Introduction

Since the Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2022, a maxim attributed to General Omar Bradley has been repeatedly invoked: “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics.” Russia’s early failure to protect supply lines from agile Ukrainian forces near Kyiv has been followed by a prolonged tactical contest leveraging sensors and precision weapons to disrupt battlefield logistics while increasing the speed and scale of materiel production. At the strategic level, Kyiv’s supporters have transported vast quantities of materiel from across the United States, Europe and the Indo-Pacific to sustain its forces, while Russia has turned to Iranian and North Korean supplies to replenish its stockpiles. If artillery and drones have been the king of the conflict’s battles, logistics has been the king of the war.

The return to this type of industrial war has been a wake-up call for the U.S. joint force. After two decades of fighting in relatively permissive environments, DoD faces demands to modernize logistics as it prepares for possible conflict with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Indo-Pacific. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), described the stakes: “In this AoR [area of responsibility], effective sustainment isn’t just important, it’s existential.”^[1] The U.S. Army, the joint force’s “backbone”^[2] in the region, is leading this logistics transformation.

The Role of Landpower in the Indo-Pacific

Defense planners should view the Army’s role in joint logistics in the context of landpower’s value in the Indo-Pacific. Some still characterize the region as an air and maritime theater where ground forces play a limited role.

However, U.S. conflicts in the region over the past century suggest otherwise. In the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, U.S. ground forces were essential in seizing, holding and defending land to enable joint operations. As a result, the U.S. Army accounted for a larger share of total U.S. deaths in these conflicts than one might assume: 38 percent, 82 percent and 66 percent, respectively.^[3]

“We prevail in all domains: land, sea, air, space, cyberspace and the information environment. It is impossible to create those synergistic effects without all those domains converging together, both traditional and non-traditional.” General Ronald Clark
Commander, USARPAC

The critical but often overlooked role of landpower in the Indo-Pacific is that it sets the conditions for other services to bring their unique capabilities fully to bear. Some mistakenly view the U.S. Army as serving two distinct roles—sustaining the joint force and conducting kinetic operations. The Army’s ability to sustain the joint force depends on its ability to dominate the land domain. Holding key terrain is essential to securing infrastructure, supply lines and forward positions that enable joint operations. Without this capability, sustaining the force in a contested environment is untenable. As USARPAC commander General Ronald Clark put it, “We prevail in all domains, land, sea, air, space, cyberspace and the information environment. It is impossible to create those synergistic effects without all those domains converging together, both traditional and non-traditional.”^[4]

Regarding logistics, the USINDOPACOM commander observed that “the Army’s role in theater-wide sustainment cannot be overstated. As DoD’s executive agent for much of our logistics enterprise, the Army provides the backbone of our ability to sustain combat power across the region.”^[5] Some of these executive agent responsibilities include:

• Moving personnel and equipment from all the services from fort to port and from port to place of need;
• establishing and maintaining supply chains for food, ammunition and fuel;
• maintaining and preparing equipment for other services;
• building and repairing bridges, runways and ports;
• providing medical support forward in support of the joint force; and
• establishing, securing and maintaining joint bases throughout the region.

The Army’s support for the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept illustrates this in practice. To counter the PLA’s anti-access area-denial (A2/AD) architecture, ACE disperses Air Force assets across smaller, decentralized airfields in the theater.^[6] This requires the

“The Army’s role in theater-wide sustainment cannot be overstated. As the Department of Defense’s executive agent for much of our logistics enterprise, the Army provides the backbone of our ability to sustain combat power across the region.” Admiral Samuel Paparo
Commander, USINDOPACOM

Army to rapidly secure and defend land to emplace air defense, logistics and sustainment as well as Multi-Domain Task Forces,^[7] which can employ long-range precision fires and other effects to open corridors for the joint force.

Executing this range of kinetic and sustainment roles would be especially critical in a protracted conflict that escalates horizontally—complexities often overlooked in a narrow focus on a short Taiwan Strait scenario.^[8]

The Logistics Challenge in the Region and the Homeland

Army Field Manual 4-0 defines the contested logistics^[9] environment as one in which “the armed forces engage in conflict with an adversary that presents challenges in all domains and directly targets logistics operations, facilities and activities in the United States, abroad, or in transit from one location to another.”^[10]

Logistics has always been contested. Even in recent conflicts against low-tech adversaries in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, logistics forces faced attacks on convoys, including the ubiquitous threat of improvised explosive devices. Additionally, logistics can be contested just as much by nature as by enemy forces, as demonstrated by the 2024 Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore operation off the coast of Gaza.^[11]

The Indo-Pacific Logistics Challenge

• Scale of the theater
• Theater topography
• PLA military capabilities: in-theater and against the U.S. homeland

However, the Indo-Pacific presents three interrelated logistics challenges—scale, topography and adversary capabilities—that make the theater particularly complex. The region’s vast scale creates time and distance challenges unparalleled in any other theater. The joint force is predominantly CONUS-based, and major power projection hubs—Guam, Hawaii, Japan and South Korea—are located hundreds or thousands of miles from potential conflict zones. Guam, for example, is nearly 2,000 miles from Taiwan, while Hawaii is over 5,000 miles away. China is only 90 miles from Taiwan.

