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Logistics: The Long Pole in The Tent

21 Aug 2010

“Logistics, logistics, logistics!” That’s what I immediately thought of last December when I heard the President’s decision to double down in Afghanistan and increase the current troop strength by 30,000 over a 5-month period. The most honest answer to the question that immediately comes to mind — How the Hell’s the U.S. Military going to pull this one off? — came from General Webster, the Commander of the Third Army: “Hannibal trying to move over the Alps had a tremendous logistical burden, but it was nothing compared to the complexity we have now.” Notice it really wasn’t an answer…

At the time I would have loved to have seen the Pentagon’s J4/G4’s Power Point slide desk on the additional stress the new “surge” would place on Afghanistan’s already stressed lines of communication. Poor bastards, I would have hated that job. Can you imagine the staff guidance they received when all of the hand-wringing was going on in the Situation Room or the Tank? As I recall, the Chiefs pushed back at the NSC and asked for a longer timeline to get the new “surge” in place but never mentioned that the lack of logistics was the long hole in the tent. So the NSC and POTUS ignored the request and ordered them to shorten the deployment timeline and get the 30K troops in place even quicker. It would have been helpful to get a straight answer on the logistics then, don’t you think? Shouldn’t Mom and Pop, rightfully uptight in Peoria, Illinois with a son-in-law on his third deployment, have a right to know?

Any hoot, from what I heard, the logistic planning guidance went something like this: “Okay staff, before we start the slides, here’s the basic guidance on how we’re going to do this. First, build me a plan that squeezes another 30K worth of troops into the current deployment models using limited air-frames and access-entry-departure airfields. Yeah, I know we were hoping to rest the boys some as we drew down in Iraq but that ain’t going to happen any time soon. You heard the Chief, we’re in an era of “persistent conflict.” Yeah, I know we’re supposed to win straight out but that crap went out with Powell and Scowcroft, so suck it up and get your 21st century war mask on. Second, ensure you secure the LOC’s somehow for all of the line haul movement we’ll have when we’re moving supplies and vehicles on the ring road. Got it that it’s interdicted but we can hire some contractors to secure the loads or pay off the local militias. Third, someone has got to convince the Pakistanis to provide security for port operations and line hauling of supplies to the border crossings. Hey look, Major, I’m not the one that thought it was a good idea to go through Pakistani ports back in 2001 but we had no other choice. I got it that all of the Punjabis and Pashtuns try to outdo one another by torching our supplies, but figure out how to keep’em happy. Fourth, you over there, get with CENTCOM, EUCOM and TRANSCOM and create a new northern route for gear, supplies and troops in case the Pakistani ports and routes into eastern Afghanistan don’t work out. And while you’re at it expand the air bridge so we can get critical supplies and engineers in to country to build X amount of new FOBs and combat outposts. True, we already have over 400 FOBs and Outposts in Afghanistan, so don’t ask me why we need more, but we need more, dammit, so get’er done! Fifth, increase stock of all classes of supply at every FOB and outpost. Sixth, plan for bad weather that limits rotary and fixed wing access to remote airfields. And if we get favorable weather, have a plan to surge assets even though at this point we don’t have a clue where that would come from. Seventh, pay-off Krygystan for use of that airbase in Manas even though we’re paying another corrupt government with a garbage human rights record. Eighth, speaking of garbage, figure out how KBR can dispose of FOB waste without getting the troops sick, I heard it’s starting to become an issue. So no more new burn pits, tell them to use incinerators.

Next figure out what we don’t want to give to the Iraqis as we high-tail it out of there and haul all of the good kit to Kuwait. When you do this, don’t piss off any state Governor or their Adjutant Generals or for that matter our National Guard senior leaders when you brief them that they’re not getting any of the US equipment sets from Iraq to fill their stateside armories. We can’t afford to do that anymore even though we promised them we would – just tell them tough luck when they have to respond to national disasters in the “homeland” without their equipment. Also, don’t forget to increase the contractor footprint in Afghanistan with the new LOGCAP award. And somehow limit their downrange capability because every time we let those jokers out of the wire they shoot dozens of civilians. I know that increases the overall maintenance time for critical equipment because you have to backhaul everything to major FOB’s but you know the trade off. Oh and I almost forgot, the Marines want to stay relevant in the fight because they’re more than “Expeditionary” now but have doctrinal challenges in sustaining themselves longer than 30 days, so task the Army to do their logistics. Oh and another thing, just as you get everything set, the President wants us to start withdrawing, so figure that out in the plan too.

