A New Paradigm for 21st Century Military Logistics

Stephen P. Ferris and David M. Keithly give a very well researched view of new concepts in future logistics.

I.  The New Dimension

The end of the Cold War has occasioned a sea-change in the utility of the instruments of US power. The United States enjoys a much wider range of policy options, and at the same time, the U.S. military faces a plethora of new missions. Security challenges have become far less transparent; the security environment significantly more volatile. Internationally, the United States is likely to face in growing measure what Rudyard Kipling referred to as ‘savage wars of peace’.  In the fitting words of the late NATO Secretary General Manfred Worner, ‘The collapse of the Soviet Union has left us with a paradox: there is less threat, but also less peace.’1 Moreover, many of the critical threats to the US are now transnational in nature, increasing the difficulty of designing an appropriate response.2

New circumstances require that the United States address a number of fundamental issues. Perhaps the most pivotal from a joint perspective have to do with logistics. More and better logistics planning is needed to deal with the various contingencies confronting US military forces and allied powers. Mission sets include: disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, non-combatant evacuation, combat search and rescue, personnel recovery, sanction or embargo enforcement, pre-emptive strikes and raids, security assistance, counter-insurgency or insurgency support and nation-building.

The United States has already reconfigured its National Military Strategy, affording it greater pertinence to a new world order. Salient themes are flexibility, selectivity and power projection.3  As all have crucial implications for logistics, these attest to the need for a fresh logistical concept and warrant a fundamental rethinking of the entire logistics architecture. The purpose of this essay is two-fold: first, to provide an overview of the sequential nature of the logistics process, whose multi-dimensional nature can be broken down into four essential elements; second, to identify and discuss the key change agents that will shape the evolution of 21st century logistics. The new concept outlined here is not intended to be comprehensive, but is devised to furnish perspectives, advance intellectual discussion and provide a sense of doctrinal direction. Although one cannot divine future military logistics in all its aspects, one can nonetheless sketch the prominent contours of logistics for the 21st century.

Even though we discuss the emergence of this new logistics paradigm in the context of US military strategy, we believe that it is relevant to all militaries that wish to maintain their effectiveness and ability to counter regional threats. The increasing technological sophistication of military hardware and the growing need for highly responsive supply chains has elevated the importance of logistics in national defence planning. This article describes the likely evolution of 21st century military logistics in response to factors that extend beyond traditional service and national boundaries.

The logistics process begins with acquisition. In this initial step, the military procures, produces or constructs commodities, facilities, ordnance and major weapon system items. During this phase, primary input enters the logistics pipeline. A number of ‘functions’ associated with acquisition result in the transfer of real goods and services to the military. Such ‘functions’ include:

• Contracting -- the advertisement, selection and administration of contracts for the sale of desired products/services.

• Production -- the management and coordination of the actual manufacturing process. This ‘function’ is often unnecessary if a civilian vendor is hired.

• Evaluation -- the finished goods and services must be compared with contract specifications; a determination made with respect to the quality of compliance.

• Budgeting -- the acquisition objectives must be compared with available budgets to determine financial feasibility.

The second phase of the logistics process is distribution, entailing the supplying of needed material, support and personnel to the operational commander at the correct time. Distribution provides the military end-user with those items procured in the acquisition phase. Among the functions of the distribution element are the following:

• Transportation -- the required items/personnel must be transported from their origin to the site of the end-user. This involves important issues of lift adequacy, scheduling, prioritization, etc.

• Warehousing -- logistics support requires storage and basing. In addition to problems of physical space, the issue of security against enemy threats presents itself.

• Inventory Control - accounting control of inventories is an essential aspect of distribution if materiel and end-user are to be properly matched.

• Supply Management - the operational issues associated with the management of real goods awaiting distribution is a critical and tedious component of the distribution sub-process.

The third is sustainment, which refers to the resiliency of a logistics system. A high capacity for sustainment allows military forces to continue operations and to maintain required levels of manning and effectiveness. Sustainment insures that the logistics pipeline continues to flow. Sustainment coalesces around several pivotal functions.

• Maintenance - through a program of maintenance and repair, the operational life of existing assets can be extended, thereby enhancing the level of logistics support.

• Supply Systems - replenishment materiel is catalogued, reordered and distributed through various supply systems.

• Base/Facility Operation - the sustainment effort involves the operation of both rearward and forward bases/logistic nodes which permit the servicing of  end-users.

