Modern Amphibious Operations are Untenable

The continued maintenance and, in some cases, significant expansion of amphibious warfare capabilities by major military powers like the United States and particularly China, invite scrutiny. China’s substantial investment in its amphibious forces, ostensibly with a potential Taiwan contingency in mind, raises fundamental questions about the utility and viability of such operations in the face of modern defensive technologies and the inherent complexities of forcing entry from the sea. While air, naval, and missile power can achieve dominance, the enduring requirement for “troops on land” to achieve ultimate political objectives necessitates a means of power projection onto hostile shores. This article explores the deep-seated skepticism surrounding amphibious operations, drawing on the challenges identified in their application.

The Presumed Necessity of Ground Occupation

A core assumption underpinning the need for amphibious forces is that merely destroying an adversary’s military and government infrastructure through standoff strikes is insufficient to achieve overarching political goals such as annexation or regime change. Control, not just destruction, is paramount. To enforce a new political reality, disarm remaining opposition, manage a population, and establish a new administration, a physical ground presence is deemed essential. History suggests that bombing campaigns alone rarely break the national will to resist or secure lasting political change. The specter of insurgency further reinforces this, as only ground forces can engage in the protracted task of pacification and stabilization. Without boots on the ground, the transition from military victory to political control remains incomplete.

The Port Conundrum: A Flawed Panacea?

A frequent counterpoint to the need for large-scale beach assaults is the suggestion that an invading force could simply utilize existing port infrastructure once an adversary’s conventional military has been sufficiently degraded by preliminary bombardment. This line of reasoning posits that after air, missile, and naval power have shattered organized defenses, ports would become relatively accessible for the insertion of ground forces via conventional shipping.

However, this overlooks several critical factors:

• Ports as Fortresses: Major ports are predictable targets and would likely be among the most heavily defended locations on an island like Taiwan. Even a degraded military could concentrate remnant forces and resources for a last stand at these vital chokepoints.
• Sabotage and Denial: Standard military doctrine for a defending force facing imminent defeat involves the systematic sabotage of critical infrastructure. Ports would almost certainly be rendered unusable through scuttled ships blocking channels, demolition of cranes and piers, and extensive mining of approaches. Clearing these hazards would be a time-consuming and dangerous engineering task, requiring security that itself necessitates a prior ground presence.
• Lingering Resistance: The idea that a military is “destroyed” does not equate to every defensive position being silenced. Localized resistance, even if uncoordinated, could make direct entry into a port by vulnerable transport ships exceptionally hazardous.

Therefore, the notion that an attacker can simply wait for ports to become benign environments before landing the bulk of their forces is likely a strategic miscalculation. The initial entry problem remains.

The Frailty of Beach Landings

If ports are initially too dangerous, the alternative is often posited as amphibious landings on open beaches. Yet, this strategy is itself fraught with immense difficulties.

• Inherent Limitations of Beach Terrain: Beaches severely restrict the operational capabilities of military vehicles. Soft sand, unfavorable gradients, and limited exit points can bog down even specialized amphibious vehicles, let alone heavier armor and logistical support crucial for sustained operations. The number of truly “useful” beaches—those offering good access to inland objectives and capable of supporting significant throughput—may be extremely limited, making them predictable targets for defenders.
• Defensive Preparations: Just as ports would be defended, any identifiable suitable landing beaches would also be heavily fortified with obstacles, minefields, pre-sited artillery, and dedicated defensive units. Even if stretched thin, defenders could make such landings exceptionally costly.
• Vulnerability During Transit and Landing: The amphibious landing itself is perhaps the most vulnerable phase of any military operation. Ships are slow targets as they approach the coast, and landing craft are highly susceptible during the ship-to-shore movement. Troops are exposed on open beaches before a secure lodgement can be established. This vulnerability is magnified by modern precision-guided munitions, sensors, and networked defenses. The image of D-Day, with its immense casualties even against less technologically advanced defenses, looms large.
• Limited Combat Power Ashore: The rate at which combat power—troops, armor, artillery, and logistics—can be built up via a beachhead is significantly slower than what can be achieved through established ports or by forces already operating on land. This creates a critical window of vulnerability for the landed force before it can achieve local superiority and break out.

The assertion that amphibious forces are “extremely vulnerable vs traditional forces, virtually suicidal and virtually useless in the face of modern military” captures the essence of this skepticism. The attacker faces the challenge of suppressing extensive coastal defenses sufficiently to allow a vulnerable landing force to get ashore and establish itself—a monumental task.

The Deception Dilemma and the Unknowable Will

Strategic deception, famously employed during operations like D-Day to mislead the enemy about the true landing sites, is often cited as a mitigating factor. However, its efficacy in the modern era of pervasive intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities is highly questionable.

• Transparency of Preparations: Assembling the vast armada required for a large-scale amphibious invasion is nearly impossible to hide from modern satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and other ISR assets. The element of strategic surprise is greatly diminished.
• Risk of Counter-Deception: An adversary aware of the likelihood of an amphibious assault can also engage in deception, feigning weakness or luring an attacker into prepared kill zones. Misjudging the enemy’s dispositions or intentions based on faulty intelligence during such a critical operation could be catastrophic, with little chance to withdraw once committed.

Beyond the tactical and operational difficulties lies the most unpredictable variable: the will of the defending population. No amount of pre-invasion analysis can definitively predict how a populace will react to an invasion. Military power alone does not guarantee the breaking of national resolve; indeed, it can sometimes strengthen it. Attempting to force entry into a territory like Taiwan via amphibious assault, without truly knowing the depth of civilian resistance that will be encountered or the actual extent to which the defending military has been degraded, means committing forces to an operation where the true cost and outcome only become apparent when it is too late to reverse course.

Conclusion: A Strategy Laden with Risk

While the strategic logic for needing “boots on the ground” to achieve ultimate political control is compelling, the means of getting those boots onto a defended, hostile shore across a significant body of water remains one of warfare’s most formidable challenges. The belief that amphibious operations, even supported by modern technology and preceded by extensive bombardment, can overcome prepared defenses and a potentially determined populace without incurring prohibitive losses requires a high degree of confidence, or perhaps a politically driven acceptance of immense risk. The inherent vulnerabilities of amphibious forces during the landing phase, the difficulties of beach terrain, the near impossibility of achieving true strategic surprise, and the unknowable factor of popular will all combine to cast a long shadow over the viability of such endeavors against a capable and motivated defender. The heavy investment in these capabilities suggests that some nations are willing to gamble on overcoming these obstacles, but the underlying perils remain deeply embedded in the nature of amphibious warfare.