Association of Marine Corps Logisticians

CONTESTED LOGISTICS
WARGAMING
A Report on the 8-10 August 2023 AMCL Symposium
Wargaming Panel & Wargame Design Workshop

Hosted at Christopher Newport University

Authors

Travis Curtis Matt

Reese Hudson Jr Evers
Director, Wargaming Principal Wargaming Student, Command &
& Net Assessment, & Mission Systems Staff College, Marine
Troika Solutions Engineer, MITRE Corps University

Prepared 30 September 2023

“Even before World War II ended, the Navy took stock of

the lessons learned and thought about how to prepare
for the next war. Leadership acknowledged that an
underdeveloped logistics apparatus had hurt the war
effort. Going into the conflict, officials had not tied
operations and logistics together, resulting in a situation
where the Navy had to reallocate human capital to
create new organizational structures while fighting a
war. Concurrently, the Navy also learned that it needed
to collect and analyze data in order to optimize
effectiveness. Prewar underdevelopment in both of
these areas had resulted in higher costs for the Navy, in
terms of resources misapplied and material and
manpower wasted.“

Peter C. Luebke, Timothy L. Francis, and Heather M. Haley, Contested

Logistics: Sustaining the Pacific War, (Washington, DC: Naval History
and Heritage Command, June 13, 2023), 73.

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About this Report
The goal of this report is to inspire ideas to integrate in a campaign of
learning for contested logistics. Wargaming can be used as the medium for
understanding these challenges and for identifying potential solutions, both
conceptual and material.

This report is primarily focused on assisting USMC leaders across the future
force design, logistics, and training enterprises. However, this report is suitable
for any organization - military or industry - that would like to explore
contested logistics or account for a naval/maritime dynamic in any logistics
focused wargame.

Key Contributors
A diverse group spanning the wargaming, training, and force design
communities provided the professional insights and expertise to help shape a
more holistic list of considerations for wargame designs during both the
panel and workshop sessions. These individuals helped create a more
systems-based approach to problem framing and wargame concepts.

Col Michael Castellano, USMC MARSOC AC/S G-4

Col Scott Clippinger, USMC LOGCOM G-3
Col Dane Salm, USMC TECOM Range & Training Programs Division
Mr. Tom Wood, MCICOM G-5
CAPT Gregory Magee, USCG Deputy Director of Operational Logistics
LtCol Travis Hord, USMC Student, JAWS
LtCol Glenn Berdela, USMC 2d MLG AC/S G-6
Ms. Rebecca Brashears, Joint Concepts Integration Team Concepts
Branch, Sustainment Concepts & Battle Lab Division Sustainment CDID,
US Army Futures Command
Ms. Kathy Welch, Principal Technical Advisor & Wargaming Lead LMI
Mr. Mark Hitchcock, Program Manager, MODSIM Tapestry Solutions,
A Boeing Company

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Table of Contents
About Association of Marine Corps Logisticians............................................................... 4

About the Center for American Studies, Christopher Newport University....... 5

Executive Summary............................................................................................................................... 6

Contested Logistics Wargaming Panel.................................................................................... 7

Three Vignettes & Three Challenges................................................................................ 13

Vignette 1: Sustaining Stand-In Forces & Naval Campaigning...................... 14
Vignette 2: Naval Operational Logistics & Joint Logistics Enterprise.......... 17
Vignette 3: USMC Strategic Logistics & The Organic Industrial Base........ 20

Proposed Wargame Designs........................................................................................................ 24

Protect the Rock............................................................................................................................. 25

Inside Reach..................................................................................................................................... 30
Operating With Friends & Family....................................................................................... 35
Wedemeyer’s Challenge......................................................................................................... 37

Conclusion/Way Forward................................................................................................................. 41

Appendix (Panel Presentation Slides & Map)...................................................................... 42

End Notes..................................................................................................................................................... 51

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About
Association of Marine Corps Logisticians
AMCL aims to enhance and cultivate the United States Marine Corps logistics
and supply chain professional community by promoting quality professional
development of Marine Corps logisticians, identifying and sharing
Department of Defense and industry best practices, and providing an open
forum for the development and exchange of ideas.

AMCL members represent professionals of all logistics interests and

specialties across the globe, whether active military, reserve, retired, officer,
enlisted, civilian, corporate, or academic.

Founded in 2018, AMCL is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit ran solely by

volunteers and logistics professionals, like you, and is wholly independent of
the Marine Corps.

Connect with us at: https://www.marinecorpslogistics.org/

Learn more about the Symposium at: https://www.amclsymposium.org/

About The Center for American Studies
At Christopher Newport University
Christopher Newport University’s (CNU) Center for American Studies (CAS)
promotes undergraduate and faculty research on America’s founding
principles and history, economic foundations, and national security in order to
promote sensible notions of political liberty, economic liberty, and civic
responsibility.

Our goal is to educate the next generation toward becoming enlightened

leaders and responsible citizens in order to better secure the future.

The CAS is an interdisciplinary, nonpartisan center dedicated to teaching and

scholarship on America’s founding principles and history, economic
foundations, and national security. We are committed to ensuring that
Christopher Newport University is known as a premier liberal arts institution
where students can study the classical and modern foundations of American
constitutionalism, republicanism, rule of law, free enterprise and individual
liberty in order to develop sensible notions of liberty and civic responsibility.

As a nonpartisan center, the CAS builds upon CNU’s strength as a classical

liberal arts institution. Our goals and activities include:

Enhancing CNU’s undergraduate curriculum in American studies,

constitutional studies and U.S. national security studies
Supporting undergraduate and faculty scholarship that advance
understanding of the American experiment in economic and political
liberty
Sponsoring postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars
Holding annual conferences and national security workshops
Developing student internship programs

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Executive Summary
From 8-10 August 2023, AMCL held its annual symposium with nearly 300
attendees and over 75 speakers at CNU in collaboration with the CAS. This
year’s theme, Operation JUMPSTART: From Aspirational to Operational,
embodied the idea of transitioning the many concepts, activities, and
capabilities for next generation logistics that have matured in the past few
years in support of Marine Corps Force Design 2030 from aspirational goals to
practical applications.

On 8 August AMCL hosted a Contested Logistics Wargaming Panel* with a

live problem framing dialogue on contested logistics challenges from the
tactical to strategic level across the competition continuum. The panel
primed workshop participant thinking through the lens of three vignettes:

Sustaining Stand-In Forces & Naval Campaigning.

Naval Operational Logistics & The Joint Logistics Enterprise.
USMC Strategic Logistics & The Organic Industrial Base.

On 9 August, the Wargame Design Workshop was open to all Symposium

attendees to crowd source ideas throughout the day on analytical and
educational wargaming for contested logistics. One facilitated session
produced a design on site, while the research team later took participant
inputs to produce three other designs. The four wargame designs developed:

Protect the Rock: Contested base resiliency and capacity.

