Future-Warfare

Key Takeaways The pattern persists: Despite centuries of examples, military organizations continue to underestimate logistics constraints and plan operations that exceed supply capabilities. Contested logistics: Future conflict will feature sustained attack on supply lines—something not seen since World War II—requiring doctrinal and force structure changes. Technology is not salvation: Advanced technology can help solve logistics problems but also creates new vulnerabilities through cyber attack surfaces and complex supply chains. The organizational challenge: The deepest logistics problems are organizational—fragmented responsibility, misaligned incentives, and the persistent prioritization of efficiency over resilience. The Same Mistakes, Different Centuries We have traced logistics failures from Napoleon’s frozen Grand Army to Hitler’s fuel-starved panzers, from Gallipoli’s mislabeled crates to America’s hollowed-out industrial base. Separated by decades and centuries, these failures share a common DNA. ...

The Invisible Army ← Series Home Key Takeaways Sanctuary is ending: Since WWII, American logistics operated in sanctuary—ports weren't bombed, ships weren't sunk in quantity. A peer adversary will attack the supply chain directly. Dependence is vulnerability: The global supply chains that enable modern logistics also expose them. Critical components from adversary nations, single-source dependencies, long vulnerable routes. Industrial base has atrophied: America builds few ships, produces little ammunition in peacetime. Surging production for a major war would take years that may not be available. The doctrine is changing: "Contested logistics" and "expeditionary advance base operations" acknowledge that future supply will be neither safe nor guaranteed. The End of Sanctuary For eighty years—from 1945 to today—American military logistics has operated in conditions of relative sanctuary: ...

The Kinetic Chain 1 Part 1: Alexander's Invisible Army 2 Part 2: Napoleon's Fatal Calculation 3 Part 3: The Railroad Revolution 4 Part 4: The Crimean Catastrophe 5 Part 5: Barbarossa and the Battle of the Gauges 6 Part 6: The Battle of the Bulge and the Tyranny of Fuel 7 Part 7: Wholesale Distribution and the American Way of 8 Part 8: The Pacific Logistics Challenge 9 Part 9: Victory Through Logistics 10 Part 10: Vietnam and the Tyranny of Terrain 11 Part 11: Giap's Bicycle Brigades 12 Part 12: The Ho Chi Minh Trail 13 Part 13: American Largesse in Vietnam 14 Part 14: The M16 Debacle and Logistics Failure 15 Part 15: The Falklands Logistics Miracle 16 Part 16: Desert Storm and the Logistics Miracle 17 Part 17: The Future of Contested Logistics ← Series Home This final link in the series transitions from historical observation to a Forward-Looking Systemic Audit. ...