During his State of the Union address, President Biden will order the U.S. military to establish a port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can reach Palestinians.
Playing out a scenario here: the US says enough is enough and lands San Antonios full of aid on the Gazan shore. US Marines with tight rules of engagement guard the shipment to ensure it isn't looted. There is an incident and a marine enlistedis killed.
What happens next?
They aren’t even talking about getting to shore. It’s a “floating dock”. Where the famous line about “assume a can opener” becomes assume a causeway.
Rockets maybe. But I presume there’s decent anti-rocket defenses with the ships. And much more protection than land troops.
There does seem to be a marina on the shore near Gaza City. It's not big but you could plausibly back up trucks to roll on/roll off, or use it as a connection point for a dock to deeper water.
At the risk of being jingoisticly patriotic, the US military is *really good at logistics* I think they can figure this one out, the only real question is how much risk US personnel are put under.
It seems to be like "one city block out from the Gaza coast, with another city block alongside." I don't know the surrounding area but it does seem like you could create an area of relative safety from potshots.
To be horribly cynical here, the design challenge may not so much be "create a sea port with minimal risk of deaths" so much as "create a sea port with minimal risk of US service member deaths" which is a very different challenge.
Like if you park a few amphibious dock ships a couple city blocks away from shore and have Gazans hand-shovel landfill all the way out to form a causeway and they get shot at that plays differently with the US electorate than if it's SeaBees doing the shoveling.
And look, I've never served, let me take that knock right now, but I think it is sufficiently within US interests that it would be worth risking US lives to settle things. But what I am terrified of is what happens to the region if US lives are in fact lost.
You mean use US forces to deliver aide? Or to provide “peace-keeping”?
If they did try to do that, I have to assume they would try to have some contact even if through 3rd parties with Gaza / Hamas / Leadership.
