Defense Material Disposition in a Contested Logistics Environment

The emerging joint operating environment (JOE) is characterized by an erosion of U.S. military competitive advantages as adversaries obtain technologically advanced capabilities at a faster pace than ever before to deny, disrupt, and degrade our nation’s ability to protect itself and advance national interests. This is resulting in unique and complex challenges for military forces engaging in a wide range of operational activities across the competition continuum.¹ The most vulnerable advantage the U.S. military has over its adversaries in contested environments is the Joint Logistics Enterprise (JLEnt), which has the purpose to “project and sustain military power, enable global reach, and provide a full range of flexible and responsive options to joint force commanders.”² As adversarial competition increases and expands throughout the conflict continuum the JLEnt becomes more tenuous. Especially in situations that require intensive logistics support when resources are declining, and supply lines are increasing. The JLEnt is a center of gravity for adversaries to aggressively and continuously contest today to affect essential capabilities to project and sustain our military power across the globe tomorrow.

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Director, LTG Simerly, recognizes the U.S. military is “currently and actively contested in all domains, and we expect contests to begin in cyberspace, and expect them to continue.”³ The reality is that contested logistics environments will become more challenging as adversaries exploit advantages that disrupt JLEnt capabilities from the homeland to the foxhole over extended distances. According to Simerly, the overarching challenge is affecting “meaningful change that can deliver exceptional global logistics support and win in today’s rapidly changing and contested logistics environment.” DLA’s strategy to overcome current and future challenges of operating in a contested logistics environment is through transformation that focuses on four imperatives - people, precision, posture, and partnerships – to “deliver agile, adaptive, and resilient logistics support across the continuum of conflict,” which requires leaders and logisticians to think, act, and operate in new ways.⁴

Along with DLA, other JLEnt stakeholders must have their own respective and mutually supporting strategies that collectively result in an effective “globally integrated network of responsive logistics providers” that spans the globe while being contested in all five domains (land, maritime, air, space, and cyberspace).⁵ A primary challenge for the JLEnt and warfighters is overcoming a “logistic vacuum” that emerges and expands as supply chains overextend and resources become scarce in a contested logistics environment.⁶ Ineffective strategies will result in losing competitive advantages over adversaries at great cost. Our military’s success in tomorrow’s battle spaces requires rethinking how excess materiel can mitigate ‘logistic vacuums’ and sustain war efforts by conserving scarce resources.

Leveraging Local Resources to Sustain War Efforts

Given limited logistics resources, capability shortfalls, and a deteriorating U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB), precedence for our best strategy to avoid ‘logistic vacuums’ in future contested environments can be found in military history. Attila the Hun may provide the best example from over a thousand years ago, of effectively covering vast distances with highly mobile forces and decisively overwhelming enemies without the need for large supply trains by using local resources.⁷ The Huns superior logistical skill provided a competitive advantage over adversaries, and if not for the death of Attila, this advantage may have enabled the total conquest of the Roman Empire.

In our own nation’s history, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), consisting of 2 million soldiers, had to overcome a monumental ‘logistic vacuum’ during World War I (WWI) created by significant trans-Atlantic Ocean shipping challenges and an inadequate industrial base not prepared for large-scale wartime production. This was done by creating a logistics system in 1918 that heavily relied on local resources to sustain the war effort. Local resources consisted of massive amounts of goods (i.e., food, horses/ mules, wagons, etc.) procured from host nation sources, and the significant expansion of salvage (i.e., discarded and captured items) operations to resupply the AEF. During World War II (WWII), salvage would again become essential to U.S. military success as its importance “increases in direct proportion to the increasing difficulty in meeting [materiel] requirements.”⁸ This led to the proliferation of salvage units, dumps (i.e., collection points), and depots throughout every Theater of Operations to minimize and eliminate logistic vacuums. It is very clear that victory in both World Wars was enabled by salvage activities on the home front to the front lines, which reduced the need for new supplies and prevented the overextension of supply lines.

