The Decatur Option

Months after the first salvos of missiles from Yemen’s Houthi militias, the United States and its allies have thrown back at them some 150 warheads, hitting dozens of targets. With the self-satisfaction that tends to characterize such nearly bloodless strikes came a great deal of approving talk from the Biden administration and commentators alike about “sending a message,” “restoring deterrence,” “avoiding escalation,” and, above all, “proportionality.”

It was all utterly un-strategic.

Those terms, coined and polished in political-science-seminar rooms during the Cold War, had some relevance to a world in which two nuclear-armed superpowers faced off in various corners of the world. Over more than half a century, they have turned into a kind of pixie dust that puzzled officials sprinkle over seemingly intractable problems. They play to in lieu of truly effective