The Inadequacy of Legacy sustainment: DLA’s Call for Transformation
For decades, the U.S. military’s logistics system prioritized global efficiency, cost savings, and reliable throughput, fostering a culture of centralized stockpiling at large, fixed supply depots. As a result, this system is dangerously inadequate for confronting emerging global threats, particularly from the People Republic of China (PRC) in the Indo-Pacific theater. Today, logistics functions are no longer relegated to rear area support; logistics has become the "central front" in great power competition.
Sustaining the future dynamic U.S. Joint Force across an ever-changing Western Pacific will be immensely challenging. Until modern sustainment methods are implemented, contemporary joint force dispersed operating concepts will remain reliant on traditional theater sustainment practices, which involve thousand-mile supply lines, dated sealift capabilities, and large rear-area vulnerabilities. Under contested conditions, dispersed forces could face strategic isolation due to fractures in the legacy "factory to foxhole" model.
Facing a shifting operational landscape the Defense Logistics Agency is adapting to a new operational reality with a strategic transformation. This will allow DLA to effectively supply forces on the front lines and maintain the health of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB). To address the sustainment challenges brought about by future warfare, DLA must leverage and invest in technology, partnerships, and strategies such as the Global Resilience Initiative.
DLA Transforms: A Bold Plan for 21st-Century Sustainment
Early in a conflict, a potential adversary will likely target critical fixed logistical infrastructure (e.g., depots, ports, supply nodes) with precision strikes, both kinetic and non-kinetic. This strategy aims to cripple maneuverability, disrupt logistical operations, and render traditional logistics models ineffective. This highlights the vulnerability of static logistical infrastructure and necessitates adaptable, resilient alternatives. Recognizing the Joint Force’s need for increased resilience and decreased dependence on strategic transportation, DLA has reached an inflection point requiring the Agency to assess its current state and its future support to the Warfighter.
The DLA Director, Army LTG Mark Simerly, has initiated rapid modernization efforts, unveiling "DLA Transforms: A Call to Action" to recalibrate DLA's strategy and better support the Joint Force, positioning DLA to more effectively support 21st-century joint warfighting across multidomain challenges. To that end, DLA faces the challenge of aligning its workforce and modernizing its capabilities, enabling the transforming Services to prevail against peer threats in the future operational environment. This strategic vision is underpinned by the “DLA Strategic Plan 2025-2030,” as articulated by LTG Simerly, which outlines three strategic priorities: “Set the Globe”—optimal logistics positioning; “Set the Agency”—preparedness for current and future conflicts; and “Set the Supply Chain”—supply chain optimization through advanced modeling and wargaming.
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Adapting to Future Sustainment: DLA's Pivotal Role
The Services and Combatant Commands are all undergoing transformation of their warfighting concepts. Consistent with their transformation efforts, the future Joint Force is likely to require a shift away from traditional approaches towards new equipment, materials, specifications, and procurement methods. However, the DIB is an efficient but inelastic system, currently producing material based on steady-state demand. A recent assessment indicates that the U.S. DIB faces limitations in its ability to rapidly scale production to meet wartime demands.
Future sustainment will require a tightly integrated sustainment ecosystem. This system will require new technology, forward-positioned supplies, regional partnerships, and closer collaboration with industry. This ecosystem must focus on supporting both forward deterrence efforts and domestic resilience through a continuous, integrated defense logistics network.
Recognizing this, DLA has prompted a fundamental shift in the U.S. approach to logistics, enabled by greater automation in demand forecasting and adapting infrastructure to strategically position supplies and materials, both regionally and domestically. While these adaptations are crucial to ensuring DLA can properly support the Joint Force of tomorrow, this shift will potentially require years to fully implement to meet wartime demand.
DLA’s Global Resilience Initiative (GRI): Forging a Resilient, Forward-Positioned Supply Chain
Recognizing the Joint Force's evolving logistics requirements for future warfare, DLA is proactively adapting its supply chains. In October 2025, DLA merged its Aviation and Land & Maritime divisions to form a unified ‘DLA Weapons Support’ command, enhancing oversight, increasing effectiveness, and gaining efficiency in managing Class IX repair parts and components.2
In addition, to bolster its sustainment capabilities and minimize the risk of failures during a prolonged conflict, DLA introduced the Global Resilience Initiative (GRI). GRI is a DLA-wide initiative designed to address sustainment gaps across DLA-managed classes of supply, procuring necessities like subsistence, individual combat equipment, packaged POL, construction materials for airfield and port damage repair, medical supplies, and materiel repair parts. Ultimately, GRI enables DLA to support the Joint Force during both "generating the force" (forward-positioning stocks for rapid response) and "sustaining the force" (maintaining a “warm” vendor base capable of quickly scaling up production to meet surge requirements).