The final stage in the logistics process involves handling and storage of retrograde materiel and resources. Handling and storage increase in importance as fiscal restraints become tighter and environmental regulations more binding. This, the terminal stage of the logistics process, involves three salient tasks:

• Managing hazardous materials. The proper use, storage and disposal of hazardous or  environmentally destructive materials is a legal responsibility of the end-user.

• Administering classified materials. The disposition of classified materials must be consistent with their sensitive nature.

• Recycling products. The legal and economic considerations for recycling must be evaluated when establishing procedures for handling retrograde material.

II.  Change Agents

The principal factors defining the contours and character of military logistics in the 21st century are best described as ‘change agents’. As these drive the evolution of modern logistics, they are part and parcel of any new paradigm. Change agents should be considered under the following headings: warfighting doctrine, technology, economics, the geo-strategic environment and the political aspect.

First, warfighting doctrine as defined in the National Military Strategy and in joint and Service doctrinal publications will necessarily exert a major influence on logistics practices.4 Perhaps the foremost example is manoeuvre warfare, a warfighting concept that has gained wide currency in all the Services. logistics systems operation must dovetail with manoeuvre warfare.5 The implications for the design of  logistics systems are conspicuous: the characteristics of manoeuvre warfare determine the logistics system to a considerable degree. Distinct attributes of  manoeuvre warfare -- mobility, physical manoeuvre, offensive surprise, high operating tempo and penetration -- generate special logistical requirements. Manoeuvre warfare strives to increase battlespace volatility and unpredictability; in consequence, military logistics systems must be more responsive, spontaneous and creative. The attendant ability on the part of  military logisticians to improvise presupposes a cognizance of battlespace opportunities, which, in turn, necessitates imaginative leadership and stylized techniques. Such alternative sustainment procedures augment the logistics network.6

The nature of manoeuvre warfare presumes independent and aggressive action by subordinate commanders. Success requires that subordinates be allowed to exploit opportunities and to seize the initiative as battlespace circumstances permit. Determination of end-user requirements and the ascertaining of physical location associated with these operations pose challenges to the logistician. The logistics system, first and foremost, is designed  to support combatants, and new warfighting concepts underscore the need for an alteration of the relationship between the materials command and subordinate combatant units to maximize sustenance to the battlespace commander. Furthermore, logisticians must anticipate the complete range of alternatives for ultimate material distribution.

Manoeuvre warfare explicitly recognizes that ‘windows of opportunity’ are ephemeral  during a conflict. Once closed, these windows are unlikely to reopen.7 To exploit unclosed windows to the utmost, commanders may use feints or diversions to distract the enemy, which may result in a diffusion of the logistics effort as the system is forced to accommodate a variety of operations simultaneously. The multiplicity of combat exertions, however minor, enlarges the difficulties associated with achieving adequate coordination between the logistics supplier and the end-user. Hence, the beckoning of opportunity in combat is in large part a function of the swiftness and agility of the logistics system.

Technological primacy is and will remain America’s strong suit. Conforming to customary US warfighting style, employment of technologically advanced weapons’ systems and munitions enhances manoeuvre warfare capabilities. Technological primacy facilitates the exploitation of tactical opportunities with a minimum of casualties. Much, though, turns on the logistics system being able to secure, maintain, and distribute advanced technologies to the end-user. The impact of technology on the logistics system of the 21st century will be pervasive, affecting virtually every aspect of the logistics process. The scope of  technological development governs the kind of support afforded military forces, as well as the level and duration of that support. In seeking new technologies for military applications, the logistics system must be pro-active and sufficiently resilient. Training programmes must develop qualified uniformed technicians capable of operating and servicing sophisticated equipment in a conflict environment. During operations, the logistics system will need to maintain adequate supplies of technologies and components, balancing the cost of carrying inventories against the potential for military defeat due to weapon system/munition stock-out.8 The logistics system is also largely responsible for technology security. Enemy acquisition of, or interference with, sophisticated technology will negate military advantages accruing to US forces.

