This reflects the current evolution of the historical arms race. The missiles are not particularly effective, terminal guidance and warhead design is poor, but

This reflects the current evolution of the historical arms race. The missiles are not particularly effective, terminal guidance and warhead design is poor, but they are a threat to any non-military vessel in the region. The underlying dynamic is that technology that was very expensive to produce 50 years ago is now available ubiquitously. It isn’t per se great tech, but it is comparable to tech proper military powers had 50 years ago, which are still quite capable against unsophisticated adversaries, like shipping vessels. Modern military vessels are designed under the assumption that they will be hit by swarms of these missiles. This has parallels to the issue of there being 400M firearms in the US and an almost infinite capacity to produce new ones in a very decentralized fashion. Almost all of the leverage is on the incentive side; people should be maximally reluctant to inappropriately use what we cannot limit them acquiring. No one can stop people from acquiring or building anti-ship missiles as a practical matter. Building the missiles is too cheap and too easy. The costs to using them inappropriately have to be much higher than they currently are.