The Marine Corps Gazette is well-known for providing generations of Marines with a virtuous push-pull cycle of learning through which they can both share their ideas and arguments with other Marines through publication, and further benefit from those same Marines’ divergent thoughts and conclusions each month. While traditionally focused on tactical-level challenges and tactical excellence, the Gazette has never engaged in intellectual caution or retreat when confronted by larger operational or strategic issues and challenges—most memorably the Maneuver Warfare debates all across the 1980s, or discussions on Dr. Strange’s Center-of-Gravity Analytic Model in the late 1990s. It is in a spirit consistent with those broader operational-and-strategic-level discussions that this month’s edition is focused, and that logisticians and campaign planners across the force remain focused. 

At the strategic level, logistics (sustainment) is a key component of deterrence. According to former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, the key to deterrence is that “it cannot be a bluff; it must be credible.” In the context of modern warfare, particularly against a peer adversary, deterrence credibility and prospects for prevailing are largely attained by solving three core challenges of operational employment: force mobilization and deployment, force closure, and force sustainment of operations.   

• Force Mobilization and Deployment: This is the rapid aggregation and initial movement of forces from their home stations to the theater of operations. It sets the clock for the entire campaign. As maneuverists, we seek to create temporal warfighting advantages for the FMF via rapid deployments. 

• Force Closure: This is the systematic assembly and compositing of the force, linking personnel with their equipment and initial supplies in actions that enable reconstitution of the force within the theater. It ensures the commander has the complete, ready force required to restore the pre-conflict status quo or terminate the conflict to our advantage.

• Force Sustainment of Operations: This is the continuous flow of everything needed to maintain and prolong operations—fuel, ammunition, spare parts, medical services, and personnel support. It is the most challenging and enduring problem when all domains will be actively contested.

Taking a page from Chinese naming conventions, I refer to these steps collectively as The Three Principal Moves, and they encapsulate the actions necessary to deliver comprehensive operational effectiveness. 

The advent of modern warfare, however, has significantly complicated the execution of The Three Principal Moves. Unlike in the past, all actions of the force in each move will be contested simultaneously across all domains. As I stated in last year’s “Focus on Logistics” edition of the Marine Corps Gazette, successful operations in contested environments require us to think, act, and operate differently. Our historical successes are undeniable, but at the strategic and operational levels, those methods of deployment, force closure, and sustainment were effectively conducted in permissive environments; we could fly, sail, offload, and operate anywhere we wanted with minimal concerns about enemy impediments to those actions—and we did just that. Modern warfare does not offer such luxuries. Each domain will be contested to varying degrees throughout our conduct of The Three Principal Moves.

At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all domains. Without the ability to sustain protracted fires through the creation of an inexhaustible magazine afloat, ashore, or in the air, then there is no combat credibility. If there is no combat credibility, then there is no deterrence.  Yes—deterrence requires more than just advanced weaponry; it requires a demonstrated ability to sustain those forces in a fight, and the reality of modern war involving major power peer adversaries is that such a fight will most likely be protracted.  A force’s ability to sustain operations in a protracted conflict will be the deciding factor in enabling that force to prevail.  

At the operational level, logistics is the indispensable bridge that connects strategy to the tactical realities of the modern all-domain battlespace. It is the lifeblood that sustains combat forces, providing the necessary resources to project power, maneuver, and sustain the fight with endurance; logistics drives strategy, and it enables operations, particularly protracted operations. Far from being a mere administrative or secondary function, logistics is the determinant warfighting function. Logistics ultimately determines the success or failure of any military campaign, and well before that, it determines whether a force is ready. I support the conclusion of GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower, who observed, “you will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” 

The Marine Corps Installation and Logistics Enterprise, including global prepositioned stocks and resilient infrastructure, directly prevents the FMF from reaching its culminating point in conflict. The culminating point is the point in time and space where a military force no longer possesses the superiority in combat power to continue its advance, forcing it to assume a defensive posture or retreat. This point is almost always reached due to the exhaustion of resources that drains a force’s will or depletes its ability to fight long before it is defeated in battle. 

The true measure of Joint Force and naval power is not the total inventory of our equipment, but the ability to deliver that equipment at the decisive place, when needed, and keep it functional over time. When logistics is seen as robust, resilient, and redundant, it signals to an opponent that any initial tactical success will be fleeting, as the opposing force has the capacity to absorb losses and continue fighting indefinitely. As such, a strong logistics footprint is itself a deterrent effect. 

I would like to thank all our authors and contributors, and encourage all consumers of the Gazette to continue to use it as a marketplace of ideas. I have repeatedly challenged you to “Think, Act, and Operate differently,” and I am greatly appreciative of how many have truly embraced that necessity. Over the past year, some tremendously innovative ideas have been developed across our Corps—by all ranks. This is the perfect venue to share how you have been thinking differently with your peers, and to challenge them to reconsider their assumptions, and further, ask themselves—what if I am wrong?  Keep thinking. Keep writing. Keep challenging yourselves and each other. The time to act is now.