Biden’s Pier to Nowhere
The Biden administration’s plan to build a temporary port to receive aid in Gaza is the worst in a long line of bad decisions with respect to the Israel-Hamas war.
If anything is true about Joe Biden, it’s that he has, in the words of the former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” To give just one representative example, then-Vice President Biden argued against the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 – one of the few signal foreign policy achievements of the Obama administration. So his failures with respect to Afghanistan, Iran, China, the Houthis, and Ukraine are entirely fitting with this personal history. But perhaps the most disappointing foreign policy issue during the past few years has been his approach to the Israel-Hamas war.
I say disappointing because his initial response to the Hamas barbarities was actually quite good. The administration rhetorically supported Israel to the hilt, ramped up military aid and sales, and sent carrier groups to the region to deter a broadening of the conflict by other Iranian proxy groups. Over the past few months, however, that early resolve has steadily eroded under consistently increasing left-wing and international pressure. We have seen it with the steady push for a ceasefire that would only serve Hamas’s interests, the choice to work closely with Qatar (a primary sponsor of Hamas) on negotiations, the constant badgering of Israel about civilian casualties (which are quite low for an operation of this scale and complexity), and the drawing of a ‘red line’ on Israel entering Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza. Still, the most frequent refrain the administration uses against Israel in this conflict revolves around its obsession with humanitarian aid.
The White House and its Democratic supporters have pushed for increased aid to Gaza, blaming Israel for the parlous state of the Gazan population. This runs counter to the facts – that Israel has allowed a large number of aid trucks through border crossings that are sitting in Gaza awaiting distribution by NGOs, that Hamas and other armed gangs are stealing much of this aid, and that in no other war situation is the outside power responsible for the basic needs of the populace whose government began the conflict. Still, the administration has repeatedly upbraided the Israeli government – unfairly and inaccurately singling out Benjamin Netanyahu, who is but one member of a triumvirate War Cabinet – over this issue and has gone out of its way to insinuate itself into it. This was evident when the White House insisted on airdropping aid into Gaza, a tactic that gained the administration few plaudits, resulted in some of the food being thrown away out of anti-American spite, and caused the deaths of several people from falling aid with faulty parachutes.
Now, the Biden team has landed on an even worse idea that they’ve rushed to implement after its announcement during the State of the Union address last week: a floating pier in Gaza meant to deliver humanitarian aid by sea.
The idea to open a maritime aid corridor to Gaza is not a new one; it has been reported that the Israeli government suggested it to the White House all the way back in late October 2023. The plan would be to get aid directly into Gaza via sea, bypassing the potential for backups at land crossings and avoiding the chaos of airdrops. The shipments would originate in Cyprus, the closest EU nation to Gaza, and be inspected by Israeli officials before embarking aboard ship. Gaza does not have an existing port, so the American military would create one through a process called Joint Logistics Over-the Shore (JLOTS). This involves the positioning of a large floating dock far enough from the shore to receive large cargo ships without the threat of grounding, then the offloading of cargoes onto smaller boats which would transfer them to a pier causeway for delivery to the shore by wheeled vehicles. The US Army would build the nearly 2,000-foot causeway that connects to the Gaza shoreline at sea, basically shoving it into the beach to establish a connection without putting American boots on the ground. This is an incredibly complex logistical task that will take 1,000 soldiers two months to complete and requires the repositioning of assets from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
This idea is horrible for a wide variety of reasons, both tactical and strategic.
Let’s begin with the tactical problems with this foolish proposal, as they are the most immediate. The Biden administration says that this operation will commence immediately – the ships are already on the way – and take about 60 days to complete. The problem is that the situation in Gaza is rapidly changing, with Israel poised to make its entrance into Rafah, Hamas’s final citadel, in the coming weeks, resulting in potential population movements away from the fighting in the south to the relatively calmer north. Therefore, the location at which we land this pier could be far less optimal in two months than it looks today. At the same time, the humanitarian crisis is reaching its apex now, so beginning deliveries in eight weeks could very well miss the opportunity to make a difference. Of course, this delay will mean that the administration fails to gain even the political benefit it is seeking from this stunt.
What about the actual setup of the sealift itself? The administration chose perhaps the most complicated and least efficient method by which to deliver aid to Gaza by sea, which additionally will necessitate the bringing in of resources from US bases around the world. This will take time, require passing through the Red Sea – its own theater of war since last October, with the Yemeni Houthis striking cargo ships in the area – and become a complicated maritime staging operation once assets are in position in the Mediterranean. Gaza itself has no natural deep-water port, which is why this construction is necessary. But that also means that the shoreline and littoral are quite hard to navigate near, totally open to the elements, and lacking in pre-existing infrastructure. Securing the landing zone will require coordination with ground forces, which brings us to the next problem.