Notwithstanding the salience it accords the offensive, manoeuvrewarfare doctrine recognizes the legitimate role of defensive operations. A commander may, for instance, assume a defensive posture when conditions prove unfavourable for combat, or further offensive operations would compromise the overall campaign.9 Although logistics support of a defensive position is generally easier than for offensive operations, the need for security is normally greater. The logistics system must insure the safety and integrity of  materiel and services until these are required for offensive operations at the decisive time and place.10

Be that as it may, the advantages’ technology confers upon a military force are invariably temporary. Duplication and the acceleration in product life cycle severely restrict the period of technological primacy. Opportunities for battlespace exploitation of advanced technologies have likewise contracted. In consequence, the logistics system has to become more sensitive to real-time military/technological competition by foreign entities, and, what follows, it must improve response times to end-users. Private enterprise proffers two approaches that might prove useful in realizing these goals. The first involves strategic linkage between supplier and customer. Specifically, a link is established between the vendor and the customer’s customer (see Figure 1). In military logistics, the end-user establishes an informational junction with the vendor. Based upon user-determined application projections and depletion rates, the vendor can estimate future requirements more accurately, and is thus more capable of furnishing quick-response service. Although the logistics system continues to process actual requisitions, in this approach the vendor receives end-user demand data in advance and is better able to anticipate production requirements prior to actual order receipt.

The second approach for increasing the duration of technological superiority is the ‘designer’ logistics system. This method aims to tailor the logistics system individually to the needs of a specific command. Jointness and interoperability issues complicate this approach, but by no means preclude its utilization. In fact, the approach offers considerable promise in the realm of certain advanced technologies and to high-priority commands. The chief idea is to devise a logistics system that incorporates distinctive technologies and exceptional organization, with an eye to shortening delivery time to the end-user.

In growing measure, the influence of computing technology upon the practice of logistics will continue to make itself felt.11 Microcomputers and workstations have made possible advances in database management and network optimization considered unthinkable only a few years ago. Logistics in the 21st century will be intensely computerized, significantly reducing the extent of human intervention and decision-making. The result will be a logistics system capable of solving even the most sophisticated logistics problems with extraordinary speed. Among those areas offering great promise for efficiency gains through computerization are routing and scheduling, warehouse design, facility location and inventory management.

Through the continuous impact upon transportation, technological advancement will shape logistical capabilities indirectly as well. Several emerging innovations in transportation appear predisposed at present to affect the future of logistics. The first involves environmental regulations on engine design and power source. Despite tighter environmental restrictions, in some cases, because of them, speed and delivery capabilities will increase across the transportation spectrum. Second, the intermodal trend, employing trucks, above all, for short-hauls, and rail for long-haul movement will persist. Commercial linkages between trucking and rail firms will expand, engendering in turn integrated transportation companies. Third, the development of new transportation technologies such as the intelligent vehicle highway system, magnetic levitation and high-speed water transportation have the potential to alter both the operational efficiency and the attendant economic feasibility  of current transportation networks.

With certainty, new technologies will improve communications associated with the 21st century logistics system, and could even recast the entire architecture of information dissemination. In any event, communications will augment the responsiveness of the logistics process to the end-user’s needs, both in terms of time and materiel provided. Among the features characterizing future logistics communication are electronic data interchange, automatic identification and radio data communication.

In the field of materiel handling systems, technology will profoundly influence future logistics practices.12 Current material handling systems are already largely integrated, with manufacturing and distribution seamlessly joined in an effort to attain synergy. The future lies with an ‘intelligent’ materials’ handling system in which artificial intelligence is instrumental. For instance, ‘expert’ systems are employed by automated guided vehicles and ‘smart’ monorails in determining on-line routing and dispatching. ‘In receiving and shipping,’ as one observer describes it, ‘expert systems are being sought to direct a robot in palletizing or depalletizing mixed loads, unloading or loading delivery trucks and assigning storage locations to mixed loads.’13

Because US military forces will likely operate within relatively narrow budgetary parameters, economic issues will loom large in the logistical sphere. Attention to economic efficiency in the armed services could even be accorded the salience it has in the private sector. Several economic trends, now just becoming discernible, are likely to profoundly influence the nature of military logistics in the 21st century. Although only in its infancy, the privatization of many support services within the Armed Forces is likely to expand. The US Army, for instance, already contracts with Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Incorporated, to provide messing, garbage collection, laundry and water purification services for its operations in Haiti. Areas projected to be privatized in the future include military housing, aircraft maintenance, training and medical/dental services. Privatization or outsourcing, helps the US military adjust to changing circumstances.14 As the Armed Forces downsize, it becomes economically, and frequently operationally, more efficient to outsource basic support services.15 To maintain sufficient ‘teeth’, viz., warfighting capability, in the military’s ‘tooth to tail’ ratio, support services will be privatized in the interest of fully manning combat units. Privatization also reduces the size of any troop commitment, rendering an operation more palatable in the public eye, and thus facilitating the continuance of political support.

