Water landings and uncertainty under satellite surveillance

A water landing leaves no runway or aircraft landing marks on the sand, although global satellite coverage complicates any claim of invisibility. The proposed advantage is temporary uncertainty about where troops have landed. If satellites can be blinded, obscured, or confused for a short period, a camouflaged aircraft operating at night might insert a force whose exact landing point remains unclear. Helicopters and submarines can perform related missions, but this comparison gives them much shorter range. Possible Chinese interest in this form of insertion remains a suspicion. It raises the question of how other states would counter the capability or develop their own, without establishing that such operations are already taking place.