Support at the Forward Edge of the Battlefield: Lessons Learned

Introduction

In any instance of Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), targeting an adversary’s logistics capabilities is at the top of the list for achieving maximum effect. Interrupting an adversary’s ability to sustain or regenerate forces is a key element in either denying or defeating that adversary’s objectives. During World War II, this was evidenced by the declaration that “victory in each Theater was assured when the quantity and quality of our weapons and equipment surpassed those of the enemy.”¹ What history taught us is that contested logistics during LSCO is an absolute certainty and that victory can only be assured by ensuring sufficient resiliency in one’s own logistics to have operational agility and flexibility.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict offers a myriad of lessons to be learned when it comes to achieving resiliency in the contested logistics environment. Three notable tenets are easily discernable. The first is the value of regionalized sustainment. Regionalized sustainment seeks to “harness the strengths of allies and global industry partners [for a] network of globally dispersed capabilities that deliver MRO [Maintenance, Repair, & Overhaul] to the point of need.”² Second is the diversity of solution sets that can be leveraged by the integration of partner and allied capabilities. Referred to as “collective logistics” in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) doctrine, this concept is codified wherein “nations and NATO … cooperatively share the provision and use of logistic capabilities and resources.”³ This type of integration can affect a mutual-sustainment ecosystem that culminates in logistics resilience. Finally, the need for enhanced command, control, and coordination systems becomes evident as the synchronization of both the regionalized sustainment and allied/partner integration weaves a complex web of interconnected requirements and operations.

This paper will discuss support to the forward edge of the battlefield and the growing need for “technical reach forward” instead of “reaching back” and what that means to the logistician. This “collective logistics” approach allows nations to share resources and capabilities, creating a more resilient logistics system.

Regionalized Sustainment

In a contested logistics environment, shortening transportation chains and localizing sourcing can help to reduce vulnerabilities. These concepts have been explored, at scale, in the US Department of Defense’s recently published 2024 Regional Sustainment Framework (RSF) seeking to operationalize the concept of integrating military capability, theater-located industry partners, and allied partner nations. This effort is aimed squarely at mitigating the risks associated with contested logistics.⁴ RSF is in its infant stages, but the goal is to accelerate implementation and actions, to include leveraging the capacity and capabilities in the EUCOM area of responsibility. Beyond the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) concept of RSF, regional capacity and capability are key enablers to sustaining the Joint operational force.

Capitalizing on such capability and capacity, referred to herein as “regionalized sustainment,” is a deliberate offset to contested logistic and one of the hard lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine.

An example of this regionalized sustainment is the MRO hub established at Logistics Enabling Node – Poland (LEN-P) to support the MRO and distribution needs of Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Located west of the Ukraine border in southern Poland, LEN-P serves as a launching-off point for sustainment and materiel for the AFU, as well as a retrograde hub for MRO of multiple ground weapon systems. The geographic location demonstrates the exploitation of the use of allied territory to create a degree of security, while at the same time pushing sustainment and MRO operations to the near edge of the battlefield; thereby reducing transit timelines and accelerating the return of equipment to the fight. The multinational efforts at LEN-P create a confluence of capability that serves to enable optimum sustainment and regeneration. Activity at LEN-P includes the receipt, warehousing, and distribution of spares, as well as the final preparation of major equipment end items prior to their release to the AFU.⁵ The footprint at LEN-P is multinational with parallel efforts on-going to create aggregated capability and interoperation. As the 21st Theater Sustainment Command has learned from this conflict, “Collective defense requires collective sustainment.”⁶

Under the backings of “technical reach forward,” a development of the LEN-P would require mobile maintenance capability and a steady stream of parts for battlefield repairs.

Currently LEN-P’s MRO activity is largely accomplished by commercial contractors, but to push similar efforts into the near-battlespace could require a footprint of similar scale but comprised of mostly military technicians. As weapons systems from multiple nations have poured into Ukraine the need to sustain those disparate systems has escalated; resulting in a call for Field Service Representatives from industry. Data analytics are also key to provide some type of predictive capability to determine and posture spare parts at the forward edge of the battlespace with maintenance technicians. While this highlights the value of bridging of regional sustainment by linking military logistics operations with theater industrial partners, it also highlights the need for high-end technical expertise. Near-edge of the battlefield repair and sustainment will require superior materiel availability and technical expertise.

