Mohan: Modernization, Allies Key to Army Sustainment
Mohan: Modernization, Allies Key to Army Sustainment

The Army must prioritize modernization of the industrial base and integration of allies and partners as it works to more quickly deliver capabilities and maintenance to the front lines, a senior officer said.
In remarks Jan. 15 at an Association of the U.S. Army Hot Topic titled “Connecting the Industrial Base to the Tactical Edge,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Mohan, deputy commanding general of Army Materiel Command, said that many of the lessons learned from studying operations in Ukraine have shown that supply chain capabilities would be impossible without working closely with allies and partners.
“If you look back at our previous conflicts, we don’t fight alone, so we have to be integrated,” said Mohan, who also has been acting commanding general of Materiel Command since March 2024.
Integration with overseas partners would be bolstered by advanced manufacturing capabilities provided by teams of artisans on site who can work with remote subject-matter experts in the United States through secure telemaintenance channels.
As an example, Mohan described a scenario where a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, is out of commission, and the critical part to repair it is not on hand in theater. “In the world we envision, that HIMARS crew jumps on our telemaintenance chat and pulls up that subject-matter expert, the engineer that is responsible for that weapon system,” Mohan said. “So, fortunately there’s a support unit or an allied capability that has the 3D printing technology to fabricate the required part, and we have the intellectual property so we can actually print the part.”
The telemaintenance and fabrication approach, he said, “dramatically reduces lead times compared to traditional logistics that would have taken weeks” to pull the part off a warehouse shelf, transport it overseas and out to the tactical edge.
Mohan also noted that as the Army prepares to engage in combat operations against any number of possible adversaries, it must ensure that it is acquiring the right capabilities—a question that will be governed by the rapid evolution of battlefield technology.
He offered as an example the proliferation of unmanned aerial systems and how quickly the systems’ capabilities are advancing. The “UAS space is exploding, UAS and counter-UAS, it is dynamically changing the battlefield,” he said. This requires the Army to ask if it’s “buying the right stuff, are we spending our taxpayers’ [money] on the right capability? We’ve got to think really hard on that.”
Purchasing massive numbers of unmanned aerial systems also would require building facilities to house and maintain them, he noted. “The hangar is going to last 150 years when we don’t know what the aviation fleet is going to look like in five years,” Mohan said. “We are on a 12-week integration cycle in Ukraine. A 12-week cycle. Build something new, fight something new, react to the enemy’s countermeasures, build something new—so we’ve got to think, we’ve got to challenge ourselves.”