The Lifeblood of Military Power Military of Lifeblood the Logistics
Logistics: The Lifeblood of Military Power John E. Wissler, Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret.) The end for which a soldier is recruited, therefore affects every aspect of organizing, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole training, equipping, deploying, and employing objective of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and the force. marching is simply that he should fight at the Logistics is perhaps the most complex right place and the right time. and interrelated capability provided by to- —Major-General Carl von Clausewitz, On War day’s military. Unfortunately, to those unfa- miliar with its intellectual and technological he term “logistics” was not commonly used breadth, depth, and complexity, it can be con- Tuntil shortly before World War II, but the sidered an assumed capability—something concept and understanding of logistics have that simply happens—or, worse yet, a “back been around since the earliest days of warfare. office” function that is not connected to war- In Clausewitz’s words, getting the force to the fighting capability. “fight at the right place and the right time”1 is The success of military logistics during the the true essence of military logistics. past 16-plus years of overseas combat opera- The Merriam-Webster online dictionary tions is partly to blame for anyone’s assump- defines logistics as “the aspect of military sci- tion that continued logistical success in the ence dealing with the procurement, mainte- ever-changing national security environment nance, and transportation of military materiel, is a given across the entirety of the military lo- facilities, and personnel.”2 The Joint Chiefs of gistics enterprise.
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