Inside Reach: Distribution and sustainment to inside forces across the
spectrum of conflict.
Operating With Friends & Family*: Command, control, and integration of
a distribution system across Navy operational logistics, the Joint Logistics
Enterprise, and Coalition partners.
Wedemeyer’s Challenge: A design connecting USMC requirements with
the organic and defense industrial bases.

* Reference the Appendix for accompanying concept graphics, tables, and maps

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Contested Logistics Wargaming Panel
Background and Orientation
Due to time and classification constraints, the AMCL Symposium was not the
venue to develop a sophisticated and complete set of scenarios and
wargames. Rather, the overall effort focused on:

framing the problems associated with contested logistics,

identifying the objectives of wargames that may help address the
problem, and
proposing possible wargame designs to evaluate those objectives.

Paramount to the effective application of wargaming is the identification of

the problem, the purpose and objective(s) of the game.¹ Those factors can be
properly captured when there is a correct understanding of the challenge or
problem that needs to be addressed. When the problem is properly framed,
then the purpose and objectives of the game become clearer.²

That, in turn enables the development of a scenario to model the problem.

The scenario is the tool from which to conceptualize the design of the
wargame. Wargaming itself is a process of testing a hypothesis using a
plausible model, an immersive interaction between players, and analyzing
the results.³

Open source references such as the Marine Corps operational concepts for
Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO)⁴ and Stand-In Forces (SIF)⁵,
and other works assessing the future operating environment⁶ provided the
basis for the vignettes used to explore the issues of contested logistics.
Historical case studies were also useful to inform analysis.

What follows is a summary of the panel from a primer on contested logistics

past, present, and future, as well as problem framing through three vignettes
spanning the tactical to strategic level across the spectrum of conflict.

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History of Contested Logistics
The concept of contested logistics is not new relative to military operations.⁷
Supply lines and stockpiles have been lucrative targets for eons of conflict
and war. Finding ways to make “war pay for war”⁸ had been an imperative
before the industrial capacity to feed and clothe a force without regard for
local forage and capture emerged in World War I.

Famously, George Washington’s logistical considerations frequently drove his

strategy for the conduct of the Revolutionary War.⁹ It is practically an article of
faith in military planning that challenging an adversary’s capacity to sustain
a force in the field has an asymmetrically beneficial outcome when
compared to singularly engaging combat forces alone.

How that has played out in delivering decisive tactical and strategic
outcomes for war has a mixed historical record but the opportunity to deny
the adversary the means to make and sustain war is not without value. The
modern era brings a different challenge when it comes to the capacity to
degrade and disrupt logistical capabilities based on a range of factors either
natural, commercial, or derived from adversarial challenges.¹⁰ ¹¹

At the strategic level, no nation can provide the raw materials of war
exclusively from their own territory or produce components of weapons and
vehicles without a world-wide and connected supply and manufacturing
chain. Much of that is an outgrowth of globalization over the last 30 years.¹²

In years past raw materials were required from overseas sources, but much of
the refinement could be done domestically and produced into finished goods.
That is less true today especially for things like rare earth elements (REE)
essential to so many military capabilities.

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Contested Logistics Challenges Today
The challenge to logistics is not only embedded in protecting physical assets,
but also in unsecure data and communications necessary for things like
modern manufacturing and transportation management. Data security
represents a unique vulnerability to logistics capability in the same way
unguarded lines of communication and airfields did in the past.

In modern conflict the ranges of adversary action and target observation are
so vast that it has forced the need to distribute the force more widely to
mitigate the effects of these capabilities. Dispersion exacerbates the tyranny
of distance to sustain a force. This in turn has exceeded the capacity of
normal conveyances to provide tempo and persistence in sustainment
compared to only a few short years ago..¹³

Finally, the capability and desire of adversaries to challenge or degrade our

logistics enterprises is far greater than that presented by belligerents in the
first part of the 21st century.¹⁴ In essence, more means across more
operational layers and domains exist to disrupt the capacity of a force to
provide logistical support which extends into the industrial base, storage
facilities, transportation networks and means, and all the way to the tactical
edge.

Thus, the concept of contested logistics has taken on a new dimension

compared to our legacy understanding of the problem over the last few
hundred years of conflict driving new requirements for resiliency on top of
responsiveness.¹⁵

This is paradigm shifting in the kinds of considerations that need to be

incorporated in logistical planning, protection, and maneuver. As former
Commandant of the Marine Corps General David Berger noted, logistics is the
pacing function of modern Marine operating concepts EABO and SIF if we
want to be effective against the pacing threat.¹⁶

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The Future of Contested Logistics
Logistics is an issue not only for EABO and SIF but for all naval concepts to
include Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). Logistics also enables joint
action in support of the range of Coast Guard operational concepts, Army
Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), and Air Force Agile Combat Employment
(ACE), making contested logistics ubiquitous across the range of future
operating concepts for all services and support agencies..¹⁷ ¹⁸

Each of these concepts have the challenge of sustaining distributed forces

across the range of time, space, and force considerations and global supply
chains from industrial capacity to tactical delivery.¹⁹

Moving forward, to properly frame the perils and problems of contested

logistics requires a working definition of the term. Title 10 of the U.S. Code
defines contested logistics [in the context of operational energy] as:

“an environment in which the armed forces engage in conflict with an

adversary that presents challenges in all domains and directly targets
logistics operations, facilities, and activities in the United States, abroad,
or in transit from one location to another.”²⁰

A Joint definition has been provided in the Joint Concept for Contested
Logistics JCCL 1.0 which is the subordinate concept to the capstone Joint
Warfighting Concept still in development:

(U) The act of planning, executing, and enabling the movement and
support of military forces across multiple domains/environments (air,
land, sea, space, cyber/information, EMS) in a contested environment.²¹

These definitions are fundamental, but they require further clarification as

logistics activities and functions are broken into tactical, operational, and
strategic logistics tasks along the competition continuum from day-to-day,
crisis, and protracted armed conflict.²² ²³

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Analyzing a World War II Logistics
Counter-Factual for Future Insight
To create a sense of the scope of the contested logistics challenge in a future
context, a historical analysis based on the establishment of the major lines of
communication in World War II for sustainment and campaigning is useful.
This historical discussion set the scene for the Contested Logistics Wargaming
Panel.

In the European Theater the Battle of the Atlantic focused on conducting sea
convoys and air ferry routes that supplied U.S., British, and Soviet forces while
mitigating the Axis powers’ abilities to project air and sea power to disrupt
these logistical operations. The Battle of the Atlantic ran for all four years of
the war making it the longest single battle of the conflict.²⁴

In the Pacific Theater prior to the U.S. entering the war with Japan, logistically
isolated Allied bases and stations did not deter Imperial Japan’s decision
calculus for escalation and offensive action. Further, once these facilities and
forces were defeated, Imperial Japan was given nearly a year to consolidate
their gains and prepare for the inevitable response. The U.S. response began
with establishing the Southern Supply route at the edge of the Japanese
Imperial Navy’s ability to project combat air and sea power.²⁵

To identify how these conditions must not be repeated in a modern conflict,

consider three counter-factual “What Ifs”:

…bases had been sufficiently resourced to function as offensive platforms

to counterattack into the Allied advance?

