Institute panel discussion with Joe Lonsdale Cofounder, Palantir Technologies; Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer, Palantir Technologies; and others.

So specifically in the context what Israel’s done in the last two weeks, they’ve made a lot of news, but tell me what you think about how Israel has been able to innovate and change the future of war over the past year since October 7.

Cotton said that both Israel and Ukraine have been able to make rapid adjustments on the battlefield because they do not have to deal with the “most complicated bureaucracy” in the world, the U.S. Department of Defense.

He said that there needed to be more innovation and that change has to take place on the battlefield faster in order for the U.S. to continue winning, but cautioned that at the end of the day, traditional military hardware was still needed to ultimately win.

“We still need stealth bombers and fighters and aircraft carriers and submarines, but a lot of what you’ve seen on the battlefield in the Middle East and Ukraine are smaller, more expendable items that have much higher production rates, therefore much lower unit cost as well,” he said. “So that’s one thing that Israel and Ukraine has done very well that our Department of Defense doesn’t do that well because it doesn’t innovate fast, government as a whole doesn’t really.”

“Too many of my colleagues in the Congress think that you can win wars with keyboard strokes or hashtags or lighting up your national symphony with another country’s flag colors,” said the combat veteran. “In the end, you win wars by killing the other side’s soldiers or destroying their stuff, whether it’s with a Tomahawk missile or an Abrams tank, or increasingly in the case in of say, Ukraine and Israel with again, small high-production, low-cost drones or munitions. And we have to keep that in mind. That war may change in the technology that’s used, but that’s ultimately the way wars have been fought and won forever, is by closing with and destroying the enemy on the battlefield.”

Cotton praised Israel’s recent military operations against Hezbollah, including blowing up pagers and walkie talkies used by thousands of the groups terrorist fighters.

“I would imagine Hezbollah terrorists are very skeptical now about using the cell phones or even the electric toothbrushes they might have,” he said. “But that’s an example of how, again, whoever was behind that very clever, very cutting-edge technology, getting into supply chains makes you wonder maybe what’s in our supply chain here in America. But in the end, it’s still killing or wounding warriors on the battlefield.”

WATCH:

.@SenTomCotton to @MorganOrtagus on the future of warfare warns: “Technology– it has to change faster and there has to be more innovation! … Our Department of Defense doesn’t innovate fast.” pic.twitter.com/Ioeqe5bEIK

— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) September 26, 2024