Adm. James Kilby, the acting chief of naval operations, admitted fault in the United States’s approach to countering Houthi missile strikes in the Red Sea.

Beginning in December 2023, the U.S. led a multination coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea after Houthi rebels began attacking shipping in support of Hamas in Gaza. Before long, it became apparent that the U.S. was losing the war of attrition, using interceptor missiles costing millions of dollars to destroy Houthi drones worth around $2,000. Speaking to reporters at the Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Kilby admitted the approach was unsustainable, Fox News reported.

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“I had not been thoughtful enough to think about the UAV threat, where I think a much lesser-powered weapon would have done what we needed it to do,” he said.

The admiral bemoaned that the U.S. didn’t have “better ways to more economically attrit the threat.”

Kilby, however, added that he was “not concerned” about the Navy’s ability to protect its sailors in hostile areas despite the economic issues.

The U.S. is now working to overhaul its defense network with “much more cost-effective” technologies to counter drone usage, and he urged the defense industry to boost production to keep up with the Navy’s needs.

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“We have to get after our industrial base or munitions industrial base the same way we have to get after our shipbuilding industrial base,” Kilby said, adding that the U.S. needed more munitions to effectively counter the Houthi threat.

The Houthis’ attacks on shipping halted the day before President Donald Trump entered office due to the ceasefire in Gaza. The campaign against the Houthis restarted in earnest last month in a series of more aggressive airstrikes ordered by Trump. Plans for the strikes were almost leaked when Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat of Trump administration officials.