…supply lines had been secured prior to the commencement of hostilities

or sufficient force established to connect the “inside” force facing the
advance and “outside” force arriving from CONUS in weeks vice years?

…sufficient intra-theater distribution and cached supply had been

secreted throughout the operating area. Would knowledge of this have
deterred the decision of the adversaries to commence hostilities?

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How the Historical Counter-Factual
Analysis Informs Wargame Design
The historical counter-factual illuminates an untenable situation in the
context of a protracted future conflict with long lines of contested
communications. Early losses of material, position, and the capacity to resist
will likely reduce the time that an effective merger of the “inside” and “outside”
can be performed if the U.S., along with allies are partners, are to thwart
adversary objectives.

The amount of material and manpower to engage in hostilities already likely

outstrips that tactical and operational capacity in existence now to sustain
forces in contact.²⁶ More importantly, logistical forces will not be immune to
lethal action for a considerable timeframe. Logistics needs to be the center of
focus for the foreseeable future in Force Design efforts to balance out
offensive maneuver concepts and lethality development for an overall data-
informed assessment of sustainability.

There is a potential that revealing or concealing the ability to sustain the force
through targeted operations, activities, and investments may contribute to
integrated deterrence as a part of integrated campaigning in competition,
and contribute to adversary calculus as to whether to escalate hostilities.

The nations that were part of conflict in WWII went through extensive national
logistical preparation to endure the early years of conflict. They traded
material for time. It is highly likely that the kind of strategic preparation
conducted by the Allies going into WWII to have sufficient manpower and
material to conduct the war will be necessary in future conflicts. The
similarities to the years 1936-7 in terms of the window of preparation to either
deter conflict or prepare for such is not an irrelevant comparison.²⁷ Further,
the fragility of material demands indicates that nations with most of the
limited critical supplies and finished goods will have a strategic edge at a
minimum. These issues can be further explored through the framing of the
three vignettes presented in the Wargaming Panel.

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Three Vignettes & Three Challenges
Each of the contested logistics vignettes presented in the Wargaming Panel
are framed with three general threat considerations to help identify the
problems and objectives to be further analyzed through wargaming.

The pacing threat is competing for access, basing, and overflight in regions
in which the Marine Corps and the Joint Force must position to assure allies
and partners or perform its own operations.²⁸ This can range from
competition for use of ports²⁹ and repair facilities to malign influence³⁰ to
affect public sentiment toward U.S. presence in host nations and their
territorial waters. This is a persistent challenge and drives an interagency
solution to enable U.S. global posture and power projection from conducting
offshore sustainment within claimant exclusive economic zones, or in the
application of intelligent robotic and autonomous systems. It encompasses
the whole range of military, merchant, and contracted means operating for,
and on behalf of, military missions and objectives.

The pacing threat will challenge persistent sustainment of forces across the
competition continuum using a variety of lethal and non-lethal means with
capabilities that may or may not be traditionally military in nature.
Contested logistics is not only relegated to armed conflict phases of
operations or only with conventional military means across all operational
domains. Logistics are essential for “setting the theater” so it is likely that any
attempt to establish logistical capacity for EABO and SIF will be challenged.

The pacing threat will challenge the communications and data necessary
to conduct logistics operations and maneuver. This may include infiltrating
port and airfield management systems; challenging positioning, navigation
and timing; conducting cyber engagement of logistical data systems;
corrupting additive manufacturing instructions, etc. In all cases the resilience
and protection of communications and the management of signatures,
along with ensuring the integrity of mission essential data will be necessary to
deny or mitigate this persistent vector of attack.

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Vignette 1: Sustaining
Stand-In Forces & Naval Campaigning
This vignette addresses the support to a Stand-in Force operating as a part of
the “contact layer” per the Global Operating Model defined in the National
Defense Strategy of 2018 and 2022.³¹ It identifies that task of the force in day-
to-day (D2D) operations and in the transition to armed conflict as the contact
layer merges to become a part of the “blunt layer” force.

The key logistical challenges to enable the SIF are focused on sustainment
and distribution at the tactical edge. In effect this is the delivery of all
required material support and services (medical, engineering, etc.) with the
transportation means (organic, non-organic, crewed/uncrewed) necessary
for a distributed, highly mobile, precisely resourced, and low-signature force.
Vignette 1: Sustaining
Stand-In Forces & Naval Campaigning
The following conditions were used to frame the vignette and the role of the
SIF in this scenario in order to quantify the challenges that would have to be
evaluated during wargaming at this level:

SIF conducts deterrence activities and C5ISRT to gain and maintain

custody of targets with allied and partner forces.

SIF is operating as a “contact layer” force in day-to-day operations as a

part of persistent campaigning.

SIF receives last major sustainment and repair during crisis events.
Transitions from a contact layer force to blunt layer force.

SIF is unable to be reinforced or sustained rapidly in initial stages of armed

conflict while engaged in blunt layer activities.

The discussion points used to consider possible wargaming objectives were

provided below. Many of these were derived from the CNAS study titled
“Buying Time Logistics for a New American Way of War”:³²

Credible forward forces are indispensable for presence and persistent

tempo needed to deny adversary control and deter adversary aggression.

In conflicts with China or Russia, forward bases will be disrupted or

disabled and resupply from “rear” areas will be delayed or limited.

Pre-positioning can be an effective means to reduce dependence on

forward bases and resupply from rear areas, provided that the
prepositioned stocks are accessible, distributed, secured, and properly
maintained. Supplemented by local sources as feasible.

Smaller, more distributed materiel and equipment sets are far less likely to
be targeted, and more resilient to adversary attacks, but they also create
enormous demands for logistical personnel to emplace, track, maintain,
and exploit them.

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Vignette 1: Sustaining
Stand-In Forces & Naval Campaigning
This resulted in the following recommended objectives by the panel that
would inform a wargame design:

Evaluate the activities conducted by logistics forces and determine their

contribution to integrated deterrence in day-to-day competition and
crisis through logistic maneuver and engagement.

Assess if revealing or concealing logistical preparedness and resiliency

in-Theater impacts adversary calculus to elevate conflict.

Identify the perspective of USMC infantry support to logistics under the

changing role of EABO and SIF potentially as protection activities if logistics
is the main effort or main enabling activity in day-to-day and crisis in
preparation for armed conflict.

Assess the overall security and force protection requirements for logistics
forces and the means to ensure their continued operations through active
or passive security measures.

Identify the availability of organic and joint transportation platforms to

support a fully modeled and distributed force across all expected ranges
and locations for operations. Abstract gaps in distribution means and
recommend alternative platforms or approaches.³³

Identify the range of effective services that can be derived to sustain the
force at the tactical level deployed in day-to-day, crisis, and armed
conflict from contracting, foraging, and regeneration. Abstract gaps that
cannot be satisfied by these means to military sustainment stocks and the
requirement for on-hand classes of supply at the unit level for EABO
equivalent capabilities provided by ashore combat and logistics trains,
afloat platforms, or unmanned caches.