Last, I don’t have to remind you that the Afghan Army is going to need a lot of logistical support as well. But remember, Afghanistan is complex with virulent ethnic and tribal stuff going on with that Army of theirs—you know the Tajiks don’t like the Pashtuns, everyone hates the Hazaris and Karzai has intermingled his ministries and provincial leaders with a rogues gallery favoring his tribe and ethnicity, so deal with it. Any questions?”

“Sir, what is a LOC?” “Well, generally speaking, LOC’s or lines of communication are routes that interconnect military units, supplies and logistic nodes. Their security is vital to a unit’s command and control and its logistics lifeline –they’re key to any successful military operation.” “Sir, how many US troops will deploy in total?” “Approximately 102,000. ISAF troops? Approximately 47,000 from 44 countries. Contractors? Over 100,000.”

Can you imagine what we’ve asked our military to bring off?

Nevertheless, great credit is due to all of the hard working staff, agencies and contractors that had to form a plan from this guidance and somehow try to meet intent under incredibly difficult circumstances. My understanding is that the ramp up continues and that not all the additional troops and enablers have closed yet. But the party line continues that by and large this Hannibalistic effort has been largely successful.

Yet when I query the force, here’s what I get:

“…we really don’t control our LOC’s per se throughout our AO…we are bursting at the seams here on this FOB…if we really press and dedicate assets then we can conduct ground re-supply operations…the aerial delivery systems are working overtime…the Marines in the south just don’t get it…man, when we got here we sat forever because the battalion’s vehicle set was simply missing, and when we recovered it we didn’t have all of the required commo gear and jamming equipment required to be operational…if something breaks down, forget it, it’s a two week adventure to either backhaul it or get a maintenance team forward to fix it, but often without the necessary parts…the connex at Bagram and Kandahar could fill an ocean…when we do control some limited LOC, even then, nothing barely gets through…”

Not much squares here. My thought is that indeed there were necessary strategic and operational muscle movements in the area of logistics conducted over the past eight months to get the new “surge” into Afghanistan, but the matching tactical posture required to regain the initiative is missing. As one contact put it, “We are simply out of Schlitz.”

It wasn’t that long ago that LOC’s also served another purpose, to provide secure routes for runners or dispatch riders to shuttle orders and updates from the front between battlefield commanders. Then, it was ink and parchment: “Benteen, Come On. Big Village. Be quick. Bring packs. PS Bring pacs…”Too often the result was too little too late. Custer did get wiped out. So the question is: After almost 10 years in Afghanistan, can US forces secure their lines of communication and sustain the warfighter effectively or have we reached the breaking point? Can Benteen get the supplies to the beleaguered troops in time?

Meanwhile, I’m sure the American public neither knows the answer nor cares to know what the life and death question even is. Go figure then what the response will be if the US has to commit to another crisis with men and material anytime soon. My guess is that we’ll be out of Schlitz. Big time.

Tags: Afghanistan, LOC, logistics, NSC, Pakistan, POTUS, secure line of communication, Situation Room, US Army
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“Young Officer”

16 Aug 2010

A young officer I once served with recently changed command and is now attending the Army’s Intermediate Level Education course for field grade officers; when he graduates he’ll report to a new unit and redeploy. His tedious ride from the east coast to Kansas coincided with the sacking of McChrystal. Remember him? After the storm broke and his pension was paid, follow up analysis of the “crisis” revealed that the majority of attributable quotes and “off-the-record” background was provided by a score of “young officers” and not necessarily the General himself. Nevertheless, the collateral effect of their untimely and heartfelt Parisian disclosures to the Rolling Stone embedded reporter resulted in an Inspector General investigation of these young officers’ actions and statements. Imagine that, an investigation. Really? For what purpose? And as we’ve all learned by now, after the Wanat reversal, even if they’re found culpable of some level of insubordination or violation of policy, they won’t be held accountable they’ll simply be “Wanated,” yep, as in “to be Wanated,” the non-accountability finesse of a failed leader by his self-protective superiors.

But I digress, so back to my “young officer” driving to the brain-shed at Leavenworth for the consumption of more COIN kool-aid. As we commiserated over the amount of Galula theory he would have to suck down, I asked him to imagine for a moment being on the McCrystal staff still in Kabul tasked with General Petraeus’ transition and the integration of his new brain-trust of soon-to-arrive COIN-dinistas. For those who’ve never experienced the ins and outs of transitioning a four star commander while politely showing the door to the outgoing commander and his immediate staff, suffice to say, it’s a painful exercise. We’ll probably never know the behind-the-scene dynamics of the arrival of King David until Bob Woodward or Tom Ricks writes another breathtaking insider account of the administration or the war. However, we can safely assume that a new master of strategic communications is firmly in place in Kabul and a new brain-trust is arriving to assist the effort. If you want more proof, check out what was reported earlier this week by the New York Times coupled—not coincidentally—with the announcement of General Petraeus’ pending media blitz in the coming weeks. Here it is: “Meanwhile, a rising generation of young officers, who have become experts over the past nine years in the art of counterinsurgency, have begun quietly telling administration officials they need time to get their work done. “Their argument,” said one senior administration official, who would not speak for attribution about the internal policy discussions, “is that while we’ve been in Afghanistan for nine years, only in the past 12 months or so have we started doing this right, and we need to give it some time and think about what our long-term presence in Afghanistan should look like.”

