From Strategy to Logistics

s autumn turned to winter, the American media were full of talk of strategic options for taming Iraq. The numbers of troops to be deployed, the nature of air support, the possibility of house-to-house urban combat, all were discussed as the country prepared for war.

Behind the scenes, and largely unreported, was an immense effort by defense planners to ensure that choices the strategists made could be carried out by U.S. forces. And that endeavor centered around logistics.

The United States was better prepared to meet the logistical challenge than it was 12 years ago, at the time of the Gulf War. Then, the Defense Department moved half a million troops, and the millions of tons of supplies and equipment they needed, across the seas to liberate Kuwait. Six months were required before U.S. forces were ready to take on the Iraqi army.

The logistics challenge remains daunting, but the Defense Department has taken many steps to speed the path to war. In 1991, at the time of Operation Desert Storm, the United States had few facilities on which to rely in the Middle East and Central Asia. Today, it has more than a dozen that would be critical in launching an attack on Iraq, in friendly nations such as Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. The Army has stored large amounts of equipment and supplies in these countries, and many tons of additional gear are floating offshore in fleets of ships ready to supply both Army and Marine Corps units in the Middle East.

Since 1990, the military has begun replacing and upgrading aircraft capable of moving troops and equipment to the battlefield. It now has a larger and faster fleet of ships for moving outsized vehicles and equipment. Better weapons-both more powerful and more precise-have reduced the need to haul as much ammunition to war.

Capabilities continue to evolve: the Air Force recently announced that a portion of its B-2 bomber fleet would move overseas to a base in England, drastically shortening bombing runs. During action in Afghanistan, the bombers flew more than 40 hours round trip from Whitman Air Force Base in Missouri.

These improvements have been offset to a degree by other trends. Tanks and other weapons are heavier than in 1990, putting a greater burden on the transport system. Reductions in maintenance and shortages of spare parts have handicapped air transport and refueling capabilities. A decline in American commercial maritime fleets entails heavier reliance on foreign carriers. The increased use of military reserves for key transportation functions could test the president's willingness to activate large reserve forces. Just-in-time systems for delivering medical supplies have not been tested in a large deployment. The armed forces are relying to an ever greater extent on contractors whose reliability in time of combat is uncertain as well.

An old military adage holds that an Army travels on its stomach. Winston Churchill said of war: "Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it never could have blossomed." In the articles that follow-and in a terrific three-page, foldout global map-we describe what our military has done to meet the logistics challenge.