So, I Assume Fuel Supply for the Pacific Fight is Fat & Secure?

...I'm sure the PRC likes this move. saves them the trouble...

There are moments when I really start to wonder who is watching the plot: who is seeing the state of play four to five moves down the board.

Let’s take a moment to shift our eyes to the western seaboard. To set the table, I’d like to put out some basic known-knowns.

• During the BRAC/Peace Dividend/Jesus Jones era during the Clinton Administration, the US military and especially the US Navy abandoned almost all of California except for a rump presence in San Diego with scatterings here and there. That includes a wholesale abandonment of what could be argued to be the most strategically located, most secure, almost bespoke geographically designed for a naval power—San Francisco Bay. Many more were closed outside BRAC for…reasons.

• There is a finite number of geographic locations that are ideal, or even desired, for military bases, especially with access to navigable waterways.

• Modern regulations and bureaucracies make it almost impossible to construct new military facilities, especially in the West Coast.

• Growing population and political short sightedness make even finding enough acreage impossible on the West Coast.

• Our nation’s greatest threat is in the Pacific Ocean, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

• The PRC on their coast facing the USA are building military capacity as fast as they can pour the concrete.

• With the stupidity of closing Red Hills in Hawaii, any remaining Pacific facing fuel storage and transport facilities are even more important.

• With conventional global precision strike via ballistic missiles now normalized and possessed in number by the PRC, all facilities, especially unhardened ones, are vulnerable. Capacity needs redundancy.

• Attack drones launched at distance or by special forces close by, are a superb infrastructure attack option as demonstrated by the last three years of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

• The Russo-Ukrainian War has underlined the importance and relative ease of attacking energy and fuel infrastructure deep in enemy territory, creating significant second and third order effects up to the line of contact.

That’s enough, we could go on for pages.

So, if we know it isn’t 1993 anymore, that war is brewing in the Pacific sooner more than later, and wars go longer than the Smartest People in the Room™ ever brief decision makers—we should look at building capacity on the West Coast, perhaps even clawing back Coffee Klatch Era BRAC’d properties, yes?

How does this sound?

The facility today covers 76 acres and has a storage capacity of one million barrels of jet fuel using twelve underground tanks that are hardened to withstand nuclear attack.

…

DFSP Ozol is served by a ship port, an interstate pipeline and a railroad terminal. The waterfront pier is 880 feet long with 40 feet of depth alongside. It is located 270 feet offshore, with a connecting pier to the shore. The DFSP is connected to the Kinder Morgan SFPP (Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline) interstate pipeline. It is adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad's Martinez Subdivision, however the spur track to the railcar loading racks has been disconnected from the main line.

Right now, as we speak, “they” are demolishing the whole thing.

• 12 giant hardened storage tanks

• Ocean, pipeline, and rail access

• The wharf is gone now and they’re working on the buildings and other infrastructure.

Just look at that location. Where else on the West Coast could we find a suitable location to carve out 75 acres for secure fuel storage?

Is anyone wargaming any of this?

h/t M.