Identify the C2 and secure data requirements for tactical units to

leverage sustainment webs enabled by adjacent Joint forces or coalition
partners or those which must be requested from higher echelons for
support.

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Vignette 2: Naval Operational Logistics
& The Joint Logistics Enterprise
This vignette was used to capture the relationship of operational logistics at
the Theater level. It encompasses Marine Corps component service-unique
logistics, integrated naval logistics known as an “OPLOG”, and integration with
Theater Sustainment under the Combatant Commander’s directive authority
for logistics as a part of a Joint Logistics Enterprise (JLEnt).

The key logistical activities identified at this level are USMC integration with
OPLOG and access to the JLEnt. The key logistical challenges at this level are
the command relationships, the communications and data networks
needed to provide logistics status, in-transit visibility (ITV), and to request
logistical support among the Theater logistics enterprise.

Secondary challenges involve the sustainment posture and the capacity of

installations and facilities to support changing prepositioning requirements to
facilitate service specific logistics or to receive common user logistics as part
of an overall sustainment web.
Vignette 2: Naval Operational Logistics
& The Joint Logistics Enterprise
The concept of a sustainment web presumes that in the instances of acute
logistical shortfalls or adversarial compromise to distribution, any member of
the Joint Force (and coalition) can solicit support from a variety of means not
necessarily tied to organic capacity.

To affect that outcome, the critical capability must be one where units are
able to communicate those demands to any member of the JLEnt and also
ensure the request can be fulfilled either for supplies, engineering services,
medical support, or transportation through total visibility of status and ITV
when fulfillment is in motion.³⁴

The following conditions further framed the vignette:

OPLOG and JLEnt capacity to conduct Theater-level and organic Service

unique sustainment and distribution.

Data sharing and resilient C2. The ability to sustain USMC forces and
exploit Joint Logistics when possible and available.

Maritime/Littoral logistics interoperability with JLEnt, allies, and partners.

The discussion points to consider possible wargaming objectives were:

Pre-positioned stocks should be close enough to potential combat that

they enable U.S. forces to get into the fight quickly, but not so close that
U.S. forces are vulnerable to attack while falling in on their equipment.

U.S., allies, and partners must prepare multiple defensible logistical lines of
communication, particularly in the most contested environments.
“Logistics determines the options available to a commander, posture
determines the options available to the logistician.”

The responsiveness and efficiency of pull or push systems require detailed

knowledge of combat forces’ logistical necessities and means to
communicate these needs to logisticians. C2 systems provide the ability
to understand and act on data.

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Vignette 2: Naval Operational Logistics
& The Joint Logistics Enterprise
This resulted in the following recommended objectives by the panel that
would inform a wargame design:

Define what a sustainment web is across the USMC, OPLOG, and JLEnt
relative to how these elements interact and what is required to do so.

Determine the degree to which allied and partner interoperability is

required to facilitate sustainment webs. Identify capabilities and
limitations with our systems and develop solutions to mitigate those
deficiencies from day-to-day through armed conflict.

Determine the C2, communications, data resources, and potential AI-

enabled decision support and predictive analytics required for the
Marine Corps to be a part of a functional sustainment web. Identify Joint
systems development and how to capitalize on those efforts to facilitate
integration of USMC requirements within the core design.

Determine the global positioning locations from onshore in host nations,

offshore and afloat, as well as potential caches provided by uncrewed
systems that enable operational logistics.

Couple this with a deep dive for the fully burdened requirements from
“warehousing” to transportation means for each solution-type in this
network to assess feasibility. Consider this from a joint, interagency,
intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) perspective.³⁵

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Vignette 3: USMC Strategic Logistics
& The Organic Industrial Base
The final vignette addresses the role of strategic logistics for the Marine corps
and identifies to key activities that connect the Service to the strategic
logistics enterprise namely: the joint deployment and distribution enterprise
(JDDE) and the service organic / defense industrial base.

This vignette highlights the need for the Marine Corps to register its
requirements for strategic level transportation. This also requires the service
to quantify its material demands and needs to sustain organic industrial
capacity as well as that which it sources from the larger defense industrial
enterprise.

In any instance where resources are insufficient as to compromise

distribution to the tactical edge or recover of assets for repair and return to
use, the Marine Corps will need to seek alternative means for transportation.³⁶
Vignette 3: USMC Strategic Logistics
& The Organic Industrial Base
For industrial requirements, the Marine Corps will need to procure sufficient
resources to sustain industrial production, especially at the outset of hostilities
or firmly have its wedge of the larger defense industrial base established.

Within all of this is the capacity of bases and facilities to function as key
nodes among both the JDDE and industrial enterprises with sufficient
resilience and protection to ensure that these locations remain in operation
during critical phases. This is especially true as it relates to forward locations
but cannot be dismissed within the homeland.

The following conditions were used to frame the vignette and the role of the
SIF in this scenario to quantify the challenges that would have to be
evaluated during wargaming at this level:

USMC strategic logistics demands are broken into three areas of focus:
bases and stations; access to joint deployment and distribution
enterprise; and the demand between organic and the larger defense
industrial base.

Installations will be required to make greater contributions to the

sustainment network in support of the future force, particularly in forward
locations.

JDDE: USMC is fully integrated within the network for total planning,
visibility, deconfliction, and transition to naval OPLOG and Theater JLEnt.

OIB: includes USMC supply and maintenance depots, requires

modernization to support rapid deployment and sustainment.

DIB: USMC can fully articulate defense industrial base demand and is able
to develop, well in advance of crisis, the sustained activity to support
mobilization.

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Vignette 3: USMC Strategic Logistics
& The Organic Industrial Base
The discussion points used to consider possible wargaming objectives were
provided below:

Known critical munitions and long-lead platform shortfalls, that left

unaddressed, affect deterrence now and are unable to be rapidly
increased during any phase of conflict.

The game must consider the overall lift requirements which are more than
JDDE capacity to support and ways that can be supplemented/
augmented. Further, USMC must advocate for those larger transportation
programs in concert with other Joint advocates to identify the share of
USMC demand shortfalls.

Base posture: hardening, defending, expanding with partners and allies

(Access, basing, overflight as well as defense and projection) has to be
clarified at scale in base master plans and synchronized with OPLANS for
joint sustainment areas and regional defense relationships.

CONUS APOD/SPOD availability, deconfliction, and resilience.

USMC organic production and service unique demand across contested

supply chains. Has USMC effectively registered its demand for common
DIB resources or captured the OIB requirements?

What is the manpower plan for artisans, mariners, and operations

personnel? Have USN/USMC registered their demand for joint enterprise
support?

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Vignette 3: USMC Strategic Logistics
& The Organic Industrial Base
This resulted in the following recommended objectives by the panel that
would inform a wargame design:

Consider the use of non-traditional platforms to supplement JDDE nodes

like oil rigs and other extractive platforms for re-purposing to military
applications.³⁷

Identify USMC base and station integration into CCDR controlled regional
defense requirements and joint sustainment area operations.

