The Invisible Army - Part 17: Contested Logistics

The End of Sanctuary

For eighty years—from 1945 to today—American military logistics has operated in conditions of relative sanctuary:

• Ports weren’t attacked after initial operations
• Ships weren’t sunk in quantity after 1945
• Depots weren’t bombed once established
• Supply lines stretched uncontested across oceans

These conditions made the logistics of Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan possible. Forces could assume that what was shipped would arrive, what was built would remain, what was planned would execute.

Against a peer adversary—China, Russia—these assumptions collapse.

What Contested Means

The Threat Environment

A peer adversary has capabilities that Iraq, the Taliban, and regional powers lacked:

Anti-ship missiles: China’s DF-21D and DF-26 can target ships thousands of miles from shore. Even the largest cargo vessels become targets.

Submarine warfare: Adversary submarines can threaten shipping across entire ocean basins. The U.S. anti-submarine capability has atrophied.

Cyber attack: Supply chain software, port management systems, and logistics networks are vulnerable to disruption.

Space denial: GPS enables modern logistics. Adversaries can jam, spoof, or destroy GPS satellites.

Long-range strike: Hypersonic weapons and cruise missiles can reach ports, airfields, and depots thousands of miles from the adversary’s territory.

What This Means for Logistics

In a contested environment:

• Ships may not arrive: A percentage—possibly a large percentage—of supply ships could be sunk
• Ports may be destroyed: Missile strikes on major facilities are expected, not exceptional
• Depots may be targeted: Large supply concentrations become targeting opportunities
• Routes may be closed: Entire ocean areas might be too dangerous to transit

The logistics that enabled Desert Storm—massive ports, huge depots, long secure supply lines—may be impossible in the next major war.

The Industrial Base Problem

What We Don’t Build

American industrial capacity for military production has collapsed since the Cold War:

Shipbuilding: The U.S. builds 5-10 commercial ships per year. China builds 1,000+. In WWII, America built 2,700 Liberty ships; today, we couldn’t build 27.

Ammunition: America produces peacetime quantities of munitions. Surging to wartime production takes years—years that a short, intense war wouldn’t provide.

Electronics: Semiconductors, essential for modern weapons, are manufactured primarily in Taiwan—an island 100 miles from China.

Rare earths: Materials essential for precision weapons come largely from China itself.

The Time Problem

In WWII, America took two years to convert to war production. This was acceptable because the oceans provided time.

A war with China might be decided in weeks or months. There would be no time to build Liberty ships or surge ammunition production. Forces would fight with what they had when the war started.

What’s in the Warehouse

Current stockpiles are sized for counterinsurgency:

• Precision munitions stocks would be exhausted in weeks of high-intensity combat
• Replacement aircraft production is measured in single digits per month
• Ship repair capacity is minimal

A major war would rapidly deplete stocks, and resupply would take longer than the war might last.

The Vulnerability Chain

Global Supply Chains

Modern military equipment depends on global supply chains:

• A fighter aircraft contains components from dozens of countries
• Critical materials traverse multiple continents before becoming weapons
• Just-in-time manufacturing minimizes inventory

These efficiencies assume peaceful global trade. In war:

• Trade routes close
• Suppliers in adversary territory become unavailable
• Neutral countries face pressure to embargo
• Single-source components become fatal dependencies

The Taiwan Example

Taiwan manufactures over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced chips.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan—whatever its military outcome—would devastate global semiconductor supply. Weapons, vehicles, and communications equipment would become irreplaceable.

This isn’t a hypothetical vulnerability. It’s a single point of failure that adversaries understand and could exploit.

Rethinking Logistics Doctrine

Distributed Operations

The emerging doctrine response is distributed operations:

Instead of large, concentrated bases, forces disperse:

• Smaller units
• More locations
• Harder to target
• Each self-sufficient for longer periods

This reduces vulnerability but increases logistics complexity. Supplying fifty small bases is harder than supplying five large ones.

Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO)

The Marine Corps is developing EABO—small teams operating from improvised positions:

• Austere logistics
• Minimal resupply
• Living off pre-positioned stocks
• Moving frequently to avoid targeting

This is a return to older models: forces that carry what they need rather than depending on continuous supply.

