Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has dragged on for years, but one detail should stop you in your tracks: the New York Times reports Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reached out to Donald Trump three times asking for US military help against Ansar Allah and each time Trump declines. That raises a bigger question than day-to-day headlines ever do: what is it about the Houthis and Yemen’s battlefield that makes even Washington hesitate?

We sit down with Bill Buppert to break down the core drivers of Houthi resilience, from mountain terrain and local fighting culture to the hard limits of conventional armies trying to seize rugged ground. We talk honestly about why Saudi Arabia struggles to translate expensive platforms into decisive results, and why preventive maintenance, doctrine, and initiative can matter as much as budgets and aircraft inventories. Along the way, we dig into how civil wars inside Yemen intersect with regional pressure, propaganda narratives, and the long shadow of outside intervention.

Then we widen the lens to modern warfare itself. Drones, FPVs, and cheap precision are changing casualty rates and tactics fast, challenging old assumptions about air superiority and even the future of manned aviation and heavy armor. If Yemen can keep launching missiles and surviving air campaigns, what does that imply for military planning around Iran, a far larger country with similarly unforgiving geography?

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