By David Beaumont

Western militaries find themselves at a crossroads, as new pressures force a revaluation of assumptions about how they prepare for, and subsequently sustain, operations during a conflict. As the diet of these militaries expands – driven by resource-intensive advanced weaponry and platforms, growing digital infrastructure, and supply chains of unprecedented complexity – so too has the need for a robust logistics ‘tail’. And now, reminded by wars in Europe and elsewhere, we see that defence forces are not just fighting on the front lines; in wars where logistics is ‘contested’, these same forces are also engaged in a constant struggle to supply, maintain and support themselves. Despite attempts to innovate, logistics constraints continue to strangle strategy and shape the very battles that are being fought. Ideas prized in peacetime – ones that speak to efficiency and rationalisation – are being tested in the face of a new type of conflict.

It is impossible to understate the effect that the ongoing war in Ukraine has had on defence-related discourse, observations of which have been a catalyst for much rethinking about the characteristics of future conflicts. In undertaking our studies we have not been able to escape a truth of war, that logistics is wars ‘lifeblood’. For some, it is outright industrial capacity – ‘not measured in slick procurement briefings but in shells, drones and spare parts’ – that decides the outcomes of these wars.[1] The decades-long pursuit of logistics rationalisation to create low-cost but high-speed systems of delivery has seemingly left Western militaries bereft of the conceptual understanding to prepare themselves, and their nations, for protracted, high-intensity, war. At the same time over 3,000 tanks and sixty kilometre-long convoys of trucks were crossing the border into Ukraine in 2022, the drivers for logistics concepts were to think-smaller, more expeditionary, more dispersed and with less of an anchoring ‘footprint’.

This is not to say that sizable military campaigns have become a novel issue. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example, saw over 200000 soldiers and countless combat vehicles deploy, and followed a much larger operation that resulted in the liberation of Kuwait just over a decade before. However, though ‘mountains’ were moved and significant logistics challenges overcome, both operations confirmed the pre-eminence of the existing logistics concepts, ideas and tactics.[2] People had forgotten that success, though tactically brilliant and well supported, came at the expense of a second-rate opponent. Elsewhere, in Afghanistan, operations were sustained for many traumatic years, but still, sustainment proved to be an ancillary issue. When lessons were learned, they were learned within the trap that befalls most post-operational reviews of logistics performance. As the NATO-led coalition secured limited victories, few analysts lingered on the logistical challenges overcome along the way—success, in other words, vindicated the system.

With these experiences, formative and impactful, defence forces had been conditioned to a way of war. This conditioning was physical, reflecting in force structure, capability and preparedness systems that were based on sustaining war as routine. Operations were protracted, but they were low-intensity, logistically consistent, and with a tempo that rarely modulated to the point logistics deficiencies became strategic risks. This was war in a business-as-usual model, where support needs were predictable, and military planners had time to accommodate the sustainment requirements of the military force. Accordingly, because so few sustainment problems became strategic risks, the only drivers for change were found in intellectual arguments about what a future war might entail.[3]

Unfortunately, logistics constancy had also conditioned the intellectual and conceptual realm. While doctrine and concepts may have drawn attention to looming logistics capability and preparedness gaps, operational experience and overconfidence meant that there was little drive to respond to problems. Instead, empowered by ‘buzzwords’, Western militaries focussed on cost minimisation, the pursuit of technological solutions, and the centralisation of logistical support, all under the assumption that the logistics “tail” would shrink and become easier to manage. While military history is so often venerated in defence schools, it seems not many lessons from it were taken. Instead, personal experience became the barometer by which transformation would be measured.

Because operational logistics requirements were often so small, militaries viewed the role of the whole-of-nation in sustaining a force in an incidental, and usually transactional, way. Provided industry delivered capability platforms on time and budget, other risks – such as sustaining these platforms in war – tended to be downplayed. In retrospect, these approaches emerged from a period of relative comfort, in which many of the requirements to keep a modern military force in the field, afloat or in the air could be anticipated and controlled. The prospect of a truly contested logistics environment where supply chains were threatened, degraded, or disrupted by a highly capable adversary during a protracted war remained a theoretical concern for military concept writers, academics, and the occasional commentator.

