VANESSA BATTAGLIA: Ignore ‘Signalgate,’ The Strike On The Houthis Was A Triumph

In the Trump administration’s March 15^th mission against the Houthis – and particularly through the lens of Signalgate – we got our first look at several of President Trump’s Secretaries in action. Both as a cabinet, and in a national security capacity. Considering that VP Vance, SecDef Hegseth, DNI Gabbard, and NSA Waltz are age-peer Global War on Terror veterans, it’s not surprising that this cohort adopted a small-team, “go fast and break things” posture espoused by the Special Operations community. They are dedicated to carrying out the President’s intent, they make no excuses, and they name no names. Good, we’re learning.

The point of the March 15^th strikes on strategic Houthi locations was, as President Trump’s 22 January Executive Order 14175 directed, to “eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations…and thereby end their attacks on U.S. personnel and civilians, U.S. partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea.” Pirates are attacking our ships. Devil’s advocates may note that these criminals were unmoved by Joe Biden’s ill-advised peace offers, and kept attacking us. Therefore, the Houthis must be stopped – not just countered – with the only language they respect. One can hardly imagine a more straightforward justification for the offensive use of arms.

Nevertheless, a slithering journalist could not resist the temptation to clutch failure from the jaws of triumph with Signalgate. Just after successful mission completion, Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg decided to lecture a group of decades-long cleared individuals with tactical experience about Operational Security. Evidently Goldberg was unaware that by the same standards, he had behaved as a “bad actor” in failing to promptly identify himself and request to be removed from the incorrect Signal chat.

President Trump’s Cabinet Secretaries rewarded Goldberg’s bad behavior with the treatment he deserves: stone cold silence, moving onto the next thing, while watching each other’s six. As the media mysteriously took aim at SecDef Hegseth over Goldberg’s claim, Hegseth stayed (mostly) silent and NSA Waltz ran interference. DNI Gabbard, when asked, used a Biden-era chestnut and deferred to the “ongoing investigation.” By the time Judge Boasberg could gloat over his spurious assignment to this matter, SecDef Hegseth was in the Philippines, symbolically addressing a real threat.

Ironically, the Signal saga shielded our Secretaries from a previously Biden-specific question: why are we shooting expensive missiles at cheap Houthi drones? It looks ridiculous and has already cost us a fortune. However, it might not be worth it now to save money.

Missiles work; we’ve stopped nearly every piece of Houthi ordnance hurtling at our ships over hundreds of attacks, with minimal damage. At the same time, we have purpose-built, next-generation anti-drone systems coming off the line of big and small defense primes. Zapping drones for days en masse.

We could use these; they’d probably be even more effective than darn-near-totally-effective, and would cost much less per-shot than the $35k-per unit AGR-20 most recently used against the Houthi drones.

But consider that sending out our best stuff, against a fly, shows the world what the eagle has. You don’t get that chance twice; maybe we wait for a greater foe that also enjoys drones. Depending how long SecDef Hegseth’s promise of a “relentless” campaign against the Houthis takes, one option will win out over the other. At least we can count on this administration to take definitive action.

At the outset of the Houthi conflict, the A-team has passed the first test. Hegseth, Vance, Gabbard, Waltz, and the others carried out their mission under fire, while remaining loyal to each other and President Trump. Onto the next round: finishing what they started, weighing long- and short-term national security needs against cost and optics and communicating these trade-offs with the public.

Vanessa Battaglia is a defense engineer with 14 years’ experience designing software, hardware, and airborne systems for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Special Operations Command, and the Federal Aviation Administration. She spent most of her time in the defense world at Raytheon, and lately writes for The Federalist and Human Events as well.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.