Identify the exact C2 required for operations in a defense network and the
defensive units that must be hosted on bases and stations from joint
providers.³⁸

Identify the requirements for evacuation of non-essential civilians and

dependents and/or the capacity to protect and sustain dependents
through escalation.³⁹

Identify the USMC OIB activities and requirements and back trace key
and essential supply chains, manufacturing chains, and artisan
requirements for both pre-conflict production as well as battle damage
and recovery requirements.

Consider alternate positioning of echelon 3/4 capabilities for forward

support to address contested or congested transportation challenges.

Identify the USMC demand on DIB activities and requirements. Back trace
key and essential supply chains, manufacturing chains, and artisan
requirements for both pre-conflict production as a well as battle damage
and recovery and return-to-use requirements for key capabilities.

23
Proposed

WARGAME
DESIGNS
Protect the Rock
Inside Reach
Operating With Friends and Family
Wedemeyer’s Challenge

24
Protect the Rock
The purpose of Protect the Rock is to identify the way Marine Corps bases
and stations can support continuous campaigning up to, and including,
conventional armed combat.

The method for this challenge is a matrix-style game. Matrix games are
interactive dialogue games where opposing players present plans or
concepts to deal with the problem presented in the scenario.

This is an interesting conundrum since bases and stations are not only the
means to facilitate presence and power projection (either as situated in
foreign countries or in the homeland) but also to ensure the livelihood and
wellbeing of the community that they house and support.⁴⁰ For this reason,
any game that tests the capacity of bases and stations must bifurcate Blue
(friendly forces) into an element that represents the community resources of
the base and the operations of critical capabilities related to enabling
logistical sustainment and tenant/transient force power projection.
Protect the Rock:
Players & Methodology
For all operations conducted from competition through conventional armed
conflict, the impact of the community on operational capabilities and vice
versa must be played and compared for relative changes in posture and
resource demands.

In this case the role of Red (adversary force) can likely be abstracted in the
scenario simply to define plausible challenges without requiring too much in
terms of dynamic maneuver or response on the part of the Red Cell to Blue
Cell (friendly force) actions. This makes it feasible to play the game as a 1-
sided or 1 ½ -sided game, meaning that Red is represented in the scenario but
the actions of Blue are the primary concern in play for which an adversary
counter-action is not essential to the problem.

However, the role of the White Cell (game adjudication) and Green Cell
(allies and partners) take on a larger aspect than normal since they are
directly influential in representing the constraints over both elements of Blue
who are representing community operations and military platform
operations.

The Green Cell must be staffed with representatives of either host nations (in
the case of overseas bases) or represent local communities (in the case of
homeland bases) who have considerable sway in terms of how bases
operate and what resources they draw from local and municipal
governments as it may impact the communities around the bases during
times of crisis or hostilities. In terms of overseas bases, this will also require
knowledge of any treaty or contract relationships with the Host Nation for
which the White Cell will need a corresponding interagency representative for
Department of State or other cabinet-level officer or agency of jurisdiction.

26
Protect the Rock:
Players & Methodology (Cont.)
The White Cell must be staffed by representatives who are experienced in
the policies, guidelines, and laws related to the state, federal, and tribal
government agencies that interact or have oversight over base operations.

The White Cell will also have to be augmented by those echelons of

personnel who would represent the relationship of the base to service-level
and Joint operations for those resources that are used to sustain operations
(warehouses, medical facilities, airfield/port operations, fuel storage,
communications nodes, intelligence collection) or conduct joint integrated
installation defense (cyber, counter-air, counter-maritime) on behalf of a
Theater commander. A Theater of play may be either overseas or in the
homeland.

The methodology of this game would be turn-based but in this instance

there are likely three players per turn: Red, Blue, and Green.

There are 4 recommended turns based on the conditions in competition,

crisis, commencement of armed conflict, and prolonged sustainment of
armed conflict.

The robust data required to quantify the role, actions, and activities of each of
the player elements will need extensive research, preparation, subject matter
expert augmentation, and player education to be of any value to institutional
decisions.

In truth, the complexity of this game to address the competing demands of

community functions and operational functions simultaneously under the
auspices of hostile challenges is intensive to say the least and will likely
require multiple games to quantify.

27
Protect the Rock:
Game Schema
There are two versions of this game: one for an overseas base or station and
one for a homeland facility. Either game type will explore the following:

The ability of Blue to manage both community actions and operational

actions on the same facility and adequately resource either function from
competition to armed conflict. This may also require the examination of
nonessential personnel evacuation and the supplementation of a local
national workforce in the case of overseas bases.

The ability of Blue to manage concurrent civil demands and operational

demands, especially as civil resources (power, water, etc.) impact the
ability to ensure uninterrupted operations of operational requirements.

The ability of Blue to absorb an increase of resources and personnel to

introduce defensive capability or conduct operations as a location for
national/regional mobilization of active duty and reserve forces.

The ability of Blue to integrate lethal and non-lethal defensive measures

that can project beyond the air, maritime, and land boundaries of a base.

The ability of Blue to effectively mitigate the concerns of Green but

conform to the conditions set by either Green or White based on
regulation and operational constraints of policy, law, civil-military
relationships, treaty, etc.

28
Protect the Rock:
Outcomes
Identify the potential changes to policy and law that are needed to
transition from D2D, to crisis, to armed hostilities as they impact access to
civil resources and the direction of base/station workforce.

Identify the points of integration in Theater plans needed for bases and
stations to facilitate Geographic and Functional Combatant Commander
plans for sustainment and defense. The same identification must be
made for service-level plans in support of OPLANS and service-level
institutional mobilization plans.

Identify the concurrent activities that must occur to increase military

operations while affecting the reduction of community services and likely
withdrawal, dispersion, or protection of family members and civilians on
the bases.

Identify the means to sustain necessary workforce to continue key and

essential operations, especially in localities where the bulk of operations
are enabled by host nation nationals.

Identify the role of base and station commanders in coordinating the

base operating support services necessary for theater commanders and
tenant forces to use, enable, and maintain facilities necessary for
sustained force protection and projection.

Identify the planning considerations and requirements necessary to

sustain resources delivered by off-base providers or to supplement with
military capabilities especially for essential functions of power, water,
sanitation, food services, etc.

29
Inside Reach
The purpose of Inside Reach is two-fold:

first is to examine how the theater is set logistically to support the

operations of a SIF commencing in competition and

second; evaluate methods of distribution and sustainment from

competition, crisis, armed conflict, and protracted conflict.

This game can either be conducted as a matrix game and/or

augmented/executed by computer enabled simulation with physics-based
modeling tools that can mimic the timing and performance of distribution
assets whether they are manned or unmanned systems. In addition, this
game can benefit from nascent application of AI-enabled predictive analysis
for sustainment demand or with pre-existing models for consumption
currently available in most service and joint-training simulations.
Inside Reach:
Players & Methodology
The game will focus on the SIF as a contact layer force and into a transition as
a blunt layer force. The operational transition will need to be caveated by
limiting the blunt to only those forces and means that can be reasonably
introduced into theater and sustained, based on the scenario.

