The “self-defense” strike happened after U.S. forces determined that the unmanned vessels were carrying explosives and posed a threat to ships in the area.

CENTCOM identified the drones in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen before taking them out.

“These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels,” CENTCOM tweeted.

Houthi aggression has ramped up in recent months with attacks in the Red Sea targeting commercial vessels since October, attacks Houthi leaders say are in support of Palestinians as the Israel-Hamas war rages.

In the midst of continued Houthi attacks and counter-strikes, and the bombardment of Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria following a drone attack that killed three U.S. soldiers earlier this month, the Pentagon on Monday characterized the actions as “self-defense” strikes, and not a full-blown war.

“But to be clear, our goal is not to ― okay, game on, let’s just do this and go, you know, full scale war against Iranian proxy groups in Iraq and Syria,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. “That’s not what we’re there for.”

It would — ahem — behoove the Pentagon to consider researching, building, or acquiring some of these incredible pieces of movie technology.

1. Lightsabers — “Star Wars”

Is there a person alive who has seen any of the nine “Star Wars” movies or its countless spin-offs and hasn’t wanted to battle things out with a beam of light? Gunfire, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said, is “so uncivilized.”

2. Sticky gloves — “Mission Impossible”

Caught in a sticky situation? Consider these adhesive gloves that render the wearer capable of scaling walls. We can only imagine the Saturday night barracks shenanigans that would ensue, however, if these were standard issue.

3. Troop transporting time machine — “Tomorrow War”

Are you experiencing a recruiting crisis? This time portal will allow you farm troops from the past to fight the wars of today.

4. Magic healing cream — “The Hunger Games”

Ibuprofen and clean socks are great, but this instant healing cream is next level. Just think, no more painful boot blisters.

5. The Neuralyzer — “Men in Black”

The military uses for a memory-scrubbing beam of light cannot be understated. Forget entire battles, erase weapons tests gone awry. Or, perhaps a more noble use would be to erase traumatic events entirely.

6. Omega 13 — “Galaxy Quest”

A device that gives one the ability to travel back 13 seconds in time could prove surprisingly useful for the military. While it may not seem like extensive time, consider the conflicts that could have been changed in an instant. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, for example.

7. Transporter — “Star Trek”

Teleportation could be a real boon for recruiting. Troops wouldn’t need to PCS or deploy. The Pentagon, meanwhile, could stop investing in barracks. Everyone could simply sleep at home or have Scotty beam them up to their duty station or combat theater, as needed.

8. DNA Guns — “Judge Dredd”

It’s possible that using a firearm that only works when the DNA-coded user pulls the trigger would make weapons checks more efficient. However, signing DNA over to the Pentagon would be certain to rattles some cages.

9. Rehydrator — “Back to the Future Part II”

Forget MREs. With the Rehydrator, you can serve real food to troops in real time. Just pop in your dehydrated rations, et voilà! A perfect meal that you don’t have to eat cold out of a plastic packet. Imagine all the combat pizza parties.

10. Securefoam — “Demolition Man”

Vehicle and aircraft mishaps resulting in crew casualties can become a thing of the past with this safety foam. It works like an airbag, but rather than pushing the force of the accident onto a passenger, the foam expands and encases them in a safe, secure, soft pocket, preventing injuries.

11. Invisibility Cloak — “Harry Potter”

Whether it’s a cloak like the one in “Harry Potter” or similar technology deployed by the creatures in “Predator,” it’s hard to deny how useful invisibility would be for troops.

Eventually, the anonymous pilot was proven mythic, but it was nevertheless morale-boosting for those on the ground. And while this case of propaganda may have offered a valuable service to Ukrainians, there remains no shortage of false information muddying truth on social media today — notably, information pertaining to Israel’s war with Hamas.

Disinformation, misinformation, and deep fakes can be dangerous for active duty service members who use social media. Still, the Defense Department has not updated its social media policies or put out additional guidance in light of the recent conflict in the Middle East.

Currently, Pentagon policy holds that “DoD civilians and service members must remember their duty to protect DoD information and prevent the unauthorized disclosure of non-public and classified information. Additionally they should be mindful of the power of connected media and refrain from making statements that may appear to represent an official position by the DoD, their Command, or office,” according to DoD spokesperson, Navy Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman.