After WWII, reliance on local resources to sustain forces lessened during military operations over the succeeding decades. This was a deliberate outcome of modernizing the U.S. military in the 1980s and 1990s to make it a more lethal, technologically capable, and self-sustaining force to achieve a higher level of readiness and operational freedom over adversaries. The JLEnt is crucial in maintaining this advantage across the competition continuum in a contested logistic environment. However, the JLEnt has only been comprehensively tested in uncontested logistics environments. The last time the U.S. military truly operated in a contested logistics environment was WWII.⁹ Local resources will need to again become essential to the U.S. military’s success in large scale and protracted conflicts when logistic vacuums emerge in contested environments. Integrating salvage, or what is now referred to as materiel disposition, into logistics concepts, plans, and activities will be crucial for conserving materiel to fill requirements when supply chains fail. Unfortunately, the lack of integration down to the lowest levels throughout the military services remains a concern.

Worldwide Defense Materiel Disposition Program

The Defense Materiel Disposition Program (DMDP) allows the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to dispose of excess military materiel (i.e., equipment and supplies) globally by reusing within the DoD, transferring to other government agencies or allied nations, donating to qualified non-profit organizations, or selling on the open market when permissible.¹⁰ When these methods are unable to properly dispose of excess property, demilitarization and mutilation (i.e., physical destruction) occurs while adhering to compliance regulations to maximize recyclable scrap materials and minimize waste. Key components of the program are DLA, as the DoD program manager; Disposition Services, a DLA subordinate organization that implements and manages the processes for disposing excess property and hazardous waste (HW); and DoD components, which are to ensure materiel disposition is an integral part of supply chain management and disposal actions are planned at all levels of their organizations.¹¹

Currently, there are two notable weaknesses within the program that were identified during audits the past three years which will impact the effectiveness of materiel disposition in a contested logistics environment. The first is incorrect demilitarization coding and disposition decisions for DoD materiel, which may result in the inadvertent release of excess items to unauthorized recipients or needless destruction. Based on a report to congressional committees, DoD acknowledged coding discrepancies with 3 percent of national stock numbers in the Federal Logistics Information System (FLIS) for hundreds of major end items, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.¹² As of October 2024, recommendations for executive action remain open, resulting in the continuation of risk of property with military characteristics being obtained by unauthorized recipients.¹³ In a contested environment, adversaries could exploit this weakness to obtain and use property requiring demilitarization against the U.S. and its allies.

The second weakness is low reutilization of excess property from DLA Disposition Services’ inventory by the Military Services despite DoD and service specific policies “promoting the maximum reuse of excess property to satisfy requirements before purchasing new property”.¹⁴ A 2022 DoD Inspector General (IG) audit attributed three reasons to DLA and the military services for not fully complying with policies.¹⁵ The first was DLA’s lack of promoting awareness and military services not maximizing reuse of excess property. The second was not addressing ordering personnel concerns about condition code accuracy and the serviceability of excess property. Lastly, the lack of interoperability between automated systems required ordering personnel to place and check orders manually, which discourages the reuse of excess property. The military services acknowledge the need to maximize reutilization of excess property though results continue to fall short, which reflects institutional, systemic, and cultural challenges that continue to persist throughout DoD.

Material Disposition During Recent Conflicts

Recent U.S. military history provides benchmarks of the evolution of materiel disposition during contingency operations, as well as an azimuth check for steps still to be taken toward optimization in a contested logistics environment. The Persian Gulf War was considered a logistical triumph that enabled a quick victory over Iraq in 1991, though this is not to say it was without logistical problems. The most notable issue was a widespread lack of supply discipline, which led to unnecessary loss, unauthorized destruction, and improper disposal of materiel. This was largely due to the absence of planning, preparation, and execution of materiel disposition by DoD components down to the lowest levels within the theater of operations to properly collect, manage, reclaim, reuse, and dispose of excess property items generated during the war. The result was the absence of salvage capabilities and operations like what was employed in past comparable wars. To fill this critical gap, Disposition Services (then known as the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS)) was given a new, impromptu mission after the war ended to extend materiel disposition support beyond enduring locations (EL) to dispose of acres upon acres of excess property discarded by redeploying units.

By comparison, in the decade following the Gulf War, excess property generated during contingency operations was of much smaller quantities and retrograded to an enduring location (e.g. home station) for disposal. This concept began to falter as the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars became prolonged conflicts in the mid-2000s. With large number of forces deployed to several contingency locations (CLs) throughout the respective Joint Operation Areas (JOAs), excess property was significantly increasing over time. Fortunately, deployed forces were maintaining supply discipline with few issues, as compared to the end of the Gulf War, but retrograding large amounts of excess property to an enduring location (EL) for disposal was impractical and costly (e.g., retrograding materiel from Afghanistan to Germany).