So let me get this straight—the administration is soliciting advice from “young officers” on whether to continue the effort in Afghanistan after next summer when the US is going to begin withdrawal? And they are “experts” as well? For sure we’ve been down this road before, in 2006 when General (Retired) Jack Keane, the American Enterprise Institute and a couple of Army majors and captains from the Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (who subsequently retired) with recent expertise in Anbar province/Iraq drew up a Power Point plan for the “surge,” which was then sold by Keane to John Hannah in Cheney’s office, and well, the rest is history.

Maybe that example is too remote (or simply a footnote to hubris) to apply to this master stroke of strategic messaging wrapped in a soft pitch to the public that “young officers…want more time.” My money is on Petraeus as point man preaching next summer on why the 2011 withdrawal timeline needs to be extended in part because the administration and the public should listen to the “troops”—i.e., these “young officers”—for a change. It’s brilliant.

No doubt the new “experts” are a group of planners from the services “Jedi-knight” programs to plan contingencies and back up plans when the current COIN mantra begins to die down. They are probably joined by other “young officer” staffers assigned to the Joint Staff or the National Security Council who’ve somehow wedged themselves into preparing slides, position papers or might even have a seat at the table at very low-level planning meetings. Regardless, I would also bet they’re Petraeus acolytes or COIN enthusiasts from a different father committed to re-validating their previous deployment successes by pushing the COIN theory as the remedy to whatever threatens US interests. In any case, the word is you best be a Petraeus COIN follower or you’ll be placed in the slow lane. After all, Petraeus was flown back to Washington in 2008 to supervise the Army’s Brigadier General promotion board…

Bottomline, the simple statement that a rising generation of young officers are calling for more time to complete the mission will deeply influence the now-rigged debate. For starters, it will serve as a green light on the battlefield for other young officers to inform VIP’s, respond to the media and brief their troops that “they need more time to get the job done”. Unfortunately, it will also serve as a blanket statement that the entire Army stands behind this call.

What is truly shameful here is the total disregard for those officers and leaders who know the gig is up but aren’t allowed to report the truth—veiled censorship by a master of strategic communications suspending us all in disbelief for at least the time being.

I was tempted to call my “young officer” when I figured out what was going on and wish him luck because he’s the type who’ll tell his superiors that no amount of time, resources or troops will change the dynamics on the ground in Afghanistan. But he beat me to the punch and sent me a short note expressing his hope that the Chief of Staff will visit the brain shed soon so he can tell him directly that a small cadre of the “rising generation of young officers” doesn’t speak for the rest of the Army. Let’s all hope my guy gets to talk.

Tags: 3rd Armored Cavalry, American Enterprise Institute, COIN, General Jack Keane, General McChrystal, General Petreaus, Rolling Stone, Wanat
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“‘King for a Day’ Kit-Wise”

14 Aug 2010

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the Pashtun tribal code in Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, Afghanistan is inhospitable to outsiders to the point of hostility. The history of the valley is marked with violent encounters and campaigns where these isolated tribes defeated their unprepared foes time and time again. In fact, US forces recently ceded ground and treasure by abandoning the valley after five years of futile fighting where they learned the painful lessons of the limits of power and lack of resources. The terrain is unforgiving – it’s elevation lines on a map stand out to even a casual observer – requiring prudent commanders to begin tailoring a soldier’s combat load immediately before any operation can commence while balancing force protection and the inherit risks of reducing the combat load.

From 2005 until this past spring US forces have had a short stock of gear that could be tailored to reduce the load because of the then current design never matched mission requirements. There was never a concerted effort by either leadership or by extension the defense industry to produce and outfit troops with the lighter, better equipment necessary for extreme conditions found in this little valley of death. If anything the Army and Marines only added more weight to the grunt’s kit. In other words: “more protection is better,” “we must protect the deltoids,” “we can’t resupply you as often because are helicopter resupply is limited, so you have to carry more,” “Hey, hand these items out to the locals and win their hearts and minds…yeah we know the items are heavy, but figure it out.” The on-the-ground commanders made the best of a grim situation and soldiered on, taking unnecessary casualties along the way.

