Pain Relief
Global Combat Support System: a Must for the Warfighting Commander Contractors in Contingency Operations: Panacea or Pain
In today’s environment, US forces have been called on to make numerous overseas deployments, many on short notice–using downsized Cold War legacy force and support structures–to meet a wide range of mission requirements associated with peacekeeping and humanitarian relief, while maintaining the capability to engage in major combat operations such as those associated with operations over Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan
The dramatic increase in deployments from the continental United States, combined with the reduction of military resource levels, has increased the need for effective combat support. Because CS resources are heavy and constitute a large portion of the deployments, they have the potential to enable or constrain operational goals, particularly in today’s environment, which is so dependent on rapid deployment. Central to solving the CS equation is streamlining CS deployment processes, leaning deployment packages, evaluating technologies that speed deployment, and the need for logistics management systems that keep pace with the evolving nature of war. Newkirk and Currie in “Global Combat Support System: A Must for the Warfighting Commander” argue for the need to link the network-centric warfare concept to logistics and for selection of a logistics management system that fully integrates requirements.
The history of contractor support for the US military can be traced to the Revolutionary War. Some level of contractor support has been a fact of life through all the major and minor conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, since the Vietnam conflict, contractors have been called on to perform work that directly supports military missions–work that increased their presence near or on the battlefield. This has led to significant issues–contractor status, service doctrine, contract versus organic capabilities, host-nation support contracts, and actual money and manpower savings. “In Contractors in Contingency Operations: Panacea or Pain?” Manker and Williams examine these issues and draw a variety of conclusions.
Based on lessons learned from military operations since Desert Storm and the asymmetric nature of future battlefields, DoD leaders have determined that a joint, network-centric warfare focus will guide the military’s efforts to transform its forces.
Introduction
Providing the very best supply support to the joint warfighting commander requires that logisticians get the fight supplies and equipment, in the right quantities, in the right condition, at the right place, at the fight time. (1) Throughout the history of warfare, management systems that logisticians have used to provide the best supply support have changed and will continue to change. As a result of lessons learned from previous conflicts and continuous technological advances to improve warfighting capabilities in future wars, logisticians have been required to find new logistics management systems to keep pace with the evolving nature of war. Using logistics lessons learned from
Operations Iraqi Freedom and the Department of Defense’s (DoD) specific guidance for departments and agencies to develop network-centric systems for use on tomorrow’s information age battlefield, logisticians can develop a reasonable list of required capabilities for the new supply management system that will be used to support the joint warfighting commander in the future. However, the current dilemma within the DoD logistics community is not identifying requirements for this future system but selecting a supply management system that best meets the requirements.
The Network-Centric Warfare Concept Applied to Logistics
Based on lessons learned from military operations since Desert Storm and the asymmetric nature of future battlefields, DoD leaders have determined that a joint, network-centric warfare focus will guide the military’s efforts to transform its forces. (2)
What is this network-centric warfare concept, and what does it look like when applied to logistics? Network-centric warfare effectively links or networks geographically dispersed semidependent joint forces operating in an unpredictable environment against a sophisticated adversary who uses asymmetric strategies. This network provides each joint force with real-time, common, actionable, battlespace information. The real-time actionable information enables each force to reorient based on shared information, make decisions based on common goals, and then act at rates previously unattainable. Unlike raw information that must be analyzed before a commander can use it, this actionable information is analyzed already and tells commanders actions to take to best support the warfighter. Ultimately, network-centric warfare greatly reduces decisionmaking and execution time lines, resulting in increased flexibility, lethality, and speed for the warfighter. (3)
Given DoD’s emphasis on transforming the US military into a network-centric warfare fighting force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has chartered the Office of Force Transformation (OFT) to take the lead with the transformation of the military. OFT has emphasized that network-centric operations incrementally integrated into the military will be coevolutionary. In other words, there must be a continuous development of mutually supporting strategies, concepts, processes, organizations, and technologies as the system is being fielded in DoD. Development will be based on feedback from the field and testing at designated experimentation sites. (4)
When applied to logistics, the network-centric concept produces a logistics concept that the OFF calls sense and respond logistics (S&RL). (5) This is a logistics concept in which current service, unit, and DoD agency materiel stovepipes are crossed, allowing the free flow of supplies among units, services, and supply depots. The S&RL or network-centric logistics concept provides a common global asset visibility picture to all users and commanders and automatically directs the most effective and efficient movement of supplies from anywhere within the global network to satisfy real-time demands. All units in the network are potential sources of supply to all other units. Additionally, the DoD’s joint concepts document has mandated that the network-centric logistics concept be a joint endeavor that gives US forces the ability to fight, not as independent services relying on supplies within their stovepipes but as truly joint and interdependent forces that rely on and have access to supplies anywhere in the DoD enterprise. (6) Supplies are triggered on real-time demands, the operational scheme of maneuver, supply priorities, and parameters established by authorized commanders. The system is highly adaptive to support frequent changes in supply requirements. (7) It focuses on continually enhancing warfighting unit readiness, which requires that the logistics network-centric system have seamless and continuous interaction with the joint warfighter’s operational and intelligence networks. (8) Interaction with these networks will have a direct effect on warfighting unit readiness and supply requirements information in the logistics domain. The OFF also has directed that network logistics systems be coevolutionary. This means that network-centric logistics component systems must be fielded incrementally in DoD and then immediately modified based on feedback from the field and designated experimentation sites. Additionally, the new logistics system must have all the following attributes:
* Take advantage of the best models by continually leveraging the capabilities of commercial and government technology.
* Be readily modified so that it always takes advantage of the latest technological developments and is interoperable with emerging DoD information network architecture.
* Be ready for immediate use in the DoD enterprise. (9)
In summary, the OFF has determined that the network-centric logistics or S&RL system must meet these four critical requirements:
* Provide a common global asset visibility picture of all materiel in the DoD network.
* Continuously recommend the most effective and efficient move of supplies from anywhere in the network to satisfy real-time demands.
* Establish common logistics objectives and direct supply and transportation units to release and move supplies based on those common objectives and recommendations in capability number two above.
* Be ready for immediate use and be easily modified so that it always leverages the best government and commercial technology.
The emerging DoD system that has potential to evolve and become the very best network-centric logistics enterprise for the Armed Forces is the Global Combat Support System (GCSS).