Disposition Services was again unexpectantly called upon – the Gulf War was viewed as a one off - to establish capabilities within Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of excess property at CLs. Because Disposition Services did not have a standing expeditionary capability, it had to quickly create and sustain an ad hoc capability, along with addressing the new challenge of directly supporting warfighters in combat zones, throughout the remainder of the decade with less-than-optimal results. After the Iraq War ended in 2011, a transformational period began to reshape, improve, and formalize expeditionary capabilities within Disposition Services. The immediate objective was to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of materiel disposition activities ongoing in Afghanistan. The overarching intent was to set the conditions and maintain the right expeditionary capabilities to successfully deliver world class materiel disposition support during future contingency operations.

The priority focus area was to create a standing expeditionary force that was fully capable and deployable in support of warfighters’ materiel disposition requirements within a JOA during contingency operations. Lessons from previous decades helped establish a robust program with resources to ensure the manning, equipping, and training of an expeditionary force that would meet all applicable objectives and standards. Changes improved the effectiveness and efficiency of supporting materiel disposition requirements at their peak in Afghanistan and have largely remained in-place through the present day.

Agreements, the next focus area, became more important for enabling in-country disposal of hazardous waste (HW) and scrap materials in nations hosting the military during exercises and contingency operations. If this is not possible, agreements are still required to export HW and scrap to another country with the requisite approvals and capabilities for disposal. Process velocity is essential to avoid storage issues and costs when HW and scrap materials are already being generated by warfighters. Persistence also became important when dealing with bureaucracies that could stretch the process up to a year or longer. However, the key to successfully securing in-country disposal support, or need to export, well in advance of requirements is identifying and prioritizing nations during exercise and contingency planning cycles. This proactive approach facilitates formal coordination with applicable parties to move the agreements process at a deliberate and controlled pace, which avoids reactionary methods with less than desirable outcomes.

Lastly, reverse logistics operations, also referred to as retrograde, became more important in Afghanistan as military services increased efforts to reduce excess property that had accumulated over several years of it being a low priority. “While easy to overlook and often difficult to implement, reverse logistics operations are key to maintaining efficient living and work areas at combat outposts and forward operating bases,” according to CPT Donnahoe, a Reverse Logistics Officer in Afghanistan.¹⁶ Importance became exponentially greater as the drawdown of military forces accelerated over the final years in Afghanistan. The deliberate drawdown forced transformative cultural and procedural changes that led to U.S. military forces to develop materiel disposition plans and closely coordinate efforts with Disposition Services and other key partners. This resulted in effective and efficient reverse logistics operations through the withdrawal of forces until Disposition Services departed on July 19, 2021. One month later, the majority of remaining U.S. military equipment used by U.S. troops were retrograded or destroyed as the last U.S. military planes left Afghanistan on August 30th.¹⁷

Creating a standing expeditionary capability, establishing agreements, and enabling effective joint reverse logistics operations facilitated the transformation of a passive mindset into a proactive culture within DLA and Disposition Services regarding planning, preparing, and performing materiel disposition activities through all operational phases of contingency operations. Standardization of processes, procedures, training, and equipment enabled the transition from an ad hoc to a standing and ready expeditionary force. Disposition Services can now more easily extend and expand materiel disposition support to warfighters deployed to CLs with the right expeditionary capabilities. Inroads were also made with JLEnt partners regarding their Defense Materiel Disposition Program responsibilities to prevent excess property problems like what occurred during the Gulf War and early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Collectively, the transformational efforts the past decade have established a sound foundation to explore evolutionary and revolutionary changes that will better leverage and optimize materiel disposition as an integral means to overcome logistic vacuums in contested environments.

