Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot is the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command. In this interview, he discusses protecting the Western Hemisphere and speaks on his commands’ relationship with the Defense Logistics Agency.
What is the operational relationship between USNORTHCOM and the Defense Logistics Agency? What are some of the most important ways DLA supports USNORTHCOM?
The operational relationship between U.S. Northern Command and the Defense Logistics Agency is defined by complete integration. DLA is the logistical backbone across all USNORTHCOM’s primary lines of effort — Homeland Defense, Defense Support of Civil Authorities, and Theater Security Cooperation. Through embedded liaison officers, DLA is fully integrated into USNORTHCOM daily operations and future planning at every echelon. As USNORTHCOM confronts the reality of contested logistics, DLA serves as the vital link to the commercial industrial base, and its ability to rapidly surge resources ensures USNORTHCOM can sustain force projection.
The theme of this issue of Loglines is “Western Hemisphere and Homeland Defense.” In your view, what is the most critical message for our readers regarding the interconnectedness of these two areas of focus?
USNORTHCOM works closely with adjacent combatant commands, allies and partners to ensure lines on a map don’t create gaps and seams an adversary could exploit. USNORTHCOM views the Western Hemisphere as a single, interconnected theater with USSOUTHCOM. When competitors gain a foothold in the Caribbean or South America, they are positioning themselves to hold the U.S. at risk. By integrating operations across combatant commands, we create true “defense-in-depth” by defending at distance to mitigate threats before they reach our borders. If warfighters are operating seamlessly across the Americas, the Joint Logistics Enterprise must be equally seamless to secure supply chains and ensure logistics resilience. DLA’s hemispheric perspective meets the needs of this reality.
As the Nation’s Logistics Combat Support Agency, how can DLA support your vision of a “defended homeland”?
Within USNORTHCOM’s Homeland Defense mission, DLA is a critical mechanism for securing the defense industrial base and logistical networks in the U.S.
Because DLA supports all combatant command and services, it possesses a holistic view of aggregate sustainment requirements. By leveraging its understanding of the commercial sector, DLA can actively illuminate supply chain risks, mitigate vulnerabilities that threaten global force projection, and proactively invest in the resilience required to operate in a contested logistics environment. In conflict, DLA will be essential partners in our mission to sustain operations under duress, at great distances, and under harsh environmental conditions.
DLA’s Strategic Plan emphasizes the need to win in a contested logistics environment. What elements of contested logistics do you find most important or unique for the USNORTHCOM area of responsibility?
The Department of War projects power from the homeland, yet it relies overwhelmingly on commercial and civilian infrastructure to operate. For USNORTHCOM, a contested environment doesn’t just mean protecting supply lines in a distant theater; it’s also contending with the reality that domestic ports, rail networks, energy grids, and the defense industrial base can be targets of kinetic and non-kinetic attacks. To win in this environment, securing commercial supply chains here at home is critical. DLA’s ability to illuminate domestic vulnerabilities, build redundancy into civilian-military logistics networks, and ensure USNORTHCOM can simultaneously execute Homeland Defense and global force projection — even while under attack — is the linchpin to success.
From your perspective, what does “win in a contested logistics environment” mean for homeland defense and North America, and how is USNORTHCOM working with DLA to address these challenges?
Winning in a contested logistics environment means that even under multi-domain attack, friendly supply chains remain unbroken — ensuring we can simultaneously, one, dynamically defend the United States; two, sustain combat forces overseas; and three, support the daily needs of our citizens. USNORTHCOM works with DLA to achieve this reality by rigorously mapping operational requirements to identify and close gaps through joint advocacy, resourcing and investment. This partnership exists from the strategic level by embedding homeland defense requirements into critical Joint Logistics Enterprise forums like DLA’s Set the Theater, Set the Globe conference, to the tactical level by stress-testing logistical resilience in Tier-1 integrated exercises like Vigilant Shield.
