February '05 efforts to deploy sea bases could draw lessons from special warfare.

As the U.S. military attempts to develop the technology and doctrine that will allow it to launch and sustain missions solely from the sea, special operations forces have been carrying out such operations on a smaller scale for more than two decades, according to a top Navy official.

Navy sea, air and land teams (SEALs) together with Army and Air Force special operators have been practicing a form of what officials now call "sea basing" since the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, when two oil platforms in the Arabian Gulf were converted to sea bases, said RDML Joseph Maguire, Comman