Logistics Under Fire

The Army is developing concepts for logistics under attack:

• Distributed supply points: Smaller, more numerous, harder to target
• Active defense: Air defense protecting logistics facilities
• Rapid reconstitution: Ability to rebuild after attack
• Alternative transportation: Multiple modes, multiple routes

The assumption is that logistics will be attacked. The question is whether it can survive and continue.

The Technology Response

Autonomous Resupply

Unmanned vehicles might deliver supplies where crewed vehicles can’t survive:

• Autonomous trucks on dangerous roads
• Drone resupply to isolated positions
• Unmanned surface vessels for coastal supply

These technologies are immature but developing rapidly.

Additive Manufacturing

3D printing might produce spare parts where they’re needed:

• Reduce dependence on long supply chains
• Manufacture components on-site
• Adapt to shortages by redesigning for available materials

Current capabilities are limited, but the potential is significant.

Energy Independence

Forces that generate their own power reduce fuel logistics:

• Solar charging for electronics
• Hybrid vehicles with better fuel efficiency
• Eventually, perhaps, small nuclear reactors

Fuel is the largest single category of military supply. Reducing fuel dependence transforms logistics requirements.

What Hasn’t Changed

The Eternal Equations

Despite new threats and new technologies, the fundamental logistics equations remain:

Forces need supply: Soldiers eat. Vehicles burn fuel. Weapons need ammunition. This doesn’t change.

Distance constrains operations: Moving supplies over long distances is hard. It was hard for Alexander; it’s hard today.

Speed trades against sustainability: The faster you advance, the more you outrun supply. The tension is eternal.

The enemy gets a vote: Supply systems that the enemy can attack, will be attacked. They always have been.

The Human Element

Logistics ultimately depends on people:

• Leaders who understand supply
• Troops who can operate with less
• Planners who anticipate constraints
• Organizations that prioritize logistics

Technology enables. People decide.

Series Conclusion: The Invisible Army

We’ve traveled from Alexander’s baggage trains to autonomous resupply drones—three millennia of military logistics.

The technology changed: horses to railroads to trucks to aircraft. But the fundamental challenges remained:

Mass vs. Mobility: Heavy supply enables sustainability but reduces speed.

Efficiency vs. Resilience: Lean logistics work in peacetime but break under stress.

Dependence vs. Independence: Modern armies need more than ever, but dependence creates vulnerability.

Planning vs. Adaptation: Plans fail on contact; systems must adapt.

Every era produced generals who ignored logistics and failed:

• Napoleon in Russia
• Hitler in Russia (the lesson unlearned)
• The Allies at Gallipoli
• Everyone who assumed supply would somehow work out

Every era produced logisticians who made victory possible:

• Alexander’s nameless quartermasters
• The Army Service Forces of WWII
• Gus Pagonis in the desert
• The thousands who move mountains every day

The next war—whenever and wherever it comes—will be won or lost on logistics. Not by brilliant maneuvers alone, but by the ability to sustain forces in combat against an enemy who will attack the supply chain directly.

Amateurs still talk tactics. Professionals still talk logistics.

The Invisible Army remain what they’ve always been: the invisible foundation of military power, underappreciated until it fails, decisive when it succeeds.

Afterword: For the Reader

This series has explored logistics through history—not because history repeats exactly, but because patterns recur.

Whether you’re a military professional, a business leader, a student of strategy, or simply someone curious about how the world works, logistics offers lessons:

Systems fail at interfaces: Where one system meets another—port to road, factory to ship, plan to execution—failures occur.

Constraints are real: Wishing doesn’t make supplies appear. Understanding limits enables realistic planning.

The invisible matters: Logistics is invisible when it works and catastrophic when it fails. What you don’t see still shapes what’s possible.

Preparation beats improvisation: Systems built in peacetime work under stress. Systems improvised in crisis often don’t.

The Invisible Army stretch from ancient baggage trains to modern container ships. They’re the foundation of military power—and of the peace that power enables.

Understanding them isn’t just military education. It’s understanding how the world actually works.