From your perspective, what are the primary logistical hurdles to sustaining persistent, all-domain awareness and defense in the High North (the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions of North America, including Alaska, northern Canada and Greenland)? What innovations in supply, distribution and infrastructure support do you need from DLA to ensure mission success in this extreme environment?
Sustaining persistent, all-domain awareness in the High North is fundamentally constrained by three hurdles: extended distances, the extreme seasonal weather and a lack of baseline infrastructure. Because local commercial resources are not purpose-built to the needs of the Joint Force, every operation incurs a premium in cost and time. To defend the United States, USNORTHCOM must treat the Arctic not as a periphery, but as the “forward fight.”
DLA can drive innovation by rapidly injecting commercial off-the-shelf technologies into our formations, developing alternative energy distribution to power remote sensors, and pre-positioning winterized sustainment. Furthermore, because the Arctic extends across U.S. Northern Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, DLA’s ability to integrate requirements and posture resources trans-regionally will allow the DOW to turn this harsh environment from a logistical vulnerability into a strategic advantage.
DLA is expanding our footprint at your headquarters and establishing an O-6 DLA USNORTHCOM office, as well as embedding a permanent liaison officer in the Alaskan Command logistics office. As the commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM, what do these embedded LNOs need to focus on to better support your mission?
This expanded footprint is a welcome development, and the establishment of an O-6 DLA USNORTHCOM office confirms DLA’s commitment to resourcing homeland defense. With increased bandwidth, the office will do more than support current operations; it will drive deliberate planning and shape exercise development and contingency response. Whether managing the massive logistical complexities of JTF-Southern Border’s missions, modernizing the approach to sustainment in the High North, or supporting long-term air defense initiatives like the Golden Dome for America, DLA is a critical enabler and teammate. By embedding permanently, especially in challenging environments like Alaskan Command, DLA ensures the NORAD and USNORTHCOM can proactively mitigate sustainment challenges.
As NORAD, USNORTHCOM and DLA continue to integrate data-sharing platforms, what are your expectations for how this collaboration will enhance logistics readiness and supply chain resiliency against potential disruptions or attacks on our critical infrastructure?
The primary expectation for data integration with DLA is for logistics to be elevated from a secondary planning consideration to a primary driver of real-time decision-making. When providing strategic recommendations to national leadership during a crisis, I need a seamless, multi-classification common operating picture that overlays DLA’s deep intelligence on the commercial industrial base directly with USNORTHCOM’s warfighting requirements. By integrating this data, USNORTHCOM achieves decision advantage — being aware of disruptions to critical infrastructure instantly, outpacing adversaries’ decision cycle, and guaranteeing supply chain resiliency in a contested environment.
What keeps you up at night, and what does DLA need to do to help?
I sleep well knowing the professionals across NORAD and USNORTHCOM along with our many partners, such as DLA, understand the complexity of the environment in which we operate and show up every day giving their best. We are well-equipped and well-trained to handle the most operationally challenging situations. We prepare for the threat of simultaneous, multi-domain attacks — kinetic, cyber and space — by defending critical infrastructure and ensuring force projection before a conflict even begins. I know DLA is ruthless in illuminating our supply chains to eliminate single points of failure before adversaries can exploit them. I know DLA is building redundancy so that when we take a hit, we don’t break, whether that’s in Alaska, Puerto Rico, or anywhere in between. DLA’s “Warfighter Always” approach supports NORAD and USNORTHCOM as “We have the Watch.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
The United States’ adversaries operate across all domains, and they recognize that to challenge the U.S. globally, they must disrupt our logistics locally. The relationship between NORAD, USNORTHCOM and DLA is crucial in countering that threat. Together, we are not just moving supplies; we are hardening the foundational power projection platform of the Department of War. Investments made now in data integration, commercial resilience, and hemispheric posture are exactly what will ensure the United States remains secure and our warfighters remain lethal, no matter what crisis arises.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Read more from this June 2026 edition of Loglines or browse more editions of the magazine on the Loglines Magazine website.