Military logistics in the new century is also likely to make greater use of ‘off the shelf’ technology. Manufacturers increasingly apply the ‘dual use’ concept, involving concurrent utilization by civilian and military customers. Tedious design specifications and costly development processes are, thereby, largely eliminated, and contracting becomes essentially a matter of price and delivery data negotiation. ‘Dual use’ also permits the integration of small volume military orders with larger civilian sales. Such flexible manufacturing permits the sharing of various overhead costs, resulting in lower unit cost to customers and, ultimately, reduced weapon systems expense. Moreover, because production lines are continually providing output to the commercial sector, these are available should an international crisis require surge production.16

Improvements in informational technologies, coupled with the economic disadvantages of holding large inventories, will foster a major reduction of inventory levels held by material commands in the future. Information will substitute for costly finished goods inventories. As information improves in responsiveness and comprehensiveness, the level of inventories and appropriate safety stocks will decline. Reduced inventories will result in significant cost savings that can be used to support other operations.

The geo-strategic environment of the 21st century will pose fresh challenges, tendering a different and, if handled properly, an auspicious context in which logistics will assume a more consequential role. Indeed, effective logistics can contribute hugely to a setting more conducive to future military operations. International coordination and interoperability will become critical to a successful logistic effort. Logisticians in the future will work more closely with their host-nation counterparts than previously. Host-nation support will expand by degree, but also in kind as the US pushes for greater international ‘cost sharing’. Thus, the future portends significantly larger burdens accruing to nations sponsoring US military involvement. The financial advantages ensuing from this approach should ease some of the concerns the US public may harbour about military operations. The US can reasonably expect recurrent pleas for intervention, many of which will take the form of requests for logistical support to local forces. The prerequisite adaptability and versatility of the logistics system underscore the importance of a new concept for the 21st century.

US participation in any major regional contingency is unlikely to be unilateral. The Desert Shield/Storm model of an international coalition is a prominent feature of current security strategy and is likely to remain so.17 The function of coalitions and alliances will, if anything, be more pronounced in any future US military strategy, meaning that the combined operational orientation of logistics must be reinforced. Such logistical endeavours virtually presuppose international coordination and interoperability. That said, significant differences between the US and its allies and partners with respect to doctrine, specifications, capabilities and training will pose imminent, but not insurmountable, problems to logisticians in operationalizing the combined concept.

The implications of this new security environment for the logistician are three-fold:

(1)        The frequency of the US deployments abroad will increase.

(2)        The level of future deployments will decline relative to Cold War era standards.

(3)            Instability and the emergence of regional belligerents heighten the uncertainty surrounding future deployments.

The final change agent, one that will continue to affect the execution of logistics activity in broad areas, is the US political process. Defence budgets specifying appropriations for logistics are the upshot of an arduous political process. Although common apprehensions about national security tend to impose a certain floor on the budget, DoD funding levels can be volatile and often defy prediction. Two US political themes with important implications for DoD funding are now well-pronounced. Government ‘downsizing,’ engendered in the main by a public perception that government agencies are overstaffed and inefficient, is one. The other is the pressure, and thus the sense of urgency, to reduce the federal deficit. Closely inter-related, both indicate that substantial increases in the DoD budget are unlikely. Efficiency and innovation will remain the watchwords of the logistics process, as mentioned above.

Shaped by the geo-strategic environment, the US National Security Strategy affords an essential framework for military activity. Aspects of the National Security Strategy that invariably have far-reaching and longer-term implications for the logistician are regionalism, forward presence, internationalism and transnational threats. With its promulgation, the strategy itself becomes part of the political process, driving funding decisions and governing contingency planning. Moreover, domestic politics weighs heavily upon the National Security Strategy. Public sentiment can span the spectrum from endorsement of global engagement to the promotion of isolationism, with moods in America oscillating a good deal. With a more assertive security strategy, the domain of logistics will expand almost regardless of  international circumstances. Should the National Security Strategy delineate a more circumscribed notion of US interests, the scope of logistics activity will become more sensitive to the stability of the international order. And quite apart from the provisions of a specific security strategy, an unstable global environment will evoke an enlargement of logistics operations.

III.  Impact of Change Agents

Table 1 depicts the interaction between the change agents identified above and the operation of the logistics system.