Yet beneath this surface, the very foundations of logistics were shifting, as assumptions about future conflicts grew increasingly misaligned with long-forgotten realities. In Australia, for example, we learned that we were heading for a ‘dangerous and uncertain’ decade, and when a pandemic popped by, the fragility of our economic situation became a personal problem.[4] Supply-chains could not be counted on, and just as the potential for regional conflicts grew, the cost of globalised logistics had begun to rise.

As strategic landscapes shift and the spectre of high-intensity warfare looms once again, these inherited assumptions are being put to the test. The Western model of logistics, optimised for efficiency and valuing rapid response more than protracted sustainment, now faces the daunting reality where future wars might feature contested supply lines, mass mobilisation, and industrial-scale attrition.[5] It is a model of logistics that is ill-suited to the reality that strategic attrition often follows a flurry of indecisive fights, and where any stalemates will only be broken only after this attrition turns wars into ones of exhaustion.[6] While we may hope that the risk of a protracted conflict remains improbable, it seems to be quite a gamble to stride confidently into the future without appreciating what it will take for a military force to be logistics solvent.

It is safe to say that what commentators and policy makers have once seen as a ‘tail’ is now better understood to be the backbone— but this backbone is fragile and quite exposed. The challenge, now, is not merely to deliver supplies faster or cheaper, but to reimagine the entire way in which armed forces are prepared, supported and sustained given the spectrum of threats they now face. As recent conflicts have shown, wars are not won by the best technology or thinking alone, but by those nations and militaries that are resilient, prepared and adaptable when their best attempts to predict the character of future conflict fall short. Contemporary conflicts—such as those in Ukraine—reveal a hybrid reality: while precision and agility matter, the capacity to absorb losses and regenerate force remains vital. Ammunition consumption rates, repair cycles, and national economic mobilisation are once again central to operational success.[7]

And so we are at a pivotal juncture, with compelling strategic reasons to act. Emerging defence policy and national security strategies, including Australia’s own National Defence, have posed new challenges that must be addressed, and risks that must be mitigated.[8] As I said nearly one decade ago with regards to logistics transformation, ‘arguments are riven with assumptions that are well beyond their usefulness, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the ever-changing character of warfare requires such shibboleths to be abandoned.’[9] For those thinking about the means of war, and what it requires to sustain a modern military force in a protracted conflict, it is time for new approaches to be considered – ones that will help to ensure militaries are better able to do what they are meant for.

If you would like to contribute to ‘The Paper War’ and contribute to this important discussion, please show your interest via the website, or logisticsinwar@outlook.com. This is not only a discussion about logistics, support and sustainability – it is about military transformation in general.

---

[1] Betz, D., Smith, M.L.R, ‘Smart weapons, dumb assumptions: Western strategic delusions meet industrial reality in Ukraine’, Military Strategy Magazine, 26 Jun 2025

[2] Pagonis, W., Moving mountains: lessons in logistics and leadership, Harvard Business School Press, 1992

[3] I must confess being part of this movement through papers including Beaumont., D., ‘Transforming Australian Army Logistics to sustain the joint land force’, Transforming Australian Army Logistics to Sustain the Joint Land Force | Australian Army Research Centre (AARC)

[4] Beaumont, D, 2020, ‘An uncertain and dangerous decade: preparing Army for the next ten years’, An uncertain and dangerous decade: Preparing the Army for the next ten years | Australian Army Research Centre (AARC)

[5] Betz, D., Smith, M.L.R, ‘Smart weapons, dumb assumptions: Western strategic delusions meet industrial reality in Ukraine’, Military Strategy Magazine, 26 Jun 2025

[6] Nolan, C., The allure of battle, Oxford University Press, UK, 2017, pp 7-6

[7] Beaumont, D., ‘Logistics, Strategy and Tactics: Balancing the Art of War,’ from Australian Army Journal 11, no. 2 (Summer), https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/australian-army-journal-aaj/volume-11-number-2-summer/logistics-strategy-and-tactics-balancing-art-war

[8] See Department of Defence, 2024 National Defence Strategy, 2024 National Defence Strategy and 2024 Integrated Investment Program | About | Defence

[9] Beaumont., D., ‘Transforming Australian Army Logistics to sustain the joint land force’, Transforming Australian Army Logistics to Sustain the Joint Land Force | Australian Army Research Centre (AARC), p 7