Yet the Korengal Valley is not an isolated example that required specialized gear – just ask the troops at Lwara or Shkin or the Shah-i-kot Valley further south in P2K. Or ask a Marine humping his gear on the Helmand plains even further south. And you can’t tell me that troops in the Horn of Africa rotating through Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, Africa couldn’t use some lighter gear as they conduct and support counter-terrorism missions in the heat and desert. Or that troops assigned to the DMZ or in the new safe-harbor base assignments in South Korea or the 50,000 troops way-stationed now in Iraq, who partner outside the wire with Iraqi security forces, aren’t asking for lighter gear.
I wasn’t exactly surprised when I ran into a dear friend recently who’d just spent some time arm-wrestling the bureaucracy in theater trying to get some new kit for his boys – an unsuccessful exercise for his unit that caused preventable casualties. And that’s the point, right? Save a troop today so he can kill tomorrow? I mean do the math? The enemy strength grows exponentially, while ours is being whittled away.

So I figured that by now there had to be some solution in the pipeline, some improvement being made and I put out the word to check the “kit” status while vetting open source reporting on this issue. Units seem to be applying self-remedy to this issue. In one published example, senior brigade NCO leadership queried troops and leaders on what gear they’d want if they were “King for a Day, kit wise.” Once the list was approved the unit began to stock up on these items – mittens, combat boots, stoves, and headlamps – practical and necessary items for extreme conditions purchased with unit discretionary funds. The same unit then later tested and fielded new light wear gear to positive effect.

It appears that the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group has a niche mission after successfully convincing Army leadership to develop, test and field much lighter and thus faster gear. Items recently tested and fielded include: Eagle MBAV-A plate carriers, Arc’terx Knee Caps, MK48 Machine guns, wrist-top Suunto GPS units, new boots and better socks. The net result during their most recent testing and fielding to units assigned to the Korengal reduced the combat load by 14 pounds. Finally a step in the right direction.

The Army is reporting plans to field new Multi-cam Uniforms that are lighter but more durable as well as new plate carriers by this fall to thousands of deployed troops in Afghanistan. For the novice, issuing new uniforms is a daunting task because of the requirement to change camo pattern for all associated field gear so as to blend in. It’s a colossal pain in the ass but well worth it for the troops if done for the right purposes – improved durability and force protection.

Forward deployed units still retain the option to submit Operational Needs Statements (ONS) specifically requesting specialized and/or necessary gear – however, this process isn’t very timely, cuts across numerous command relationships and hasn’t been the answer to a unit’s immediate needs, which was one of my mentor’s chief complaints when he came up on the net to eke out a response to me. His take is that ONS’s become legacy documents left forever in the pipeline to provide some gear in due course, but may not necessarily address reducing the Soldiers load. He’s absolutely right – the ONS system worked initially but now is overburdened, inefficient and untimely.

The Rapid Equipping Force (REF), a military organization which is operated largely by civilians, works with overseas and deployed commanders to provide them equipment items not found in the military supply system – in a pinch REF brings initial combat gear and provides some over-the-horizon capability to deploying units. In fact, Bagram Air Base houses an REF facility for these purposes, although I have yet to confirm how accessible and responsive that REF unit is. Or even, where it is.

The contractor base is alive and well and remains very profitable. All reports I’ve received indicate they’ve become a maintenance distraction for specialized gear purchased and fielded over the years, since contractors are normally restricted—because of liability—from regular travel to the more than 400 FOB’s or outposts in Afghanistan. This requires units to backhaul equipment to secure contractor locations for refit and repair, a backup system usually not available during the maintenance period so the unit simply does without.

But while self-help unit remedies with discretionary funds and a limited AWG fielding of lighter gear are steps in the right direction, antiquated and unresponsive ONS request and procurement systems, single source REF facilities not properly networked into the battle space and relying on long-haul DHL transportation to ship and receive goods, and the constantly expanding umbilical cord of contractors necessity to maintain increasingly complex equipment all still negatively affect the crushing combat load our Soldiers and Marines carry on the battlefield.

It would probably best serve everyone’s interest to pose the relevant question, “If you could be King for a Day, kit-wise” to every formation of troops serving today and act on those results. Not only would we be turning in legacy gear that’s “caused unnecessary injuries and fatalities” but also finally, for a change, really be taking care of our troops in harm’s way. To do anything less amounts to leadership negligence.

Tags: Afghanistan, Asymmetrikc Warfare Group, combat loads, kit, Korengal Valley, military kit, ONS, Pashtun, Rapid Equipping Force, REF, US Army, USMC
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Logistics: The Long Pole in The Tent

“Young Officer”

“‘King for a Day’ Kit-Wise”

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