United States Logistics Command CSC 1993 SUBJECT AREA - Logistics EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Title: United States Logistics Command Author: Major Raymond M. Martin, United States Marine Corps Thesis: Efforts to streamline and consolidate logistics and support activities in order to support the national perspective of retaining critical defense capabilities with fewer resources are insufficient to support the combat needs of Marine expeditionary forces. The Marine Corps must go one step further by prompting the Department of Defense to establish a unified logistics command that will integrate the national objective of reducing defense expenditures with the combat perspective of supporting expeditionary forces. Background: JCS Pub. 2 assigns each service the function of "providing logistic support for service forces, including procurement, distribution, supply, equipment, and maintenance, unless otherwise directed by the Secretary of Defense. As a result of the Secretary of Defense's July 1989 Defense Management Report (DMR), fundamental changes were made in the acquisition system and the management practices of the Department of Defense. The intent of these changes was to streamline management structures, cut excess infrastructure, eliminate redundant functions, and initiate standard business practices throughout the Department of Defense. The implementation of the DMR initiatives has significantly altered the capability of the services to provide logistic support as directed by JCS Pub. 2. Of particular interest to the Marine Corps were those DMR initiatives that directed supply depot consolidation, consumable item transfer, and restructure of the defense depot maintenance operations. Efforts to streamline and consolidate logistics and support activities in order to support the national perspective of retaining critical defense capabilities with fewer resources are insufficient to support the combat needs of Marine expeditionary forces. The commander, whether service chief or CINC, must control his own logistics. Centralized policies and procedures will not be responsive to the needs of the CINCs as they attempt to prosecute successful campaigns. Furthermore, by over centralization, we will be extending unwanted civilian authority into combat operations. Focusing on logistics as a business than as branch of military art and science will undermine fighting capability. Military logistics is much more than counting and maintaining inventory. Military logistics must adjust to the requirements of supported units and be able to forecast and satisfy fluctuating demands. Recommendation: The Marine Corps must take the lead and use its influence within the Department of Defense to promote the establishment of a unified logistics command. OUTLINE Thesis: Efforts to streamline and consolidate logistics and support activities in order to support the national perspective of retaining critical defense capabilities with fewer resources are insufficient to support the combat needs of Marine expeditionary forces. The Marine Corps must go one step further by prompting the Department of Defense to establish a unified logistics command that will integrate the national objective of reducing defense expenditures with the combat perspective of supporting expeditionary forces. I. Reducing the cost of defense A. Logistics B. Review of defense management practices II. Advantages of defense management review initiatives A. Support the national objective B. Developed within the Department of Defense C. Promote the formulation of standardized procedures III. Drawbacks of defense management review initiatives A. The commander must control logistics B. Conflicting logistic responsibilities C. Logistics as a business IV. Proposed Solutions A. Appointing a military officer to head DLA 1. Advantages 2. Disadvantages B. Establish U.S. Logistics Command 1. Advantages 2. Proposed missions UNITED STATES LOGISTICS COMMAND by Major Raymond M. Martin, United States Marine Corps The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the enormously successful operation for the liberation of Kuwait has prompted government officials and military planners to review the entire spectrum of military defense within this country. The intent of this review is to reduce the cost of defense while maintaining the ability to successfully defend against current and future threats. Logistics, which affects the mission of every service, is a target of this review. The Secretary of Defense's February 1991 Annual Report to the President and the Congress and January 1993 Annual Report to the President and the Congress reveals comprehensive changes in the area of logistics to reduce cost, provide more efficient service, and strengthen defense management. Efforts to reduce defense expenditures are not new. In 1986 similar ideas were expressed by the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management: ...there is a great need for improvement in the way we think through and tie together our security objectives, what we spend to achieve them, and what we decide to buy. The entire undertaking for our nation's defense requires more and better long-range planning. This will involve concerted action by our professional military, the civilian leadership of the Department of defense, the President, and the Congress. (14:134) In February 1989, President Bush directed a review of defense management practices.