Flexible Logistics and Degraded Resupply: Institutional Challenges Under Attack

  • Published
  • By Assistant Secretary of the Army (IE&E) & CSAF

Should the nation’s next conflict be fought against a near-peer adversary, sustainment operations will be challenged across all war-fighting domains. To ensure success in a highly contested environment, the military must be capable of conducting "logistics under attack". What initiatives can create more agile, resilient, and survivable energy logistics—ranging from bulk strategic supplies down to deliveries at the tactical edge? Furthermore, to support "expeditionary logistics under attack," how can the services provide agile and survivable forward communications to defend against attacks in cyberspace?

To operationalize this flexible logistics framework, what kind of instruction should be integrated into institutional training and leader development courses to prepare leaders at the tactical and operational levels to operate efficiently and dominate future contested environments in which resupply operations may be severely degraded? How should this instruction be adapted in response to the new formations and new capabilities being deployed? Ultimately, how can this research address the mitigation of risk to all classes of supply and services during large-scale combat operations?