USMC Amphibious Capability Critical to Popping Area Denial ‘Bubbles’
Posted on June 21, 2021 by Lee Willett, Special Correspondent
Whether operating in the Euro-Atlantic or Indo-Pacific theaters, U.S. naval forces and their allies and partners must confront constrictions in operations — in both peacetime and crisis — generated by adversaries attempting to apply anti-access or area denial strategies, known as A2/AD.
Such strategies are designed to deny access for U.S. and other forces to key waters and coastal regions by inflating A2/AD “bubbles” around, for example, critical choke points at sea or entry points ashore.
In the Euro-Atlantic theater, areas like the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. (GIUK) gap region in the North Atlantic, the Kattegat and Skagerrak Straits that connect the North and Baltic seas, and the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea region, especially around the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, are examples of strategic areas adversaries could attempt to “bubble” by using mines, anti-ship missiles, submarines or strike aircraft. The East China Sea and the southern reaches of the South China Sea are areas of potential A2/AD actions in the Indo-Pacific region.
https://seapowermagazine.org/usmc-amphibious-capability-critical-to-popping-area-denial-bubbles/