While some might argue having opinions about foreign wars is different than engaging in, say, political rhetoric, for U.S. service members, there is a fine line, according to William Marcellino, senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. And in the case of the Israel-Hamas conflict, there are U.S. troops involved and decisions being made that could impact them.

“It’s not simply a foreign issue, your fellow brothers and sisters in arms — especially in the Marine Corps and the Navy and other SOF elements out there — they’re in harm’s way,” Marcellino said. “They’re conducting U.S. foreign policy and defense operations there. So, if you’re trying to chime in and spread information, misinformation, disinformation, to do political advocacy work, that touches on U.S. concerns.”

Additionally, while operational security, or OPSEC, remains a high priority, the lines about what service members can and cannot post have become more blurred of late. And it’s increasingly difficult to police the social media activity of troops, Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Strategic Technologies Program, told Military Times.

“It is generally difficult for the military to monitor and enforce social media policies across its large civilian and active duty workforce,” Chin-Rothmann said, “and this challenge will only grow in the future.”

Service members must avoid pushing a political agenda, Pentagon guidance notes, even on personal accounts. Whether those rules are being strictly enforced, however, is another matter entirely.

It has become increasingly common in recent years, for instance, for uniformed active duty service members to share political opinions and boost information about international conflicts through social media.

“Misinformation and disinformation presents numerous challenges for the DoD and troops,” Chin-Rothmann added. “Some online conspiracy theories promote extremism or violence, stoke distrust in public health policies, and otherwise seek to undermine democratic societies. Because many DoD employees and active duty service members hold access to sensitive information or other powerful assets, they may be susceptible to outsized harms.”

Current DoD policy defines political activity as one “directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office or partisan political group.”

“As we’ve seen with the Air Guardsmen revealing classified documents on Discord, if you’re a digital native, who has been on social media your whole life, that message may not ring,” Marcellino said.

Reading such titles makes it hard not to liken the naming pattern to the U.S. military’s own operation naming conventions, which are typically indistinct adjective-noun combinations that evoke anything from absurd patriotism to complete confusion.

As such, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite U.S. military operation monikers that could easily pass as Taylor Swift song titles.

1. Red Dawn

While Operation Red Dawn was the mission that led to the capture of Iraq’s ousted leader, Saddam Hussein, it carries a rather lyrical ring to it and evokes a poetic morning of sorts. Plus, it’s derived from the 1984 film of the same name, starring impossibly tight jean-wearer Patrick Swayze.

2. Acoustic Kitty

The CIA in the Cold War attempted (and failed) to turn cats into the ultimate spies by implanting listening devices into their ears. Swift, meanwhile, is a known cat mother of three named Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button. The idea that she might sing about them isn’t terribly far afield.

3. Casanova

In 2013, 12 men were arrested in Texas in connection “with a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.” However, given Swift’s history of writing about men in comically stereotypical roles and gender norms, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a Swiftian song about a seductive lead with many lovers.

4. Morning Light

Operation Morning Light involved a 1978 search for a Soviet nuclear-powered spy satellite — Cosmos 954 — that accidentally entered northern Canadian airspace before crashing. The American and Canadian militaries worked together to collect its debris. For Swift, it would perhaps be a song about the refreshing experience of waking up to a new day after a heartbreaking evening.

5. Evening Light

Another “Light” mission, this 1980 iteration was an epic failure of the American military to end the Iran hostage crisis and rescue the 52 Americans trapped at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. For Swift, it’s aligned with Morning Light, and everyone knows how much she loves a theme — hello, “Midnights.”

6. All-American Tiger

In 2003, troops in Iraq were sent to patrol around the Euphrates River near Al-Qaim, where they found 12 people of interest. This, however, also sounds like the name of a Swiftian anthem — her answer to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” in which she sings, “I’ve got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, ’cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar.”

7. Gothic Serpent

Unfortunately, this was the 1993 mission that led to the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, the subject of the film “Black Hawk Down.” Alas, it could also lend its name to a particularly angsty song about the vipers in the press that so often spew venom about Swift’s personal life.

8. Steel Curtain

This 2005 mission meant to create a blockade to tamp down on the flood of insurgents into Iraq from Syria. However, it’s also a great name for the walls a celebrity like Swift might put up to keep the conspiracy theory-hunting fans and ravenous tabloids from invading her privacy.

