The U.S. Army’s recent difficulties in utilizing its $320 million floating pier to deliver humanitarian aid into Gaza is a warning that the Department of Defense is failing to adequately prepare for and deal with weather-related hazards.
High seas caused four of the landing craft to become unmoored, resulting in their beaching on the Eastern Mediterranean shore. This was preceded by the injury of three soldiers supporting the pier operation, one of whom was critically injured. Such hazardous conditions should have come as no surprise to the U.S. Central Command leaders overseeing this operation, as severe weather delayed the mission by several days in the first place.
This concerning lack of preparation cannot be for lack of attention, as the Gaza pier was a top policy priority in President Biden’s State of the Union address this year. One would hope that political pressure from the White House did not force the Pentagon to disregard its safety standards and thereby place the lives of the U.S. service members involved with the operation at risk.
Unfortunately, the environmental impacts involving the Gaza pier cannot be ascribed as an isolated incident.
Just this week, dozens of Navy TH-73 helicopters were damaged due to high winds at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Florida. Earlier this year, high sea state was a factor when two Navy SEALs were lost at sea off Somalia while conducting a raid on a vessel illegally transporting lethal aid from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Challenging weather conditions also contributed to the crash of an Air Force F-16 in South Korea last year.
Before those incidents, 2022 saw a string of significant weather-related mishaps for the Defense Department, including a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey aircraft that crashed in Norway and killed four Marines; 10 Navy helicopters that were damaged during a thunderstorm over Norfolk Naval Station; a Navy jet that was blown overboard from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean; and the tragic death of three Army soldiers and injury of 12 others during separate incidents in Georgia involving a lightning strike and a fallen tree in a thunderstorm.
If America’s military is succumbing to the environment during these training and operational events, what will happen if it is called upon to defend Taiwan against an attack by China? When we consider that the Gaza pier is a relatively modest example of Joint Logistics Over the Shore, and that China’s maritime logistics footprint outclasses that of the U.S. by orders of magnitude, we should be gravely concerned.
We also know that China’s military has taken the environment seriously for centuries.
In the fifth century B.C., Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu famously wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.” His use of “Heaven and Earth” referred to seasonal weather patterns and terrain.
Importantly, he possessed a broader view that warfighting must not only consider avoiding weather and climate hazards, but also leverage the fact that environmental conditions could be used for tactical, operational and strategic advantage. Just as high ground provides a superior position in land warfare, knowledge of the occurrence of storms, flooding, extreme heat and cold, blowing dust and fog, wind patterns, sea state, ocean and river currents, and even ocean and atmospheric density profiles can be used to make decisive gains over an adversary.
As I have written elsewhere, the Biden administration’s approach to the environment is foolishly focused on climate change mitigation through greenhouse gas emission reductions. Instead of attempting to tackle climate change, the Department of Defense needs to target climate resilience and adaptation, which can only be done by preparing for the weather and climate events that affect operations and installations.
Barely mentioned in the department’s climate plan is the most effective way to be prepared: improve short-term, sub-seasonal and seasonal forecasts for weather, water and ice. This can be accomplished by expanding the network of environmental observation systems, including satellites, buoys, ships and drones to characterize ocean and atmospheric conditions; improving the numerical models used to predict the state of the physical environment; and employing AI-enabled decision support tools that ensure the military avoids environmental mission kills.
Fortunately, solutions to this problem set are close at hand. As described in my recent testimony during a Senate Budget Committee hearing, the private sector is making rapid advances in collecting weather and ocean data, predicting dynamic environmental conditions in all domains, and communicating the insights and impacts for a wide range of users. Just as NASA is doing with SpaceX, the Department of Defense would do well to harness the rising tide of innovative startups that are making transformational advancements in these capabilities.
The impacts from heavy weather on the Gaza pier operation were predictable and should have been prevented with proper planning. The U.S. must learn from this mistake and improve how it considers environmental conditions in planning and executing operational logistics. In the coming confrontation with China over Taiwan, the scales and stakes will be so much greater that failing to do so will be nothing less than death by a thousand cuts.
Rear Admiral (ret.) Tim Gallaudet is the former acting administrator and deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, acting undersecretary and assistant secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and commander of the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command.