In a world of evolving threats, the Defense Logistics Agency is using creative ways to prepare for future conflicts – one of those is wargaming. Earlier this year, DLA conducted a wargame exercise as part of its Campaign of Learning. Dubbed “Assassin’s Mace,” the tabletop wargame focused on a notional future conflict involving China and Taiwan.
The three-day event in August pushed senior DLA leaders to prepare for disaster while confronting complex logistical challenges in a contested environment.
"This is about helping us understand and respond to the future writ large," DLA Director Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly told participants during opening remarks, emphasizing the exercise's strategic foresight.
Confronting logistical realities
Assassin’s Mace placed DLA senior leaders in the roles of both the Red Team, representing China, and Blue Team, representing the U.S. and its allies, forcing them to grapple with real-world scenarios like attacks on key logistics hubs and possible challenges in sustaining forces across vast distances. A total of 28 DLA leaders participated in the wargame at DLA Headquarters, including major subordinate command and HQ staff leaders.
Even seasoned experts were confronted with the sheer scale of a potential future fight as laid out in the wargame. The exercise caused some participants to reevaluate assumptions and underscored the need for innovative solutions.
Eric Gray, a retired Marine with extensive experience in the Pacific theater, admitted that even with his background, the scale of potential casualties was sobering.
"I realized that my preconceived notion of forces involved was far lower than what the reality of this (would) be,” said Gray, who was chief of staff for DLA Information Operations at the time of the exercise. “I also realized I had vastly underestimated the challenges this scenario would entail."
In a fight, logistics doesn’t just move supplies; it moves decisions and trust.
DLA Director of Human Resources Charles Barber
Air Force Col. Matt York, executive director of DLA’s Nuclear and Space Enterprise Support Office, served as the agency’s lead coordinator for Assassin’s Mace. He noted many participants were surprised by the potential scope and scale of costs in people and resources of such a fight.
“This wargame really brought home for many leaders how DLA needs to be prepared to support warfighters sooner and at greater scale in harder to reach locations than we’ve been accustomed to,” he said.
The human element
The exercise revealed that logistical challenges in such a conflict are likely to extend far beyond the physical movement of supplies.
"Decision latency repeatedly outpaced supply latency," noted Charles Barber, DLA's director of human resources.
The wargame highlighted the importance of empowering personnel with pre-delegated authorities and trained alternates, fostering adaptability and resilience in degraded conditions, Barber said.
“In a fight, logistics doesn’t just move supplies; it moves decisions and trust," he emphasized.
Beyond broadening leaders’ imagination about contested logistics, the wargame fostered camaraderie and teamwork among participants.
"We have a lot of new leaders in the agency now, and many of them were in the room during this event. This exercise gave them a chance to bond and get to know each other better," Gray explained.
Lessons learned
York explained the wargame provided a vital rehearsal and a safe environment to identify vulnerabilities and refine responses to complex disruptions.
"Our biggest objective was to showcase the value of wargaming to the agency’s senior leaders," he said.
Based on comments in multiple after-action-review sessions, Assassin’s Mace accomplished just that, revealing both strengths and weaknesses under pressure, York said.
For Barber, the impetus behind Assassin’s Mace was simple: plans are only as good as the rehearsals that support them.
"We don’t rise to the level of our plans; we fall to the level of our rehearsals," he said. "That combination revealed where our processes are crisp and where they stall under stress."
Simerly emphasized that exercises like Assassin’s Mace underscore the importance of interoperability and coordination.
“We think about interoperability in the sense of joint interoperability, but also allies and partner interoperability, and then what that means from a human, technical and procedural standpoint,” he said in an AAR session. “We are ensuring that we've got the ability to operate.”
He added that the wargame exposed opportunities for innovation and adaptation.
Participation in the wargame wasn't limited to seasoned military personnel. DLA's chief of staff, Karyn Runstrom, is a career civil servant. She offered a candid reaction to the exercise.
"I came into this, I have no military experience, and when I was hearing about it, first, I was like, ‘Oh, Lord, what am I getting myself into?’" she said. "Coming into this room, it was very overwhelming for me, and I felt like I was behind the power curve."
However, Runstrom said her experience quickly evolved into a valuable learning opportunity, and at the end of the three-day effort, she was awarded the “Captain America” award for “outstanding U.S. and allied contributions” to the simulated battles.
"This war game gave me a better understanding of how DLA really does fit into the contested operations," she said.
Runstrom noted the simulated loss of a distribution center sparked crucial conversations about resilience and redundancy. It prompted discussions on how to prioritize recovery efforts and coordinate with other organizations.
Learning partners
DLA leaders universally praised assistance the agency received from facilitators with the National Defense University’s Center for Applied and Strategic Learning, who oversaw and proctored the wargame. This included providing read-ahead materials and educational sessions with participants before the wargame started.
"Our CASL facilitators were the ‘X’ factor that made the event a success," York said.
Simerly expressed his admiration for how the CASL team made the wargame possible by guiding participants through decision making and helping them understand the probable outcomes of those decisions. He complimented the complexity of the exercise and the depth of the scenario and how it represented various instruments of power.
Air Force Maj. Gen. David Sanford, DLA’s director of logistics operations, noted the CASL team was a tremendous help to this DLA effort despite not being logistics professionals themselves.
“This is the one of the first times that a logistics enterprise has asked them to come and help teach us both how to conduct operations, employ forces, drive the employment of a force – not just the deployment, but the employment side too – so we can learn from that,” Sanford said.
He added the team from CASL will help DLA develop logistics-centered wargames in the future. DLA plans to integrate wargaming into existing processes, collaborate with industry partners, and focus on specific functions within the agency under the umbrella of its ongoing Campaign of Learning.
Commitment to the warfighter
Above all, the wargame affirmed the professionalism and ingenuity of DLA leaders and key personnel, Barber said.
“This highlighted the need to equip leaders with clear authorities and to take care of families so the agency’s teams can do extraordinary things under pressure,” he said.
Simerly said the three-day event cemented the benefits of DLA participating in events such as this wargame.
“Some might be surprised that DLA leadership was spending their time on this, exploring the tactical and strategic operational elements of this potential fight,” the director noted in an after-action session. “I don't think anybody would be surprised, though, when we explain to them we have an interest in this because we're key to sustaining that fight. The things that we do today – the things that we're doing every day between now and then – are essential for setting conditions for victory for our nation and for our partners.”