Materiel Disposition in Future Contested Logistics Environments

Logistics in modern warfare requires a paradigm shift away from maximum efficiency - prevalent in uncontested environments to project combat power at the greatest point of need - to maximum effectiveness, which will be essential in contested environments to sustain and regenerate combat power within battlespaces.¹⁸ The Russia-Ukraine war provides an advance warning for choosing logistics efficiency over effectiveness in a contested environment. Key factors in Russia’s failures are the predominance of logistics practices designed to maximize efficiency (e.g., “push” logistics) and the absence of an expeditionary logistics system when forces operate at an extended distance from their national support base.¹⁹ Conversely, Ukraine has been successful in avoiding capitulation – when many thought the war would end in a few weeks – primarily due to partnering with Western allies to seek innovative solutions that maximize logistics effectiveness over extended distances.²⁰ These innovations have enabled Ukraine to regenerate combat power faster than Russia to avoid or minimize a ‘logistic vacuum’ in forward operational areas.²¹ This provides a competitive advantage over Russia, and Ukraine may prevail if it maintains this advantage.

The principal lesson is the imperative to reduce logistic vulnerabilities in a contested environment by shifting from efficient to effective and resilient capabilities will lessen the effects of a ‘logistic vacuum.’²² This is a reoccurring characteristic of military conflict as the result of adversaries targeting logistics activities and mounting support deficiencies (e.g., resource shortfalls) that degrade warfighter readiness.²³ As covered earlier, the application of expeditionary logistics principles (self-sufficiency, flexibility, robustness, and mobility) has been successful as far back as Atilla the Hun and into modern U.S. military history to minimize and overcome the effects of a ‘logistic vacuum’ and decisively defeat the enemy.²⁴ The difference today is the changing character and higher probability of a contested environment experiencing significant disruptions and delays for all supply chains that result in adversaries having the competitive advantage.

The overarching implication for materiel disposition is the utility and value of this logistic function exponentially increases as the ‘logistic vacuum’ grows in scope and magnitude in a contested environment. Overcoming challenges that this will present in an ever-evolving world will require a reoccurring cycle of evolutionary, and potentially revolutionary, change in practices and adoption of innovative ideas to maximize the effectiveness and resiliency of materiel disposition in a contested logistic environment. To achieve this goal, the JLEnt needs to pursue initiatives that are linked to or mutually supportive of DLA’s transformational imperatives and strategic objectives to affect change and improvements in the following areas.

• Reutilization: With the transition from uncontested to a contested logistic environment there is a corresponding and pressing need to improve the reutilization rate of excess property for several reasons. First, reutilization immediately improves warfighter readiness by filling aged material backorders with excess property. Secondly, it improves stewardship by avoiding the purchase of new items when excess property is available, which enables the use of recouped funds for other warfighter readiness requirements. Lastly, it facilitates warfighter resiliency when it is most needed to mitigate the effects of a ‘logistics vacuum’ in battlespaces. For these reasons, initiatives need to strive toward improving reutilization soonest, so it becomes automatic and seamless in a contested logistics environment.
• Reclamation: Given supply chain vulnerabilities in a contested logistics environment, removal of serviceable items (repair parts, components, assemblies) from principal end items of equipment or assemblies classified as unserviceable and non-reparable is essential for improving warfighter readiness. Reclamation is supposed to be performed by the military services prior to turning excess property into DLA Disposition Services, and when it does not, equipment needs to be withdrawn to remove serviceable parts needed to fill open requirements. Unfortunately, this does not always happen if the equipment is turned in with the incorrect code to identify it as having serviceable parts, or if the warfighter in need of a part is not in the local vicinity of where the excess property is being held. Ensuring the reclamation of serviceable parts in critical demand from unserviceable equipment in Disposition Services inventory, prior to ultimate disposal, will be a challenge requiring a joint solution with the military services.
• Recovery: Recovery (also referred to as recycling, repurposing, and upcycling) of raw and scrap materials (i.e., salvage) has been essential to U.S. war efforts dating back to the revolutionary war. The “Salvage for Victory” campaign during WWII provides the best example of how crucial this concept was to conserving resources like metal, plastics, rubber, and paper for the manufacture of military equipment and supplies. This concept is even more relevant today as the U.S. military plans to leverage 3D printing of parts and equipment at outposts, bases, and aboard ships in contested environments when supply chains do not deliver. The need for materiel disposition activities to maximize the recovery of scarce materials from excess property, which are used in some 3D print alloys, could become crucial. The challenge in a contested logistics environment will be streamlining the process from the recovery of the materials through the 3D printing of parts inside logistic vacuums. If through innovations the entire process can be done within a theater of operations or logistics vacuum, the U.S. military will retain a significant competitive advantage over its adversaries.