It’s not that Taiwan doesn’t have great ports: it does. But if Chinese forces control those ports as US and allied forces counterattack, the Americans and their allies will need some other way of moving heavy equipment over the beaches. “Potential adversaries will attempt to deny access to fixed ports,” US Army officer Tom Clady wrote in 2013. “Seabasing provides a viable alternative to project forces.”
The problem with JLOTS, of course, is that it’s a big floating target that takes days to set up and, even when it’s working perfectly, is a delicate piece of maritime clockwork. The speed at which soldiers and sailors can build the pier – and rebuild the pier in the event of an enemy attack – could make the difference between victory and defeat.
Back in 1996, a naval official named Harold Workman warned of a “lack of training, and therefore diminished proficiency levels,” that could doom JLOTS ops in wartime. It’s not clear that, nearly 30 years later, the US Army and US Navy have solved the training problem. JLOTS just doesn’t get used very often in a truly stressful environment.
Gaza is nothing if not a stressful environment, with Israeli forces relentlessly bombarding cities and towns and even hospitals and Iran-backed militants – including the Houthis in Yemen – lobbing drones and missiles at commercial and naval vessels in the region.
US president Joe Biden announced the Gaza pier operation during his annual state-of-the-union address to the US Congress on March 7.
Tags: China prepares invade Taiwan forces combattest vital weapon