However, unique to this game would be an attempt to assess how logistics, as

a key activity in competition, serves to support campaigning and integrated
deterrence. The game would explore those frameworks by examining how the
capacity of the SIF to logistically endure escalation and temporary isolation
impacts adversary calculus to pursue that course.

The Red Cell (adversary force) must not only represent the appropriate
operational elements that will challenge the SIF, but must include the military
and political decision-making systems that will evaluate how the logistical
posture of the SIF would impact decisions to escalate conflict.

The Blue Cell (friendly force) would not only need to be composed of logistics
elements but must include the operational forces being sustained. In this
instance it is necessary for an actual maneuver element to be simulated by
role players, not one merely abstracted for modeling purposes. Maneuver
advocates need to be involved in these games as supported forces in order
to properly communicate their priorities and issues relative to their logistical
requirements.

The Green Cell (allies and partners) in this case must represent host nation
governments, military forces, commercial entities, and the local populations
in order to identify the appropriate means of establishing and maintaining
logistical support to the SIF if it is reliant on support from Green.

31
Inside Reach:
Players & Methodology (Cont.)
The White Cell (game adjudication) in this instance is fairly conventional
providing the assessment of the efficacy of the Blue’s logistical actions to
Red’s activities. In this instance, it may be valuable for the White Cell to get
brief-backs from the supported SIF forces to determine if the maneuver
elements have been adequately sustained based on the logistics force’s
concept of operations. Additionally, White will need to ensure that subject
matter experts for all capabilities and methods of proposed sustainment and
distribution can validate Blue’s application of future technologies and
approaches.

The methodology of this game would be a geographically accurate turn-

based wargame. In this instance geospatial considerations factor greatly into
assessing the efficacy of existing or proposed solutions for either sustainment
options or distribution means.

It would use IGO/UGO turn phases, single blind, as Red will see Blue. The
importance of Red seeing Blue in this instance is to examine the role that
logistically enabled forces have on the calculus of Red to escalate to crisis or
armed conflict since “reveal or conceal” is a component to viewing logistics
through the operations, activities, and investments lens.

32
Inside Reach:
Game Schema
This game will explore the following:

The ability of the Marine Corps to set the theater logistically and the
requirements needed from other elements of the Marine Corps presuming
that setting the logistics posture is a key supporting effort to the larger
Theater-level campaign.

The identification of those nodes necessary for the storage and

distribution of sustainment to a SIF inside or outside of a host nation,
onshore or offshore, and manned or unmanned.

Identify the relationship of tactical logistical elements to naval OPLOG,

JLEnt, coalition partners for sustainment and distribution.

Identify the C2 and data requirements necessary to affect tactical-level

logistics for a SIF.

Examine the efficacy of regenerative logistics and 21st century foraging as

practical logistical options from competition through armed conflict. This
must be counterbalanced by considering a purely organic provision of
sustainment through Marine Corps-only provided means.

Consider the role of tactical logistics as a component of theater

campaigning and integrated deterrence.

33
Inside Reach:
Outcomes
A well-determined framework for what is required to set the Theater
logistically for SIF operations form competition through armed conflict.

Examine how effective logistical capacity enables integrated deterrence

and persistent campaigning.

Identify the most effective sustainment and distribution concepts of

operations and employment to sustain the SIF.

Identify the key requirements to perform the six functions of tactical

logistics in support of the SIF.

Identify the C2 and data requirements necessary for the persistent

sustainment of the force and to what level a SIF must access Joint or
coalition assets to supplement organic service means

34
Operating with Friends & Family
This purpose of this game is to analyze sustainment from the Homeland to a
predominantly maritime theater in order to sustain forces across large
distances. Access, basing and overflight, as well as, Host Nation, Allies and
Partners, and contract support would challenge Blue (friendly force) ability to
move and protect assets, supplies and locations or bases in a contested
environment with Red (adversary force).

The scalable, tailorable scenario would drive the sustainment demand signal,
as well as, force structure, Order of Battle and limitations and constraints to
mirror authorities, rules of engagement, and applicable imitations and
constraints. Ground maneuver and combat will be abstracted to generate the
demands. Red actions will frustrate Blue's efforts and prevent them from
getting the necessary supplies and units forward.

The game methodology would be an area/zone turn based wargame*. It

would use IGO/UGO turn phases, single blind, as Red will see Blue. Both players
will use cards to resolve their actions. Red cards will include kinetic and non-
kinetic activities against sustainment activities. The game also has an
optimization tool to assist in asset management.
*Reference the Appendix for an example area/zone wargame map
Operating with Friends & Family:
Game Schema & Outcome
This game will explore the following:

Ability of Blue to provide required sustainment to US forces by turn.

[quantitative]

Effectiveness of Red frustration measures on impeding Blue sustainment

operations. [qualitative]

Effectiveness of Blue reactions to Red frustrations that still allow Blue to

sustain required forces. [qualitative]

The implications and conditions that Green (allies and partners) sets on
the ability of the Blue to pursue forward positioning and enabling of key
nodes to conduct military-focused operations.

Determine transitions in authorities by phase of conflict.

Determine force posture, potential access, basing, and overflight

requirements, force structure gaps based on mobilization timelines,
capability, or capacity gaps, etc.

Determine Combined, Joint, Interagency and Service interdependencies.

Specific consideration must be placed on activities that require
interagency agreements and relationships with host nations (Green) upon
which the military is dependent for pursuit of desired plans and
operations.

The outcome of this game would be a well-developed framework for theater

posture, gap mitigation in multiple areas (force structure, capability,
capacity), transition in authorities across the theater and resource
management (transportation assets in particular).

36
Wedemeyer’s Challenge
The purpose of this game is to mitigate the effects of attrition or prevent
logistical culmination through proactive global posture of bases and stations,
the organic industrial base (OIB), and the defense industrial base (DIB).

The game method recommended for this problem is a matrix game using a
technique referred to as “backcasting”. Backcasting uses the ending
conditions for a conflict with an adversary and then conducts a series of
game turns working backwards in time to discover the origin of the challenge
and identify the chain of events that may lead to the proposed end state of
the conflict.

Protect the Rock could be part of a tactical-level extension of Wedemeyer’s

Challenge. This may be a case where the operational/strategic scenario in
Wedemeyer’s challenge cues concurrent tactical detailed examination in
Protect the Rock for what is termed an “elegant game” format. Elegant games
use a strategic problem which in turn is resolved in a tactical activity to
inform the next strategic action.
Wedemeyer’s Challenge:
Players & Methodology
Play would be executed using a 2-sided matrix gaming framework
supplemented by computer aided modeling/probability tables of effects for
things like lethal munitions attacks or cyber engagements. Unlike most matrix
game designs, in this method Red (adversary) would move first and Blue
(USMC with select Joint and coalition force considerations) puts mitigations
in place to prevent the final conditions achieved by Red in the originating
game turn vignette to the overall scenario.

