By Editor.

Over the last two months a significant proportion of the readership participated in Exercise Talisman Sabre; a biennial exercise which saw the ADF, US forces from PACOM and elsewhere, NZDF and other participants engage in a significant certification of operational capability. Although the exercise may have concluded, many logisticians are still at work facilitating the redeployment, reconstituting units and preparing for further activities later in the year.

Over the last month, LIW continued to publish articles including two in collaboration with the blog ‘Over the Horizon‘. In the event you missed these articles and would like to catch up, a brief synopsis including links follows:

The first article, Organising logistics for multi-domain battle – making a complex problem even more complex, produced in conjunction with OTH, looks at the methods by which logistics forces might be formed in future warfare. It discusses issues such as centralisation and de-centralisation, dispersal, and how prioritisation and allocation will be synonymous with battlefield success.

In The roots of readiness – the six logistics factors shaping strategic choice, David Beaumont outlines six planning principles that must be applied in peacetime to ensure that logistics process, systems and forces are ready for combat and when they are needed. Mutual understanding between commanders and logisticians, force composition and balance, logistics plans and policies, the state of the logistics organisation, materiel readiness and the testing and exercising of logistics forces is essential to prepare effectively. At the root of logistics readiness is the marriage between acquiring and maintaining military capability to have it available, and the establishment of a logistics process which enables or constrains its use operationally.

Tyranny of the easy button – finding balance between organic and contract forces by US Army officer Jessica McCarthy, and in conjunction with OTH, questions whether the US Army has the balance between its organic operational logistics capabilities and those established under programs such as LOGCAP right. Jessica persuasively argues that ‘sustainers must have confidence in their ability to execute sustainment missions without contracted support’ and redevelop skills that have lay dormant for the last fifteen years.

In an update of Intellectual irrelevance and the ownership of logistics, release to coincide with a discussion on the ‘Warrior Logistician‘ Facebook page, David Beaumont describes that the ‘ownership’ of logistics has swung too far from the military to the business sciences – even among the professional learning of military logisticians. David outlines that ‘it is not sufficient that we have logisticians with skills learned from commerce; we need logisticians that can translate business best-practice into military best-practice.’

In Technology and what lies beneath – the full cost of modernisation, David Beaumont describes how militaries change with the introduction of complex technologies. Most Western militaries consider themselves at a point where technological change is imminent; they do not necessarily realise that the introduction of technology often, fundamentally, changes the way they must operate. Logisticians must be especially adaptive in this environment as a range of new requirements will force new support solutions to be generated.

Finally, and most importantly, LIW seeks submissions on two topics. If you have experiences from exercise, from force preparation, execution to redeployment, we would love to hear from you. The sharing of lessons and experiences is a major reason why this site exists, and previous submissions on this topic have been very popular. Secondly, we are especially seeking authors on the topics of joint logistics, and logistics at the strategic level of war. We hope to have a series of posts on this vital topic shortly.

If you are interested in contributing, please head here.

We hope you enjoy the articles, and consider contributing to LIW!