BLOCKSHIP ATTACKSCountering Blockship Attacks in Key U.S. Waterways
Blockship attacks entail obstructing key waterways by deliberately scuttling ships, running them aground, or having them impale themselves onto infrastructure. Such attacks could delay maritime movements in U.S. or key overseas ports, affecting all U.S. military services and potentially disrupting billions of dollars in commerce.
Blockship attacks entail obstructing key waterways by deliberately scuttling ships, running them aground, or having them impale themselves onto infrastructure. Such attacks could delay maritime movements in U.S. or key overseas ports, affecting all U.S. military services and potentially disrupting billions of dollars in commerce. The impact could be especially severe if multiple ports were targeted simultaneously, or if the attacks were compounded by large environmental effects or the use of naval mines or other weapons.
A new report from RAND examines the threat of blockship attacks in key U.S. waterways, current and potential measures to reduce the risk of an effective blockship attack, and ways of reducing an attack’s impact by accelerating post-attack clearance. The vulnerability of U.S. military forces and civilian commerce to blockship attacks is a significant concern, particularly given the large sizes of modern cargo ships relative to the width of critical waterway bottlenecks, and it is crucial to inform policymakers and the wider public about the risk so that measures can be implemented to further diminish the probability and impact of these attacks.
Here are the opening and closing sections of the report:
Blockship attacks entail obstructing key waterways by deliberately scuttling ships, running them aground, or staging allisions (i.e., having them crash into fixed infrastructure).(1) Such attacks could be conducted in ports or waterways to delay military movements and to impose economic damage for days or weeks until the obstruction can be cleared. In this paper, we describe the threat that blockship attacks pose, current and potential ways of reducing the risk of an effective blockship attack, and ways of reducing an attack’s impact by accelerating post-attack clearance. To manage the scope of the work, we focus exclusively on blockship threats in U.S. waters; analysis of threats elsewhere can be the subject of future research. The purpose of this work is to inform policymakers and the wider public about the risk so that measures can be implemented to further diminish the probability and impact of blockship attacks in U.S. waters, while also identifying areas for additional research. In describing the threat of blockships and the vulnerability of U.S. ports to blockship attacks, some readers might be concerned that this analysis provides hostile actors with a plan of attack.