These moves would not be blind (one team not seeing a move of the other)
or double-blind (neither side sees a move until revealed in adjudication) as
most games which are conducted in this format. Rather, the purpose is to
examine how Red shapes the environment in revealed ways in order to allow
Blue to examine the operations, activities, and investments (OAI) as well as
command relationships needed to respond.

Adjudication of Blue counters to Red would be dependent on the feasibility to

introduce the mitigations proposed by Blue within the timespan of the game.
The White Cell (adjudication and game control) will likely need to be
augmented by expertise in base operations, maritime construction, defense
industrial base, strategic logistics, and similar skill sets as identified in the
master scenario.

Further a robust Green Cell (allies and partners) would need to weigh-in on
the factors associated with host nations and their determinative role in force
posture and response outside of operations in the global commons of sea, air,
cyber, and space. For a game that would similarly address capacity of bases
and stations in the homeland or U.S. territories, the Green Cell would also need
to supply the response of local, state, tribal, federal, and regulatory entities
that would be impacted by the effects on bases and stations of both
response to an attack, support to large scale mobilization, and increase
industrial operations.

38
Wedemeyer’s Challenge:
Game Schema
The use of Protect the Rock would be “sub-turn” to the larger strategic game
for the necessary tactical insights that prevent broad handwaving over
detailed considerations that can frustrate strategic feasibility (i.e. one or two
of a material capability that if compromised would disrupt the CONOPS for an
entire strategic theater). In this case a detailed tactical model gives
indications of a strategically feasible approach and can be used as an
analog for other similar tactical issues.

Ultimately, the goal would be to mitigate the effects of attrition or prevent

logistical culmination based on three primary activities:

Determine what posture would be necessary prior to hostilities to preserve

bases and stations as operational hubs to project forces and ensure
sustainment into the adversary advance. This would include bases closest
to the point of hostilities as well as homeland hubs specific to the service-
level strategic sustainment. Gaps in capacity to sustain fixed bases and
stations could also explore more mobile basing options not associated
with tactical EABO but not to interfere with operational level platforms.
These may involve developed contingency locations or use of things like
at-sea platforms

Determine the requirements for the Marine Corps to supply service-unique

capabilities throughout the conflict. This would determine the posture,
activities, and authorities necessary for the Marine Corps to preserve its
OIB requirements.

Determine the dependencies the Marine Corps would have on the national
or common resources to ensure the access to required materials or
national production to register its requirements in the larger DIB
requirements.

39
Wedemeyer’s Challenge:
Outcomes
Develop a well-developed framework for supply chain, industrial, and
infrastructure support requirements starting in day-to-day competition
through armed conflict.

Identify the frameworks to activate for both the industrial base and
base/station operations for the JDDE through crisis and armed conflict to
ensure protection and operation of those capabilities from persistent
competition through concentrated attacks.

Identify critical resources (munitions, manufacturing, fuel, etc.) to

prioritize investment among various demands.

Determine critical personnel requirements at each stage of activity and

establish parameters for things like directed departures of families from
overseas bases or sustainment of operations of civilian and military
workforces at critical hubs.

The actions on bases could also be complemented by the insights

derived from “Protect the Rock” wargame as well.

40
Conclusion/Way Forward
Wargames have been a critical factor in the development of military
technology, plans, and tactics for centuries. Yet, wargames are not an end
unto themselves. Rather, they are an element of a broader approach in the
process for the development and design of ideas and means for defense
requirements.

By using wargames in a campaign of learning, the Marine Corps may be able

to assess the impact of contested logistics across the enterprise from tactical
support to its industrial base requirements.

Hopefully, the insights and recommendations of this conference report will

stimulate thinking on how to design those wargames and capture the
underlying considerations that must be noted in order to properly inform any
institutional decisions derived from the games.

41
APPENDIX
Contested Logistics Wargaming Panel
Presentation, Moderated by Travis Reese
Example Indo-Pacific Area/Zone Wargame Map

42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Example Area/Zone Map
5
Alaska
10

Zone 3 5
North SeaTac
10

5
Bay Area
10
Zone 2
North
10 South
10
10 Korea 10 Los Angeles
10
10 Japan

10
Zone 1 San Diego
North 10
Zone 3
Center

5
Hawaii
10
Zone 2
Center

1
Zone 1 Guam
5
Center 1
Kwajalein
1

1
Palau
1

5 Papua Zone 3
South
1 New Guinea Zone 2
South

Zone 1
South

Zone 2 – Indian Ocean

10
1 Diego © 2023 THE MITRE CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . FOR INTERNAL
Australia USE ONLY.
10
1 Garcia

“Operating With Friends & Family” Wargame Design

This purpose of this game is to analyze sustainment from the Homeland to a predominantly maritime theater in order to sustain forces across large
distances. Access, basing and overflight, as well as, Host Nation, Allies and Partners, and contract support would challenge Blue (friendly force) ability
to move and protect assets, supplies and locations or bases in a contested environment with Red (adversary force).
The game methodology would be an area/zone turn based wargame. It would use IGO/UGO turn phases, single blind, as Red will see Blue. Both
players will use cards to resolve their actions. Red cards will include kinetic and non-kinetic activities against sustainment activities. The game also
has an optimization tool to assist in asset management.
End Notes
¹ Strategic Wargaming Division, Center for Strategic Leadership and Development, US Army War College, Strategic
Wargaming Series Handbook (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Wargaming Division, 2015), 8-9,
https://csl.armywarcollege.edu/DSE/StrategicWargamingDivision/publications/USAWC%20Wargame%20Handbook%
201%20July%2015.pdf.

² US Marine Corps, Marine Corps Planning Process, MCWP 5-10 (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps,
August 10, 2020), 4, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCWP%205-10.pdf?
ver=CK4C14H7VdKkvnhSHhlJUg%3d%3d.

³ Peter P. Perla and ED McGrady, “Why Wargaming Works,” Naval War College Review 64 (2011), 15, https://digital-
commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol64/iss3/8/.

⁴ US Marine Corps, Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations 2nd Edition, TM EABO (Washington,
DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps, May 2023), https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Docs/230509-Tentative-Manual-
For-Expeditionary-Advanced-BaseOperations-2nd-Edition.pdf?ver=05KvG8wWlhI7uE0amD5uYg%3D%3D.

⁵ US Marine Corps, A Concept for Stand-in Forces (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps, December 2021),
https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Users/183/35/4535/211201_A%20Concept%20for%20Stand-
In%20Forces.pdf.

⁶ Timothy R. Heath, Kristen Gunness, Tristan Finazzo, The Return of Great Power War Scenarios of Systemic Conflict
Between the United States and China (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022),
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA830-1.html.

⁷ Peter C. Luebke, Timothy L. Francis, and Heather M. Haley, Contested Logistics: Sustaining the Pacific War,
(Washington, DC: Naval History and Heritage Command, June 13, 2023),
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/publications/publications-by-subject/logistics.html.