Integration of Allied and Partner Capability

Collaboration with allies and partners is a mechanism for building logistics operability that has the potential to create an effective offset to contested logistics. As Major General Ragin, Commander of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, noted, “Interoperability, integration, and interchangeability of sustainment capabilities improve unity of effort and prolonged endurance in a future conflict.”⁷ From early in the conflict, allied nations have responded with assistance, but as the conflict stretched into its tenth month, allied support began to coalesce into a formal structure. This coalition has proven instrumental in countering the consequence of contested logistics on the ground in Ukraine.

This is clear by both the integration efforts of the US Security Assistance Group – Ukraine (SAG-U) and the formation of the NATO Security and Assistance Training for Ukraine (NSATU) organization. Activated in December of 2022, the SAG-U was established as a “dedicated headquarters … to provide long-term, focused organizational structure to coordinate and oversee the full spectrum of security assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”⁸ Within the SAG-U was nested the International Donation Coordination Cell, a 25-nation body that served to coordinate the multinational response to logistics requirements levied by Ukraine as it executed its defensive campaign against Russia. In time, that body evolved into the NSATU. The vision for NSATU was to optimize the coordination of security assistance for Ukraine.⁹

From the perspective of integrated, transparent multinational logistics, an extremely illustrative example has been the creation and employment of the KOROVAI database.¹⁰ The requirement for such a mechanism was two-fold. First, Ukraine needed the ability to communicate its materiel requirements to the entire body of nations seeking to lend support. Second, those nations willing to contribute materiel support needed to be able to communicate and quantify their ability to support. Implemented in March 2023,¹¹ the KOROVAI system springs from a U.K. database protocol made available to all members including non-NATO countries, exemplifying the concept of multilateralism.

In implementation, KOROVAI permits collective contribution on any requirement; thereby ensuring optimization through collaborative sourcing. To begin, the AFU list their requests in the database. These requests can include requirements for major weapon systems, spare parts, technical data, and training. Partner nations can then review those requests and determine what, if any, capability they can bring to bear. If able to support a request, a nation submits an offer in the database in response to the request. Multiple nations can submit offers to the same requirement. For example, a request for 5,000 155mm artillery rounds might receive multiple offers for amounts less than the total but, when combined, meet the broader requirement.

As an offset to contested logistics, this minimizes the reliance on single supply chains and creates redundant options in sourcing, serving to make the supply chains resilient to both physical and cyber interdiction. Contributing nations can even indicate which Logistics Enabling Node (LEN) they will use to deliver material¹² which further permits coordinated distribution operations to prevent choke points or targets of opportunity for the adversary. The transparency of requirements to all partner nations allows for rapidity of response by leveraging the totality of the industry and capability of all partner nations. This multinational logistics data exchange allows Ukraine to continue to function, even under the duress of contested logistics.

NATO has identified the need for interoperability, but observations from Ukraine offer an opportunity to turn discussion into action. Weapons systems spanning the NATO nations are diverse, disparate, and occasionally idiosyncratically unique to their home nation. As contributions to Ukraine were made from multiple nations, the diversity of Ukraine’s air, sea, and ground fleets multiplied. Recent estimates of Ukraine’s ground defense fleet exceed more than 100 distinct weapons systems, all with unique sustainment needs. This diversity culminates as a transportation prioritization challenge which becomes an untenable sustainment problem both operationally and logistically; in this fight and, if not learned-from, the next. The self-exacerbating problem of increasingly diverse breadth in a defense portfolio is proof that interoperability is a critical element of inter-sustainability. To be able to optimally capitalize on allied and partner capacity, it is essential to have first achieved maximum interoperability amongst those partners.