(5:30) The product of this review, the Defense Management Report (DMR) was published in July of 1989. The DMR was unique in the sense that recommendations for improvements in defense management were implemented. JCS Pub. 2 assigns each service the function of "providing logistic support for service forces, including procurement, distribution, supply, equipment, and maintenance, unless otherwise directed by the Secretary of Defense."(12:2-2) As a result of the Secretary of Defense's July 1989 Defense Management Report (DMR), fundamental changes were made in the acquisition system and the management practices of the Department of Defense. (16:28) The intent of these changes was to streamline management structures, cut excess infrastructure, eliminate redundant functions, and initiate standard business practices throughout the Department of Defense.(16:28) The implementation of the DMR initiatives has significantly altered the capability of the services to provide logistic support as directed by JCS Pub. 2. Of particular interest to the Marine Corps were those DMR initiatives that directed supply depot consolidation, consumable item transfer, and restructure of the defense depot maintenance operations. In March of 1992 all 30 depots in the Department of Defense, including Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) Barstow and MCLB Albany, were consolidated under Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) management. (17:42) The Marine Corps also participated in the development of the Defense Depot Maintenance Council (DDMC) Corporate Business Plan that involves expanding competition among the services and civilian contractors for the depot maintenance workload.(17:42) Efforts to streamline and consolidate logistics and support activities in order to support the national perspective of retaining critical defense capabilities with fewer resources are insufficient to support the combat needs of Marine expeditionary forces. The Marine Corps must go one step further by prompting the Department of Defense to establish a unified logistics command that will integrate the national objective of reducing defense expenditures with the combat perspective of supporting expeditionary forces. There are three primary advantages in supporting the DMR initiatives even though they may reduce the logistics support of expeditionary forces. These advantages are significant considering the uncertainty of the threat facing this country and the demand from government agencies, not associated with the military, for limited national resources. First, DMR initiatives support the national objective of reducing defense expenditures. The Secretary of Defense projects that full implementation of the DMR initiatives will save over $70 billion between 1990 and 1999.(17:48) These savings are significant because they rely on cost effective business practices to achieve savings rather than the short sighted method of simply reducing force structure. Furthermore, these savings are important in an era where defense outlays as a percent of federal outlays continue to decrease. For example, in 1990 defense outlays as a percent of federal outlays were 23.2.(15:19) The Department of Defense projects that defense outlays as a percent of federal outlays will drop to 18 by 1993.(3:19) Reducing the cost of doing business by streamlining management structures, eliminating redundant functions, and cutting excess infrastructure becomes even more compelling in an era of declining defense budgets coupled with increased competition from other government programs that do not relate to the military. Second, the DMR initiatives were developed within the Department of Defense with input from all the service components and civilian employees.(17:47) The focus of those personnel providing input was to develop long-term procedures that would enhance the efficiency of the Defense Department without major reductions in warfighting capability. As a result, DMR initiatives focus on long-term instead of short-term goals. This is of particular importance due to the fact that it takes many years to turn defense requirements, identified by the unified commanders and service commanders, into warfighting capabilities. (11:134) Third, prior to the implementation of the DMR initiatives, services tended to formulate plans that relied on resources that were available within their own organizations. As such, services tended to ignore logistic support that could be provided by other services and other government agencies. One disadvantage of failing to identify one service for common logistics support became readily apparent in Vietnam. (2:133) All four services operated separate supply lines that converged on a small area in Vietnam and quickly overwhelmed the ability of the theater command to control its logistics support functions.(2:133) Implementation of DMR initiatives will consolidate logistics functions under a single manager that can efficiently control available resources. DMR initiatives promote the formulation of standardized operating procedures that link the various service components, serve as a foundation for increasing efficiency by consolidating logistics resources under a single manager, and reduce defense expenditures. However, the advantages of fully implementing DMR initiatives must be weighed against certain drawbacks. First, the commander, whether service chief or CINC, must control his own logistics.