“This is about winning a war. We don’t have time for some politically correct publicity stunt.” This is the typical response we encountered when proposing sustainable logistics and sustainment practices at a recent military exercise in Southeast Asia. The U.S. military personnel responsible for moving materials through the docks and airfields in Thailand were understandably skeptical. They viewed us as “do-gooders” and did not understand why developing processes now to recycle motor oil could be a critical step toward future success in the Indo-Pacific.
But when you zoom out, it makes sense. In the Indo-Pacific the U.S. military faces two tasks: to prepare for a large-scale, high-intensity conflict and to steadily bolster relationships with allies and partners throughout the region. The first cannot succeed without the second. As such, the sustainment and logistics of military exercises ought to reinforce relationships with partners and allies. By thoughtfully reframing basic tasks — some as simple as recycling motor oil — U.S. forces operating in the Indo-Pacific may not only help to solve future logistics problems but also serve to deepen positive relations with partner nations and their societies today. Imposing large numbers of personnel and military vehicles into a fragile ecosystem will have significant impact, and showing respect for the natural environment by mitigating that impact is a strategic choice. What is important is showing a regional partner that its relationship with United States is not simply transactional but based on thoughtful collaboration.
Integrating sustainable logistics and sustainment practices into military operations would offer tremendous benefits to the U.S. military and for the U.S. security architecture in the Indo-Pacific. This drives our concept of sustainable sustainment. This concept aligns with the Indo-Pacific realities of overcoming the formidable distances of the region by reducing a reliance on moving “iron mountains” of materiel across the Pacific to support operations. It also directly addresses environmental concerns, which have been designated a national security priority by the secretary of defense. And finally, it can strengthen relationships with U.S. allies and partners by understanding, acknowledging, and addressing their concerns in peacetime, thereby solidifying strong bonds and cooperation in the event of conflict.
The Current Situation
Over the past 20 years, the United States has economically embedded itself with a formidable major power with whom it competes politically, resulting in a delicate balance of interdependence and deterrence with simultaneous jockeying for relative advantage. This is what strategic competition is all about and why the Indo-Pacific region is so consequential. America’s relationships with the countries that make up the Indo-Pacific region, which constitute nearly two-thirds of the world economy, are just as critical to U.S. economic well-being as they are to its security. As relationships among these governments shift, so does the balance of power between the United States and China. Given these changing realities, conventional U.S. military units operating within the Indo-Pacific need to become more attuned to the social, economic, and environmental impacts of their activities in the region, and how these impacts may shape the competition space. In today’s landscape of strategic competition, emphasis is placed upon campaigning efforts, such as the Operation Pathways series of events, as the primary approach for conventional units to achieve and maintain military readiness. But this approach is more complex than it seems due to the challenges inherent within the region.
The Challenges and Cobra Gold
To prepare for potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. military should re-examine the challenges that both it and its partners face within the region. These include, for example, distance, geography, and weather. But within this examination, the military cannot simply seek ways to improve its own effectiveness, or it will fail at assuring its partners. Likewise, campaign efforts cannot just be about strengthening relationships or else military readiness will inevitably degrade. To figure out ways the U.S. military can both maintain the current equilibrium as well as strengthen wartime readiness, we describe the challenges alongside the current approach displayed in the recent Operation Pathways event known as Cobra Gold.
Cobra Gold is an exercise set in Thailand that enables multinational militaries to practice realistic operations and strengthen strategic relationships, having evolved from a bilateral U.S.-Thai maritime activity in 1982 to the world’s longest-running multinational military exercise. In its 43rd year, this year’s iteration occurred from February 27 to March 8 and featured 10 nations (Thailand, the United States, Australia, India, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and China) and over 9000 personnel, half of whom were from the United States. It served as a real-world example of the current challenges any military unit faces in an age of strategic competition. One may be surprised to see China listed here, but its role was limited to a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise. This should not be surprising, as it highlights the centrality of the “softer” aspects of military cooperation to steady-state competition in the region.
The first challenge any military leader or logistician recognizes is the sheer distance their units need to overcome just to participate within the region. In fact, the Indo-Pacific theater presents the U.S. military with its longest lines of communication. These significant distances, coupled with the diverse terrain separated by large swaths of water, underscore the need for a persistent military presence and the strategic positioning of resources within allied nations. For these reasons, the units participating in Cobra Gold depended predominantly on local resources for food and supplies and used large-scale generators to accommodate their massive energy needs. While these measures signal U.S. commitment to the region, they alone are inadequate for prolonged engagements.
Adding to the complexity are the changing security dynamics of the region. Foremost among these is the formidable presence of China as a peer adversary and its widely recognized anti-access/area denial capabilities. These swiftly transform much of the key terrain in the theater into contested zones, posing significant challenges for existing military units and impeding the deployment of reinforcements and the resupply of essential sustainment resources. This concern becomes even more pronounced when examining the physical aspect of the U.S. military, as was present during Cobra Gold.
A key training focus for Cobra Gold was simulating a multinational command structure, which brought together seven nations to resolve a notional crisis. Within this command structure, leaders suggested prepositioning supplies and reliance on local support, much like the World War II solution to orchestrating and moving iron mountains of materiel. But these plans neglect the realities of traversing vast, contested distances with limited lift capabilities, as well as the potential that a diminished U.S. industrial base is inadequate to sustain a technology-intensive approach to conventional warfighting. Given that sustainment is a strategic imperative in large-scale combat operations, the number of issues for a military leader to overcome becomes overwhelming. Yet, to be strategically competitive, commanders at all echelons should simultaneously understand partner nation challenges and seek to resolve them as well.