Table 1

This table summarizes the respective primary and secondary effects of each change agent on the logistics process. Effects are, of course, not uniformly distributed across the logistics process, but have a far greater impact during certain phases. Table 2 juxtaposes conventional and new logistical paradigms, while specifying change agent impact upon logistics in each. Economics and technological change can both expand and contract the logistics function. Privatization and ‘dual use’, which are principally economic factors, expand logistical potential. Technological advances, in communications and data processing, for example, can vastly enhance response time and system efficiency at a logistics command. Budgetary constraints, on the other hand, can reduce the level of service provided by the logistics process, while issues of inter-operability and maintenance may actually impede the delivery of service by a technologically sophisticated logistics system.

Furthermore, the logistics system operates within the broad structure of  national warfighting doctrine. Emphasizing the uncertainty and inherent unpredictability associated with the interface between battlespace and logistics, doctrinal boundaries are, by necessity, irregularly drawn. Doctrine must be flexible, and political constraints ultimately control military activity. That said, the impact of warfighting doctrine will probably be most strongly felt in the area of sustainment. With its emphasis upon deception, rapid response and the offensive, manoeuvre warfare doctrine presents an exceptional challenge to the sustainability endeavours of a logistics system. A secondary area of impact will be distribution, where the rapid movement of forces and the emergence of temporary windows of opportunity make the actual transfer of materiel to the end-user difficult.

Although the cadence of technological transformation will resonate throughout the logistics process in the 21st century, such change will carry the most weight in acquisitions. Technology will determine what the logistics system through its acquisition activities ultimately provides the end-user. It will define what items the logistician will contract for, and how specifications should be delineated. And because it affects both the transportation and materiel handling processes, technology will also have a conspicuous impact on the distribution of material.

Economic influence upon the acquisition and sustainment phases of the logistics process must not be discounted. Economic factors such as the size of the defence budget and the cost of similar civilian goods/services often predominate in the acquisition activity of a logistics command. These economic factors will also establish the extent of logistic support available for a prolonged campaign. The secondary impact of these factors occurs in the disposition stage of the logistics process. Economic considerations will help to direct decisions regarding the reuse and disposal of retrograde material.

Because host-nation support and coalition construction are largely a function of the geo-strategic environment, the latter’s primary influence will be on the sustainment stage. Resources made available by allied nations will be critical components of the logistics sustainment phase of combat operations. The secondary impact will be upon distribution, since infrastructure and theater transportation are inextricably connected to the broader geo-strategic environment. 

Because of the overarching significance of the political process in providing direction and channeling resources to logistics operations, its influence will permeate the acquisition and sustainment phases. It will continue to focus attention upon cost, and consequently heighten the political visibility of these phases. To a lesser extent, the political process will also affect the disposition phase, as environmental issues associated with the disposal of materiel arise.

IV.  Implications: The New Concept

Identification of the five principal change agents setting the course of military logistics, along with a description of their respective effects, facilitates the development of a new concept of logistics. Table 2 makes reference to this new paradigm by comparing the old with the new. The conventional paradigm of logistics seeks to enhance military readiness by directly providing materiel. The emphasis is narrow and focuses solely on supply. Hence we refer to it as the supply paradigm.

The new concept of logistics differs from this supply model in several dimensions. Although both concepts recognize operational readiness as the appropriate objective for a logistics system, the new concept achieves that readiness through superior customer service rather than simple support. Consequently, the new logistics paradigm explicitly acknowledges the existence of both internal and external customers, rendering the logistics process more capable of satisfying its ultimate mission of support to the combatant commands. The entire focus of logistics shifts with this new concept, meeting customer need and entreaty, and converging around strategic alliances between customer, vendor and logistician.  Consequently, we term this new view the service paradigm of logistics.

About the authors

Stephen P. Ferris is a reserve naval Lieutenant Commander USN assigned to Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 13, headquartered in Gulfport, Mississippi in the U.S.A.  He is a commander of a surface cargo company.  Previous reserve assignments include the Joint Transportation Reserve Unit that supports the U.S. Transportation Command and the Naval Doctrine Command. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and is an honour graduate of the U. S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. In civilian life, he is a Professor of Finance and Department Chairman at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He holds a B.A. from Duquesne University and an M.B.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He was formerly on the faculties of the University of Memphis and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

David M. Keithly is a reserve Lieutenant Commander USN and an adjunct professor at the Defence Intelligence College. Previous reserve assignments include a tour with the Naval Doctrine Command in Norfolk, VA. In civilian life he is a political scientist who specializes in European issues. He holds an M.A. from the University of Freiburg (Germany) and a Ph. D. from the Claremont Graduate School. He was formerly on the faculties of Old Dominion University and the U.S. Armed Forces Staff College.