(9:208) DMR initiatives effectively consolidate supply depots and transfer management responsibility of nearly one million consumable items to DLA.(17:42) Neither the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nor CINCs have direct control over the DLA because it is one of the thirteen independent agencies within the Department of Defense.(1:2-6) As such, DLA reports directly to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics.(10:106) This is significant to military planners because the focus of the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics is on acquisition program and policy questions instead of the development of military requirements and their accompanying scientific and technical issues.(10:118) The consolidation of supply depots and consumable items under DLA management limits the focus on military requirements and relegates the service chiefs to users instead of controllers of DLA services. Second, even though the DMR initiatives effectively consolidate resources under DLA management, service chiefs are still responsible for providing the CINC with the logistic resources needed to fight. (12:2-2) As a result, the close coordination that is imperative between the national and theater levels of command will not be possible because service chiefs do not control the resources.(5:46) Furthermore, logistics establishes the campaign's operational boundaries. The lead time needed to arrange logistics support and resolve logistics concern requires continuous integration of logistic considerations into the operational planning process. This is especially critical when available planning time is short. Constant coordination and cooperation between the combatant command and component staffs--and with other combatant commands--is a prerequisite for ensuring timely command awareness and oversight of deployment, readiness, and sustainment issues in the theater of war.(5:46) Centralized policies and procedures, dictated by DMR initiatives, will not be responsive to the needs of the CINCs as they attempt to prosecute successful campaigns. The net effect of placing resources, once under the control of the service chiefs, under DLA management will be to extend unwanted civilian authority into combat operations. Finally, focusing on logistics as a business than as a branch of military art and science will undermine fighting capability. Commercial businesses constantly seek to reduce inventory and demand on-time delivery of required supplies to reduce their operating costs. On the other hand, military logistics is much more than counting and maintaining inventory. Military logistics must adjust to the requirements of supported units and be able to forecast and satisfy fluctuating demands. This includes the stockage of combat essential items during peacetime for wartime requirements. Although small on-hand inventories may suit commercial businesses, they will be detrimental to combat units. Furthermore, the defense industrial base will also decline as defense expenditures are reduced. Therefore, defense industries that survive the budget cuts will not be able to surge their output quickly enough to meet the immediate needs of operational units in combat. Clearly these problems must be solved. The solution must place emphasis on the military aspects of logistics support yet support the national objective of reducing defense expenditures. Two alternative solutions will solve these problems. 1. Appoint a military officer to head the Defense Logistics Agency. 2. Establish a unified logistics command. Appointing a military officer to head the DLA will offer several advantages. First, a military officer will link the needs of combat forces with the needs of this nation to reduce the cost of defense logistics by providing the DLA with a warfighting perspective on the combat needs of operational forces. This perspective will be significant in an agency that is largely composed of entrenched civilian bureaucrats whose primary goal is to generate cost effective solutions that may not be responsive to warfighting commanders. Second, because of current political pressure to reduce the cost of defense, bureaucrats may be compelled to focus on near- term goals that offer immediate cost savings. This view is extremely short sighted and does not address the complexity of far sighted national strategy. Additionally, this view contradicts the original intent of the defense management review that focused on long-range solutions to achieve cost reductions.(17:47) Military logistics is inherently inefficient and does not readily lend itself to commercial practices. Moreover, the military process that turns warfighting requirements into capabilities is a three-year process.(1:5-5) Therefore, a military officer would balance the cost reduction goals of the agency with the long-range goal of providing effective combat logistics support to operational commands. The principle of absolute and unquestioned civilian control of all military activity is weakened by the brief tenure of most civilian appointees and their wide variety of backgrounds. (10:107) Civilian appointees generally serve for less than three years.(10:107) Although some appointees are proficient in the specialty they will administer, many are political appointees whose only qualification was their support of the President's political party. Civilians occupying positions of power have further moral obligations. They should remain in office long enough to apply the experience which it is so costly for them to acquire. They should study the art of war in order to learn the relationships and purposes of the various elements of war. For if they do not understand the nature of human conflict and the nature and principles of combat effectiveness, the exercise of power by such civilians may well bring national disaster --just as much so as might inaptitude on the part of military commanders.