History
The idea of the MOB was first seriously considered when the United States entered Operation Desert Shield (1990-91). The U.S. was forced to request the use of allied bases, which, besides strictly military considerations, proved to be politically sensitive in the case of Saudi Arabia. With the MOB concept the U.S. could have a base anywhere in the world in as little as a month. The base as conceived would have had virtually unlimited capabilities, and most of its creators did not envision just a floating air strip, but a town-sized base.
The "Joint Mobile Offshore Base" was a MOB concept for expeditionary warfare and humanitarian and commercial operations developed in the late 1990s by McDermott International, Inc. of Arlington, Virginia. The JMOB was to be composed of five self-powered units and a one-mile long runway that could accommodate a fully loaded C-17 Globemaster III. NATO was thought to be interested in the concept at the time.
A report presented to the U.S. Congress in April 2000 identified that such a base was technologically feasible and could be built by United States industry. A further report in 2001 by the Institute for Defense Analyses concluded that the estimated US$5 billion to US$8 billion was less cost effective than alternate solutions.
Once positioned, the MOB would operate as a base for an extended period, so it would need to have port-like facilities for unloading and loading conventional container and Roll-on/roll-off ships.
Read more about this topic: Mobile Offshore Base
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)