Enhanced Command, Control, and Coordination Systems

While KOROVAI is a clearly illustrative example of the efficacy of integrating allied and partner capability, it is also demonstrative of the value of robust digital logistics control and coordination infrastructure in offsetting contested logistics. NATO’s AJP-4 emphasizes the need for “… a coherent logistic concept of operations …”¹³ for “harmonization and synchronization of responsibilities …” Both operational and tactical logistics controls are sensitive to the efficiencies gained by adaptive, highly coordinated responses across intelligence and command systems.

When logistics control and coordination break down, however, it can have devastating outcomes. As an example of the value of robust control systems, one lesson learned springs from Russian failure. Early in the war, Russia launched an offensive to Kyiv that included a 40- mile-long convoy¹⁴ of combat and sustainment forces. 30 miles from its objective, the convoy stalled. Mechanical breakdowns, fuel shortages, and even food shortages plagued the convoy. Assessments were that command and-control failures (radio and network failures) prohibited the Russian forces from being able to rectify the logistics problems facing the force.¹⁵ The convoy never reached Kyiv, instead it wreaked havoc on Irpin and Bucha, but Kyiv never fell. Arguably, Russia’s inability to reach its objective of Kyiv during that offensive cost them their only opportunity to achieve Ukrainian defeat.¹⁶

Not all command, control, and coordination systems have such an immediate tactical impact, however. Some systems, properly employed, enable the continued setting of conditions in a theater, even while the conflict continues. Army Materiel Command (AMC) maintains a system called the AMC Predictive Analytic Suite (APAS). This system does not give commanders “another dashboard of stuff,” instead it is designed to provide commanders “analyzed data with options and risks assessed to make decisions.” AMC’s vision for APAS is that it can inform service component and coalition decision making about materiel requirements, activities.”¹⁷

APAS gives SAG-U logisticians a near-real-time view of the health of Ukrainian weapon systems. For example, the US has gifted more than 300 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.¹⁸ SAG-U logisticians can use tools within APAS to see the aggregate condition of the entire fleet of Ukrainian Bradleys (e.g. 75 percent fully mission capable) or it can drill down to specific serial number vehicles to determine the status of a particular hull’s MRO. This system is not without its faults; however, it is heavily reliant on manual data updates by users at both ends and requires substantial housekeeping to ensure data integrity. Nonetheless, AMC is engaged in making systemwide improvements¹⁹ because the potential gains associated with the tool and its data set are inarguable. The ability to effectively leverage sustainment data for predictive planning is key to prolonged endurance during LSCO, because “all wars become wars of attrition, eventually.”²⁰

Conclusion

There is an old maxim perpetuated by military planners. When it comes to military plans, “the enemy gets a vote.” In logistics, the enemy can cast its vote by attempting to thwart the logistics endeavors of the other side. This is not new, but the evolving character of war has made contested logistics increasingly impactful on a combatant force’s ability to achieve its military objectives. In all conflicts, logistics will be contested, regardless of scale. As logisticians, our charge is no longer to simply get the right things, to the right place, at the right time. It is now ours to do so while we create offsets to our adversary’s attempts to disrupt our strategic, operational, and tactical logistics.

The Russia-Ukraine war will continue to teach military planners lessons for years, but it is never too early to begin the process of learning. Already the nations who are contributing to the defense of Ukraine have begun to reinforce the value of regionalized sustainment. Linking the capabilities of theater militaries, regional industry, and partner nations has proven essential in the collective defense and sustainment of Ukraine. Allies and partners, who integrate collaboratively, become force multipliers and create resilience for logistics through increased optionality of multinational solutions. All of this is underpinned by the need for highly coordinated systems of command and control to create responsiveness and agility for forces employed in the contested logistics fight.

None of these elements stand alone. They are interwoven and inextricable from one another. Any nation that seeks to overcome the dangers of contested logistics must optimize all of them in pursuit of resiliency. We know the contest of logistics during LSCO is an absolute certainty and, from this study, we know that victory can only be assured by achieving such a degree of resiliency in our own logistics that we ultimately achieve logistics superiority.