⁸ Pierre Branda, “Did the war pay for the war? An assessment of napoleon's attempts to make his campaigns self-
financing,” Napoleonica. La Revue 3 (2008), https://www.cairn.info/revue-napoleonica-la-revue-2008-3-page-
2.htm.

⁹ Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., “Supply Problems Plagued the Continental Army from the Start,” Washington Papers,
https://washingtonpapers.org/resources/articles/supply-problems-plagued-the-continental-army-from-the-
start/.

¹⁰ Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein, “Commoditized Weapons in Ukraine: Are the Allies Getting the Procurement
Right?,” War on the Rocks, August 24, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/08/commoditized-weapons-in-
ukraine-are-the-allies-getting-the-procurement-right/.

¹¹ Jacob Maywals, Benjamin Hazen, Edward Salo, and Michael Hugos, “Logistics Interdiction for Taiwan Unification
Campaigns,” War on the Rocks, August 21, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/08/logistics-interdiction-for-
taiwan-unification-campaigns/.

¹² Chris Dougherty, Buying Time: Logistics for a New American Way of War (Washington, DC: Center for a New
American Security, April 13, 2023), https://www.cnas.org/press/press-release/buying-time-logistics-for-a-new-
american-way-of-war.

51
¹³ John Sattely and Jason A. Paredes, “Sustainment of the Stand-In Force,” War on the Rocks, September 12, 2022,
https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/sustainment-of-the-stand-in-force/.

¹⁴ US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Government
Publishing Office, 2022), 8-17, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-
11/2022_Annual_Report_to_Congress.pdf.

¹⁵ Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Logistics (Washington, DC, September 25, 2015), 8,
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_logistics.pdf?ver=2017-12-28-162028-
713.

¹⁶ US Marine Corps, Installations and Logistics 2030 (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps, February 2023),
1, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Docs/Installations%20and%20Logistics%202030.pdf.

¹⁷ Beth Reece, “Managing Logistics in Contested Areas Is Key to Military Success,” in National Defense Industrial
Association’s Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference (Washington, DC: September 2023),
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3513936/managing-logistics-in-contested-areas-is-
key-to-military-success/.

¹⁸ “MARAD Taps CNA to Help Inform New National Maritime Strategy,” MarineLink, September 13, 2023,
https://www.marinelink.com/news/marad-taps-cna-help-inform-new-national-508025.

¹⁹ Justin Katz, “Smaller, leaner: Marines put their new ways to fight to the test,” Breaking Defense, September 1, 2023,
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/smaller-leaner-marines-put-their-new-ways-to-fight-to-the-test/.

²⁰ Amended with a definition for contested logistics with respect to operational energy in the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, 10 U.S. Code § 2926 (2021).

²¹ The JCCL is a SECRET document, but this definition is UNCLASSIFIED. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Contested
Logistics (Washington, DC, 2021).

²² US Marine Corps, Competing, MCDP 1-4 (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps, December 2020), 1-6 to 1-
8, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCDP%201-4.pdf?ver=fGwjmqkxGvv0GPe0mPgdqw%3d%3d.

²³ Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Competing (Washington, DC, February 10, 2023), 4.

²⁴ Jon Middaugh, “Battle of the Atlantic: An Overview,” Naval History and Heritage Command, January 2017,
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-
ii/1942/atlantic/overview.html.

²⁵ Logistics in World War II: Final Report of the Army Service Forces, A Report to the Under Secretary of War and the
Chief of Staff by the Director of the Service, Supply, and Procurement Division, War Department General Staff
(Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1993), 48-50, https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-
29/CMH_Pub_70-29.pdf.

²⁶ David A. Ochmanek, et al., Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of U.S. and Allied Military Power and Influence
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2555-1.html.

²⁷ Logistics in World War II: Final Report of the Army Service Forces (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US
Army, 1993), 1-9.

52
²⁸ Ronald O'Rourke, U.S.-China Strategic Competition in South and East China Seas. Background and Issues for
Congress (R42784). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, September 14, 2023.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R42784/145.

²⁹ Alex Wooley, Sheng Zhang, Rory Fedorochko, and Sarina Patterson, Harboring Global Ambitions: China's Ports
Footprint and Implications for Future Overseas Naval Bases (Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William & Mary , 2023),
https://www.aiddata.org/publications/harboring-global-ambitions.

³⁰ Kerry Gershaneck, “To Win without Fighting: Defining China's Political Warfare,” Expeditions with MCUP (April, 2020),
https://doi.org/10.36304/ExpwMCUP.2020.04.

³¹ Paul Lyons and Jon Solomon, “The Global Operating Model’s Contact and Blunt Layers: Cornerstones for U.S. Naval
Strategy, Part 1,” Center for International Maritime Security, January 6, 2022, https://cimsec.org/the-global-
operating-models-contact-and-blunt-layers-cornerstones-for-u-s-naval-strategy-pt-1/.

³² Chris Dougherty, Buying Time: Logistics for a New American Way of War (Washington, DC: Center for a New
American Security, April 13, 2023), https://www.cnas.org/press/press-release/buying-time-logistics-for-a-new-
american-way-of-war.

³³ John Sattely and Jason A. Paredes, “Sustainment of the Stand-In Force,” War on the Rocks, September 12, 2022,
https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/sustainment-of-the-stand-in-force/.

³⁴ Department of Defense Inspector General, Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions to Develop Interoperable Systems and
Tools for Forecasting Logistics Demand Across the Joint Logistics Enterprise. Washington, DC: DoD Inspector General,
April 28, 2022. https://media.defense.gov/2022/May/04/2002989683/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2022-088_REDACTED.PDF.

³⁵ John Sattely and Jesse Johnson, “Sustaining Distributed Forces in a Conflict with China,” War on the Rocks, April 21,
2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/04/sustaining-distributed-forces-in-a-conflict-with-china/.

³⁶ Michael Marrow, “’Largest conundrum of them all’: Air Force still unsure how to keep forces supplied in Indo-Pacific,”
Breaking Defense, August 30, 2023, https://breakingdefense.com/2023/08/largest-conundrum-of-them-all-air-
force-still-unsure-how-to-keep-forces-supplied-in-indo-pacific/.

³⁷ Blake Herzinger, “It’s Time to Build Combined Forward Operating Base Sierra Madre,” War on the Rocks, September
11, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/its-time-to-build-combined-forward-operating-base-sierra-madre/.

³⁸ David Maxwell, “Installations in Contested Environments: The Taiwan Crisis of 2027,” Marine Corps Gazette (May
2023), https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Maxwell-May23.pdf.

³⁹ Brian Kerg, “Get Families Out of the First Island Chain,” Marine Corps Gazette (September 2023)

⁴⁰ Renanah M. Joyce and Brian Blankenship, “Access Denied? The Future of U.S. Basing in a Contested World,” War on
the Rocks, February 1, 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/02/access-denied-the-future-of-u-s-basing-in-a-
contested-world/.

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