9. Just Cause

This is the name given to the 1989 U.S. mission to invade Panama and remove military dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega from power. For Swift, it could be about the deliverance of justice, or, with the addition of an apostrophe, a song about things she does “just ‘cause.”

If Taylor Swift’s got a blank space, baby, maybe she’ll write down some of these titles.

That’s when a rotor-propelled standing platform was picked up by Office of Naval Research, which based its design on National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics engineer Charles Zimmerman’s invention known as the “Flying Shoes.”

The result was a “one-man, twin-engine, flying platform with two counter-rotating rotors turning on vertical axis inside ducted fan,” according to the National Air and Space Museum.

In essence, the platform resembled a flying disk with a guardrail to prevent those riding from falling out.

One piece of promotional material provided to Military Times by the U.S. Army Transportation Museum reads, “It Flies! The Navy Comes Up with A Real ‘Flying Saucer.’”

In 1956, ONR came up with a series of prototype models. Ultimately its 1031-A-1 flew, but the Army wanted a larger version with more thrust. The craft eventually evolved into the Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee before the project was scrapped.

“The extra engines required for redundancy if the primary failed made the platform so heavy that it was impossible for the pilot to control the craft kinesthetically (by leaning), defeating the purpose of the design,” according to the Smithsonian.

As a result, the Army’s interest in the platform waned, and the Hiller hovercraft’s dreams came crashing down.

“Seven Hiller Flying Platforms in all are believed to have been built,” according to “Vertical Challenge: The Hiller Aircraft Story” by Jay Spenser. “Retired after several years of use, the historic first example … is now on view at the Hiller Aircraft Museum in Redwood City, California.”

And while the technology was shelved, a battlefield full of flying soldiers isn’t out of the realm of possibility. DARPA is working to bring military-ready jetpacks to modern combat with its Portable Personal Air Mobility System.

Almost 20 years ago, Boston Dynamics gave birth to the four-legged nightmare now known as “Spot.” And while the company signed a pledge to prevent the weaponization of such tools, other inventors just want to watch the world burn — literally.

A company called Throwflame, which manufactures flamethrowers — who’d have guessed? — revealed a robotic dog last month capable of spewing flames from its mouth like a creepy mecha-dragon. Its name? The Thermonator.

Much like its human — er, cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton — counterpart played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator” series, it’s “Hasta la vista, baby” to anything and anyone caught in the Thermonator’s radius.

And as Throwflame notes, “In the USA Flamethrowers are federally unregulated and not even considered a firearm.”

So, no laws exist against Americans buying, owning, and using flamethrowers for purposes of their choosing, including ice melting, clearing brush, and pest extermination. Whether or not you trust Thermonator to carry out these tasks, however, is something else entirely.

In Season 4, Episode 5 of “Black Mirror” (“Metalhead”), robot dogs take over and systematically massacre the majority of mankind. And these variants didn’t even have access to advanced pyrotechnics.

Throwflame’s fire-breathing dog is a terrifying addition to the lineup of manmade technology that could turn on us.

See Spot bark. See Spot run. See Spot burn it all to the ground and leaving nothing but ash in his wake.

“Many’s the time I’ve turned on the nightly news and seen Taliban or ISIS militants tooling around in mini-trucks, mostly Toyotas, with machine guns bolted to the bed ‘Rat Patrol’ style,” wrote Dion Lefler, opinion editor for The Wichita Eagle.

“Every time I see that, I say to myself (or anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot), ‘There, that’s the truck I want’ — minus the machine gun, which I’d only need if I were driving [Kansas Attorney General] Kris Kobach in a parade.”

The author of the piece goes on to state that “profits and politics” are the reasons why the average Joe can’t purchase a tiny Toyota with desert sand damage, a free-flying flag and gun turret.

“Profits, because car manufacturers make way more per unit selling jumbo trucks,” Lefler notes. “And politics because of an antiquated trade policy levying a 25% tariff on imported light trucks, in retaliation for a European tariff on U.S. chicken.”

For those not familiar, “The Chicken Tax” was initiated under President Lyndon B. Johnson as a tariff on several grocery items as well as light trucks imported into the U.S. The move, designed to slow the import of these items, was modeled — and appropriately named — after a similar European tariff that sought to limit chicken imports from America.