The White House has stated directly that there will be no American troops in Gaza, only in the waters offshore. But this is either going to be proven false or it will require extremely close coordination with Israeli forces. The sealift setup chosen by the Biden administration requires some onshore personnel to properly secure the end of the causeway and attach it to existing roads or beach sturdy enough to handle large vehicular traffic. That means joint operations with Israel – something we have not necessarily trained for in advance – or Americans on the beach in Gaza. Additionally, there has been no information about where the soldiers involved in the construction process will be stationed, as the floating infrastructure does not include barracks. When it comes to aid distribution, if we are not having Americans directly involved, we are going to have to rely on the Israelis or existing NGOs in Gaza, partners the Biden administration already thinks are failing at the task. But those are our only options other than allowing Hamas itself to distribute (read: steal and resell) aid.
Another major tactical flaw with the White House plan is that it will inevitably result in significant, unnecessary danger to American forces and neutral commercial shipping. Americans will be sitting ducks for any number of adversarial groups in the region, from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza proper to the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The floating terminal, causeway, and vehicles will all be easily targeted by drones, rockets, and potential subsea weaponry, to say nothing of more direct assaults. The Houthis, for example, have already hit multiple ships transiting the Red Sea; it will be far easier for them to hit aid ships that will be forced to remain stationary for days at a time, waiting to unload their cargo.
In shades of the Afghanistan debacle of 2021, we will at least partly be relying on the goodwill of a terrorist adversary to ensure the safety of our troops. A US military spokesman answered a question about the threat from Hamas by saying, with a straight face, that “if Hamas truly does care about the Palestinian people, then again, one would hope that this international mission to deliver aid to people who need it would be able to happen unhindered.” One would think that the administration would have learned by now that Hamas in no way cares about the Palestinian people. It has gleefully sacrificed tens of thousands of Gazans in its cowardly fight against Israel already, has diverted or stolen billions in humanitarian aid over the past 20 years, and continues to repress internal Palestinian dissent with an iron fist. But sure, we should rely on Hamas’s benevolence to ensure the safety of American soldiers. We’re staring down the barrel of another Abbey Gate or, God forbid, a Lebanon barracks attack.
These serious tactical issues are only half of the problem. The strategic questions raised by this operation are deeply worrying, both in terms of what they say about our approach to Israel and Gaza as well as the broader world.
Firstly, why in the world would we want to embroil ourselves in the intractable problem of Gaza? We have gotten no credit for our humanitarian airdrops thus far and likely won’t get any credit for these deliveries either. There is seriously no benefit in this for us whatsoever, even on a purely partisan basis. Yet we are choosing to firmly root ourselves in the muck of the Palestinian issue. It is utterly inexplicable and will have long-term consequences. Showing that we wish to be involved in managing the Gazan population is foolhardy in the extreme. The Egyptians want nothing to do with it. Israel realistically wants nothing to do with it beyond securing its own population. But here we are, coming in to save the day and burdening ourselves with a future of security concerns in Gaza for no positive gain. At a time when much of the American public and political class seek a withdrawal from the Middle East, inserting ourselves firmly into the quagmire of Gaza is idiotic. At least the counterterrorism mission we are fulfilling in the region today is within our broad national interests; helping Hamas get back on its feet in Gaza – which will be the end result of our involvement there – is nowhere near in our interest.
Secondly, the use of this capacity to aid the civilian population of an enclave that is ruled by a sworn enemy of the United States raises an important question: why are we not doing this for other nations, including those that we are actually friendly with? There are humanitarian crises all over the world, but somehow this one in particular gets the lion’s share of attention. Why aren’t we surging aid to Myanmar, Ethiopia, or Yemen? Why does Gaza get special treatment? And if we can put Americans in harm’s way for Gaza, why can’t we for Ukraine? Ukraine is fighting a just defensive war against a mutual enemy of the United States, whereas Gaza is run by an enemy of the US and fought an aggressive war against one of our closest allies. We should be aiding the former, not the latter. The Black Sea littoral is far easier to deliver shipments to via sea and is no less safe than the maritime route to Gaza, yet we aren’t surging our limited capacity there. Why not? What is the strategy here? Is there one?
Finally, we have to deal with the elephant in the room. Despite the size and advanced nature of our military, America has very limited sealift capacity, especially when it comes to the construction and operation of temporary harbor facilities. These are very specialized units that are few in number and high in skill. They have been stationed in areas across the world that make sense for staging and preparing for their most likely use in wartime. But now they are getting moved to the Mediterranean for an imbecilic vanity project. That’s okay though, because it’s not like there are any major amphibious threats to allies that might require surging this sealift capacity, right? It’s not like our greatest enemy is patiently preparing for a maritime invasion of their much smaller neighbor whose independent status is key to American national security. Taiwan? Never heard of it! Seriously though, using this limited sealift capacity to build a pier in Gaza, removing it from its staging locations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, is myopic and dumb. There was a good reason that these units were stationed where they were. Hopefully we will not be reminded of why.
These tactical and strategic concerns should be more than enough to scuttle this absurd plan, but the White House is going full steam ahead. The American military has a long and storied history of charging into battle despite heavy odds and clear and present danger. But Audie Murphy’s WWII heroics, Alvin York’s WWI derring-do, and David Farragut’s famous Civil War exhortation to “damn the torpedoes,” all served a useful national and military purpose. Biden’s Gaza pier to nowhere courts all the danger with none of the benefit. In that respect, it is quite apropos for this White House’s foreign policy.