To close the sustainment gaps, GRI will utilize two primary levers: materiel investments and the Warstopper program. The first lever, materiel investments, initially serves to stimulate production demand, and to strategically position materials closer to the point of need. This strategic forward positioning will enhance Combatant Commander operational flexibility and reduce sustainment reliance on constrained inter-theater transportation assets. To achieve this, GRI requires an increase in Wholesale Supply Availability (WSA) from its current 85% (OSW approved) to a target of 90%, enabling a greater volume of materiel to be strategically forward positioned throughout DLA’s global distribution depots. The second lever, Warstopper, is aimed at preserving industrial capability to meet wartime needs for critical go-to-war items. Warstopper programs will strengthen U.S. DIB resilience through targeted investments, ensuring essential military production capabilities are maintained despite low peacetime demand, hastening industry production of long lead time materials, and mitigating potential supply shortages during surges.
For GRI to be successful, material forward-positioned at joint cold/warm sites must align with Service-validated operational needs and be protected from vulnerabilities. This precision approach will be supported by predictive data analytics to improve demand forecasts, and by linking supply chain risk management (SCRM), to identify locations, both forward and domestic, that are at high risk of disruption. Furthermore, GRI must also remain complementary to Combatant Command’s Joint Theater Distribution Centers (JTDCs), and service-owned War Reserve Materiel (WRM) and prepositioned equipment, such as the Marine Corps' Global Positioning Network (GPN).
Implementing the GRI presents several challenges for DLA, including strategically prioritizing materials for forward positioning, selecting appropriate storage sites, securing sufficient funding for procurement and infrastructure upgrades, and ensuring supply chain security against cyber and physical threats. DLA is actively addressing these challenges through several strategies, including leveraging technology, integrating with Service-level demand planners to optimize stock levels, and strengthening relationships with the Joint Force, industry, and allied nations.
While the GRI resource investment is significant, it is essential for enabling the Joint Force to generate and sustain operations in a protracted Large Scale Combat Operation (LSCO). While the specifics of Congressional resourcing remain under development, the GRI has identified an $8.5 billion sustainment gap within DLA-managed supply chains and logistics services that must be addressed over the next five years. This funding is primarily required for materiel procurement ($6.8 billion) and $1.65 billion allocated to Warstopper investments.
Securing adequate and sustained funding is paramount to the GRI's success, beginning with proposals in the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) 2027. Possible funding mechanisms include new appropriations, re-allocation of resources from each of the Services' budgets to augment DLA’s Defense-Wide Working Capital Fund, or a combination of these approaches.
Conclusion: Transforming Sustainment to Win the Future Fight
The moment for incremental change has passed. Deterring and prevailing in future great power conflicts demands a fundamentally different sustainment ecosystem than the U.S. currently possesses. Sustainment transformation demands commitment, bold innovation, and a willingness to challenge outdated assumptions. A capable warfighting force equipped to face 21st-century challenges in the Indo-Pacific is vital, and the ability to credibly sustain this force is essential.
The success and sustainability of dispersed Joint Forces, like the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) or the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), hinges on a modern, survivable logistics ecosystem. This requires a shift from the traditional "factory to foxhole" model to one characterized by dynamically distributed sustainment enabled through robust sustainment partnerships. DLA's GRI bridges the gap between the future of U.S. defense strategy and the challenges stemming from decades of consolidations, shortfalls, and underinvestment in the DIB.
Specifically, DLA’s ability to integrate with the Joint Force concepts, leverage partner nation capabilities, and appropriately respond to surge requirements will be critical in a protracted conflict. The GRI promises to alleviate the strain on the U.S. DIB by utilizing warm-basing strategies and commercial partnerships in targeted geographic regions. Furthermore, by prioritizing data analytics and demand forecasting, the GRI can optimize stock levels and ensure the Joint Force receives the right supplies at the right time, even in the face of disruptions and attacks on traditional supply lines. This increased resilience strengthens deterrence. It shows potential enemies that the U.S. military can sustain operations even under attack, making aggression less attractive.
Moving forward, continued investment in and refinement of the GRI estimates, alongside a broader commitment to modernizing the DIB, are essential for maintaining a credible deterrent and ensuring U.S. readiness for future conflicts. The transformation of DLA is not merely an internal matter; it is a critical component of national security and a key factor in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. The U.S. must embrace sustainment transformation with urgency, committing the necessary resources and fostering a collaborative environment with the Joint Force, industry partners, and allies. Only through such concerted action can the U.S. ensure its forces remain ready to deter aggression and, if necessary, prevail in protracted conflict.
1 Defense Logistics Agency. DLA Strategic Plan 2025 — 2030 DLA Transforms: A Call to Action (Fort Belvoir, VA.: September 10, 2024. https://www.dla.mil/Portals/104/Documents/Headquarters/StrategicPlan/DLAStrategicPlan2025-2030March2025.pdf.
2 DLA Public Affairs, “DLA Establishes New Subordinate Command for Weapons Systems Support,” October 1, 2025.