This tariff, however, has been around since 1963, and many automakers have since found loopholes to continue the sale of trendy vehicles. According to AutoTrends, Japanese manufacturers were the first to do so, making Lefler’s argument something of a stretch.

But on the “profits” side of the argument, one has to think it’s because most Americans ascribe to the notion that “bigger is better.” And manufacturers know that.

However, Lefler continues, “Ditching the Chicken Tax might break the big-truck stranglehold on the market. If smaller import trucks sell, as I suspect they would, our domestic manufacturers might be led to retool and compete. And then, when it comes to buying a pickup truck, we might once again be as free as the Taliban.”

We should all be so lucky…

Designed by Airion Health, the system involves a cup attached to the body, which collects urine and flushes it out towards a collection bag.

“You wear that under the underwear that comes out of the flight suit, which then connects to our pump system and controller that will pump the liquid out and away from the body into a collection bag,” according to an Air Force statement out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.

“With the new system the Air Force is testing, the goal is for aircrew to be able to relieve themselves without unstrapping.”

In the past, systems, including the infamous “piddle pack,” have been designed to accommodate male pilots. Women were limited to diapers or a bag system. The lack of a decent alternative has led to pilots refraining from urinating for dangerously long periods or willfully enduring dehydration to avoid the inconvenience associated with these methods, according to the Air Force.

“Some aircrew have been found to practice ‘tactical dehydration,’” the statement noted. “This method can cause fatal errors and health issues, such as lowering the aircrews’ ability to withstand high g-forces by 50% and increase headaches.”

The 46th Test Squadron and 28th Test and Evaluation Squadron, based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, have been carrying out the development and test support for the project. Justin Spurling, the 46th TS flight equipment test engineer, said the Air Force brought in female experts to ensure the feasibility of the system.

That process previously could take up to 45 minutes, the Air Force stated.

“When you think aircrew, your first thought may not be about in-flight bladder relief, but it can pose major health and safety issues for pilots,” the statement noted.

Coming just after the 25th anniversary of the release of the cult classic “Starship Troopers” (November 1997), Offworld Industries and Sony Pictures Consumer Projects are bringing the fight against the Arachnids to a computer near you.

A first person shooter, “Starship Troopers: Extermination” will allow players to join 12-member co-op squads to defeat the maniacal alien bugs that want to end the human race and take over the galaxy. Because remember, the only good bug is a dead bug.

The game “puts players on the far-off front lines in an all-out assault against the Arachnid menace,” according to the its release page. “Squad up as a Trooper in the Deep Space Vanguard, an elite Special Forces group within the Mobile Infantry. And get ready to stomp some Bug because no Trooper will ever stand alone as they line up sholder-to-shoulder with their fellow Vanguards – trusty Morita Assault Rifles in hand – to battle against hordes of bloodthirsty insectoid aliens on the hostile surface of the planet Valaka.”

Specs call for gamers on teams to work together to achieve mission success by acquiring resources, protecting bases, and, of course, killing bugs.

And while there is little available information when it comes to exactly how players are expected to take down the aliens, the likely approach, as Dr. Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) says in the original film, is as follows: “Your basic Arachnid warrior isn’t too smart, but you can blow off a limb, and it’s still 86 percent combat effective. Here’s a tip: aim for the nerve stem, and put it down for good.”

An official release date for the full game has not yet been set, but the early access game is expected to hit Steam in 2023.

But thanks to modern advancements like the GPS, getting epically lost is more difficult than ever. In the case of one 20-year-old American driver in Germany, however, technology was simply not enough to prevent the individual from Tokyo drifting onto the steps of a 700-year-old church.

Saint Aegidius was rebuilt from 1407 to 1412, and has served as a Catholic Church since. But this is the first time it’s ever been used as a pedestal and parking lot for a Dodge Charger.

The navigation system reportedly brought the unnamed driver to the steps of the church, where the vehicle became stuck, local police told Stripes. Pictures of the mishap showed up first on the popular Facebook page U.S. Army WTF Moments.

Reports didn’t identify the driver, but the church is in Vilseck, home to USAG Bavaria, the biggest U.S. Army training ground in Europe. Locals have deduced it was likely an American soldier — particularly considering the make and model of the car, which is not officially sold in Europe.

Military Times reached out to the public affairs office at USAG Bavaria, which has not responded at the time of this writing.