Chinese Barges Would Loom Large In A Taiwan Invasion

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Aside from the geopolitics, any Chinese decision to invade Taiwan would mean attempting an extremely challenging military operation that is, historically speaking, a risky proposition. Seaborne invasions have often led to high casualties or even outright failure.

The Gallipoli landings on the coast of Turkey during World War I, for example, led to the withdrawal of mainly Australian and New Zealand forces after high casualties and barely any territorial gains. In World War II, island-hopping by U.S. forces to push back Japan's advance achieved strategic goals – but at a high human cost .

The difficulty posed by sea-to-land invasion is not just the battles on Day 1, it is the logistical challenge of continuing to funnel troops and materiel to sustain a push out from the beachhead. That's where the barges come into play.

About those WWII barges ...

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was skeptical of opening a front against Nazi Germany by a landing on the French coast – a position that frustrated the United States. The main concern of Churchill and his generals was the logistical puzzle.

They reasoned that Germany would either retain control of French ports or sabotage them, and that tanks, guns, food, soldiers and other necessities were not going to be brought up from reserve via ports.

The Mulberry Harbours fixed that problem by creating a set of floating piers that would rise up and down with the tide by being fixed to sophisticated anchors. Ships could moor to these piers and unload needed material.

The piers were protected by an inner ring of concrete caissons, dragged across the channel and sunk into position, and an outer breakwater of scuttled ships. The Mulberry Harbours were a combination of cutting-edge pier technology and improvisation.

Construction of a Mulberry Harbour, and the unloading of supplies for the Allies at Colleville, France, in 1944. Image: Three Lions / Getty Images via The Conversation

The images of Chinese invasion barges today show that the technology has advanced, but the principle of an operational need for logistical support of a beachhead breakout is the same.

Yet the geography of any invasion is very different. In World War II, the Mulberry Harbours were part of an invasion from an island to conquer a continent. But a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be the inverse – from a continent to an island.

Great power politics, Chinese characteristics

The use of Mulberry Harbours, as innovative as it was, was only a moment in a longer geopolitical process.

The D-Day invasion was the culmination of the transfer of US military might across the Atlantic through Operation Bolero . Simply, the United Kingdom became a giant warehouse – mainly for US soldiers and equipment.

The Mulberry Harbours made the crossing of the English Channel possible for these men and weapons. It was the last step in the projection of US power across the Atlantic Ocean and on to the European continent. I describe this as a process of a seapower moving from its near or coastal waters to far waters in another part of the globe.

The calculation for China is very different. Certainly, barges would help an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. But China sees Taiwan as part of its near waters, and it wants to secure those waters from global competition.

Beijing views the US as having established a military presence just off its coastline from World War II to the present day, making the western Pacific another set of US far waters across the globe accompanying its European presence.

From its perspective, China is surrounded by a US military based in Okinawa , Guam and the Philippines . This chain of bases could restrict China's ambition through blockade, and controlling Taiwan would help China create a gap in this chain.