(9:211) The problems of tenure and background will be solved by appointing a military officer with a professional military background to a fixed term of duty. Additionally, civilian control will be maintained by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics. The second alternative, establishing a unified logistics command, offers clear advantages. The commander in chief (CINC) of a unified logistics command (USLOGCOM) will be responsible to the National Command Authority for assigned missions and exercise combatant command (COCOM) over assigned forces. COCOM will enable the CINC to organize and employ forces necessary to accomplish assigned missions. (1:2-21) Furthermore, COCOM will give the CINC sufficient flexibility and responsiveness to focus all efforts on logistically supporting combat forces responsible to the needs of the warfighting command. USLOGCOM will be controlled at the highest echelons of command by the President and the Secretary of Defense, yet remain flexible enough to tailor its operations to meet the logistics needs of the military. The CINC, USLOGCOM, will also be directly involved in the Department of Defense Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) and the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS). The purpose of these systems is to furnish the best possible mixture of missions, forces, equipment, and support to the CINCs.(1:5-5) The importance of these systems is twofold. First, PPBS and JSPS begin and end with the CINCs.(1:5-5) Second, PPBS and JSPS turn mission requirements into capabilities. As such, the CINC and USLOGCOM will provide a logistics viewpoint at the inception of the planning cycle regarding the direction and coordination of logistics affairs. Finally, USLOGCOM will focus on long-term goals and directly link national strategy with logistics at the operational level. Although each of the solutions will solve the problem of providing cost-effective and efficient logistics support, the second alternative is clearly superior. Appointing a military officer will offer the Defense Logistics Agency a military commander's perspective on logistics; however, the main drawback remains the civilian bureaucracy within the agency. Establishing a unified logistics command will support the formulation of a coherent, cost-effective logistics policy for national defense and still maintain the supremacy of civilian control at the highest levels of government. If a USLOGCOM is established, the following missions could be assigned: 1. Assist the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on all logistics matters. 2. Assist the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in developing logistic policy, doctrine, and strategy. 3. Ensure linkage of strategic and operational logistics. 4. Review CINC plans from a logistic viewpoint. 5. Provide logistics input to CINC plans. 6. Coordinate and set priorities for the transportation of logistics support provided to warfighting CINCs with the CINC U.S. Transportation Command. 7. Assist the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Service Chiefs, and warfighting CINCs in identifying military requirements, establishing priorities, and determining allocations. Assignment of these missions to USLOGCOM would relieve the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the warfighting CINCs of many of their current responsibilities regarding logistics affairs. The impact on the warfighting CINCs is particularly significant. Warfighting CINCs would be able to focus their efforts on designing and coordinating operational logistic systems while USLOGCOM would support their efforts by ensuring a fully compatible strategic logistic system. DMR initiatives will enable the Department of Defense to achieve substantial improvements in defense management well into the future. However, by consolidating logistics functions in a civilian agency the defense management review board overlooked the important theme of achieving the unified effort that is necessary for our national security. Unified effort is not only a prerequisite for successful command of military operations during wartime, today, it is also indispensable for strategic planning and for the effective direction of our defense program in peacetime. (13:44) Furthermore, the military perspective can only be provided by a commander. The command perspective is that logistics has no other purpose than to constitute and to support combat forces that are responsive to the needs of the warfighting commander.(9:9) Therefore, the Marine Corps must take the lead and use its influence within the Department of Defense to promote the establishment of a unified logistics command. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Armed Forces Staff College. The Joint Staff Officer's Guide 1991. AFSC Pub 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991. 2. Barrett, Archie D. Appraising Defense Organization. Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1983. 3. Brown, Kenneth N. Strategics: The Logistics-Strategy Link. 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