Had the Houthis or their Iranian backers managed to access this information, they could have moved the individuals or equipment that was being targeted, making the strikes ineffective.
In addition, depending on what military assets the US was using to conduct the strikes – for example, ships and aircraft – the information could have given away their positions. This could have allowed the Houthis to pre-emptively target these assets, which is another significant concern.
Or, the Houthis could have pre-emptively attacked something else, such as oil facilities in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which they have targeted successfully in the past.
At the strategic level, this breach provides an insight into the dynamics of the people involved in the key defence decision-making in the Trump administration. Many names were reportedly shared, including an active intelligence officer.
If America’s adversaries were able to access this information, they could use it to target these people or people around them.
More broadly, this incident is just a bad look. This is a classified discussion about military planning being conducted on an unclassified platform that was accessed by a journalist who didn’t have high-level clearances and shouldn’t have had access to the information.
Source: CNA
