Preparedness
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What an operation twenty years ago can tell us about preparedness now – lessons from INTERFET in 1999
By David Beaumont. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) went to East Timor in 1999 armed with luck and sustained by the outstanding initiative and resolve of its personnel. The logistics system, in contrast, was cobbled together from the remnants of… Continue reading
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Planning to sustain the force – Reflections on East Timor by a Logistics Unit Commander Part Two
By Brigadier Michael Kehoe (Retd). “In the two decades since the Australian deployment to East Timor as part of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET), much has been written about the operation predominantly from the national and military strategic perspectives.… Continue reading
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Planting the right trees – logistics and its role in the ‘Phase Zero’ campaign
by Air Commodore Hayden Marshall (Ret’d). In a previous life, I had the opportunity to become very familiar with operational planning and experience first hand the impact of logistics (positive and negative) on various phases of a planned or active… Continue reading
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Committing to preparedness, and the balance between ‘all of it’ and ‘just enough’
By David Beaumont. Logistics In War has been exploring preparedness and logistics in a series of articles over the last three months. The role of logistics in preparedness is self-evident. However, while we know that this is the case, it… Continue reading
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Preparing for preparedness – how should we begin?
By David Beaumont. Logistics readiness refers to the ability to undertake, to build up and thereafter to sustain, combat operations at the full combat potential of forces.[1] Logistics readiness is not just a matter of prioritising Defence resources. Of course… Continue reading
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Burying the hero – how logistics and readiness changed war
By David Beaumont. This is part two of a three-part series on logistics and logistics readiness. In ‘The water in the well – how much logistics readiness is enough?’ I described the idea of logistics readiness as the ability of… Continue reading
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Limping to war
Preparedness and its paradoxes By David Beaumont. ‘Over time we lost strategic agility. Our units became hollow. Our ability to operate away from the Australian support base degraded dangerously. Our capacity to generate, sustain and rotate forces eroded. The tremendous… Continue reading
The Paper War: Logistics... and everything but the fighting. 