The Indo-Pacific is home to more than half of the world’s population, many of whom are the “most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.” Because climate change affects the Indo-Pacific people so drastically, Pacific nation leaders are increasingly prioritizing climate action within their national security strategies. Within these policies, political leaders are recognizing the costly loss and damage from rising sea levels and intensified storms and therefore seek external support to effectively implement these plans.
To address their concerns of climate-incurred devastation, Cobra Gold also focused on a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief demonstration. While these demonstrations helped to bolster integrated assurance, there is more that can be done that will also aid U.S. military readiness. One option involves sustainable sustainment practices that aid partners’ concerns, thereby strengthening partner relationships, while simultaneously increasing operational readiness.
Thailand is no different. It is strategically vital as an economic player and logistics hub and, even though it is a longstanding treaty partner with the United States as well as its “oldest trade and economic ally” in the region, this relationship cannot be taken for granted. The pressures of strategic competition create the risk of destabilizing these longstanding ties and as a former U.S. ambassador to the region recently argued: “Thailand feels little obligation to deepen ties with the United States at the expense of ties with China; instead, it guards its ability to maintain multiple alignments and adapt quickly to changing circumstances.” Given the malleability of such relationships, assuring partners and demonstrating concern for their priorities through concrete actions is increasingly critical.
The Sustainable Sustainment Solution
Sustainable sustainment offers a solution that harnesses innovations within existing technologies to tackle all these challenges simultaneously. Rather than replacing current sustainment strategies, it enhances them by incorporating contingencies in case of failure or degradation. What sets this approach apart from conventional logistics strategies is its explicit consideration of the political and social concerns held by America’s Pacific partners, fostering those crucial diplomatic victories with partners and allies. Sustainable sustainment innovation is about integrating sustainable technologies with military tactics, techniques, and procedures. These innovations need not be futuristic or too expensive. They encompass a range of advancements, from carbon-free energy generation, battery storage, microgrids, and additive manufacturing (3D printing). However, they can also be as simple as recycling motor oil.
Recycling motor oil addresses geographical, military/physical, and political/social issues inherent in conventional sustainment strategies. Firstly, it reduces the need for frequent fuel and oil deliveries, thereby enhancing unit sustainability and efficiency while lowering costs and risks for soldiers. Secondly, it curtails hazardous waste production, benefiting the host nation. In environments where logistics are contested and resources are scarce, operations characterized by lower resource requirements and reduced waste production alleviate the logistical burden, freeing up essential assets for other critical tasks. Simultaneously, reduced fuel consumption serves as a form of climate change mitigation. But there are more robust options that the U.S. military should also invest in.
Microgrids are all about resiliency when a host nation’s power system is unable to support the demands of a military at war. The best part of microgrids is that they rely on sustainable power sources, such as wind, solar, and methane gas from rotting garbage in landfills. They also help support the military’s goal of carbon neutrality and are an easy social and political win with U.S. allies and partners. The caveat is that these microgrids are expensive at the outset, but they create the type of investment that helps the United States compete against peer rivals such as China.
While these technologies and techniques are still in their infancy and may only marginally increase unit effectiveness and efficiency in the short term, their continual improvement is inevitable. Hence, it is imperative for the military to embrace them now to lay the groundwork for future technological advancements. Moreover, any increase in efficiency and effectiveness, particularly if it reduces risk, would be welcomed by military leaders. Additionally, the immediate benefits they offer underscore the urgency of their adoption.
Recommendations and Ways Forward
Successful campaigning in today’s Indo-Pacific geostrategic landscape requires unwavering support between the United States and its regional allies and partners. Yet, securing this support now entails more than traditional military protection. In the current geopolitical milieu, regional relationships depend upon militaries addressing concerns such as social instability, restricted access to essentials, the fragility of governments and economies, the protection of vital infrastructure, and the downturn in agricultural production. The military can address each of these issues while simultaneously increasing their operational readiness prior to and during large-scale combat operations. This is why we recommend implementing sustainable sustainment practices into future exercises. This approach is couched within the logic of integrated assurance, which seeks to translate the national strategic guidance of integrated deterrence into a tangible, ground-level cultivation of trust and relationships with friendly nations.
By integrating sustainable sustainment in exercises such as Cobra Gold, military units are providing contingency plans that allow units to maintain their missions without delay while primary and alternate sustainment plans are being restored. Furthermore, adopting measures to safeguard installations from climate hazards through conservation practices and nature-based engineering directly addresses the region’s crucial political and social concerns. Such options not only provide economic opportunities and practical benefits to these economies, but they also bolster U.S. efforts. Consequently, this strengthens relationships by showcasing the United States as the preferred partner while mitigating the adverse effects of climate change, which could significantly impact U.S. military units during future conflicts.
Today’s military leaders ought to be careful not to fall into the trap of simply relying on the traditional dynamics of supply chain warfare improved with new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Rather, by also thinking in terms of human considerations, material problems may be addressed while simultaneously building stronger relationships in the region.
Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson is the commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. Previously, he commanded the 7th Infantry Division. Brunson entered active duty in 1990 and has commanded at multiple levels in both conventional and special operations forces in combat. He holds two master’s degrees, one in human resources development and the other in national security and policy.
Christopher Boss is a company commander in 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Previously, he taught at Western Michigan University and the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Entering active duty in 2011, Boss has several conventional and special operations deployments to Africa, most recently as a special forces detachment commander. He holds two master’s degrees, one in philosophy and the other in applied design for innovation.
Leo Blanken is an associate professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and is a non-resident Fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative. He is the author of Rational Empires: Institutional Incentives and Imperial Expansion and is co-editor of Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure. He also collects and DJs rare funk and soul records from the 1960s.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.
Image: 1st Lt. Mark Andries
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