The region’s diverse geography exacerbates the challenge of scale. The Indo-Pacific includes archipelagic regions, dense jungles and mountainous terrain, requiring sustainment forces to operate across challenging landscapes. The area is also highly vulnerable to natural disasters,^[12] such as typhoons and earthquakes, which can disrupt supply chains and stockpiles.

Compounding these challenges are PLA A2/AD capabilities designed to exploit U.S. logistics vulnerabilities. The PLA has developed advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, deep magazines of precision munitions and cyber capabilities to target U.S. supply lines, sustainment nodes and regional depots,^[13] increasing the risk of supply chain disruptions and complicating efforts to resupply forward forces. The emerging “massed precision” of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled unmanned aerial systems (UAS) will only deepen this challenge, requiring counter-UAS capabilities to protect logistics infrastructure, prepositioned stocks and supply chains.

Contested Logistics and the Homeland

PLA military capabilities pose another challenge U.S. logisticians have not faced at scale for decades: contestation from “factory to fort to port to foxhole” across all domains, including space, cyber and information warfare.

Logistics in the Indo-Pacific do not begin at the point of conflict but at home. PLA A2/AD is not only a threat in the theater but to CONUS-based power projection and the defense industry that underpins it. A unit at the tactical edge that cannot conduct operations due to PLA strikes on regional supply depots is as equally combat ineffective as a unit that lacks critical materiel because of cyber disruptions to CONUS-based industrial production. The resilience of Army and joint installations, industrial production and strategic mobility assets, such as airlift and sealift, thus underpins the logistics enterprise.

For logisticians, the region’s interlinked challenges create significant complexity in “getting the right stuff to the right place at the right time.” Mitigating them requires the U.S. Army to adapt its posture.

Operation Pathways Support to Joint Logistics

“Positional advantage remains the central idea of the USARPAC strategy.” General Ronald Clark
Commander, USARPAC

Observers sometimes frame contested logistics as a challenge that technology alone can solve. While technological solutions are essential (and are discussed below), this focus can overshadow the issue of force positioning. The joint force cannot leverage even the best technology if it is not strategically positioned.

Operation Pathways addresses positioning by linking over 40 exercises, experiments and security activities, ensuring a sustained U.S. Army presence west of the International Date Line (IDL).^[14] While serving key strategic goals in the region, Pathways enhances logistics across three key lines of effort:

• Building joint interior lines;
• setting the theater; and
• improving sustainment interoperability.

Securing Key Terrain to Build Joint Interior Lines

By integrating tactical actions into a campaign, Pathways positions the Army—and the joint force—across a “landpower network” to sustain combat operations. While basing and access are political decisions, the Army is well-suited to securing human terrain^[15] by building relationships with regional militaries—many of which are predominantly composed of ground forces and led by chiefs of army. In addition to its exercise program, the Army fosters these relationships across echelons through engagements ranging from the theater army to tactical-level contacts developed through Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), Special Forces (SF) and the State Partnership Program (SPP).^[16]

Operation Pathways and Joint Logistics

• Building joint interior lines
• Setting the theater
• Developing logistics interoperability

The Army leverages these relationships to secure geographic terrain^[17] west of the IDL. The strategic value perceived by nations in the region has expanded Operation Pathways since its inception in 2014 (then called Pacific Pathways). In recent years, as many as 14 countries,^[18] including the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia, have participated in exercises involving tens of thousands of multinational soldiers.^[19]

Positioning forces across this landpower network enables USARPAC to build joint interior lines—forward positions enhancing operational reach and endurance.^[20] By massing forces and logistical support throughout a distributed landpower network in the Indo-Pacific, the Army provides the joint force with proximate, flexible and survivable locations from which to project power in the region.

Setting the Theater

Resilient interior lines require that the Army set the theater—another key goal of Pathways. Because adversaries will likely disrupt CONUS-based support in conflict, prepositioning resources during competition is essential. As Admiral Paparo explained, the joint force is “always trying to forward position as much materiel . . . as we possibly can so that when the unforgiving hour comes, we’re not on our back foot.”^[21]

“We don’t need any more bases, but we need a lot more places—places that give us access, places to give us resources that we need for the combined joint force.” Major General Gavin Gardner
Commander, 8th Theater Sustainment Command

USARPAC leverages Pathways to strengthen logistics infrastructure, particularly Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS),^[22] which include:

• Vehicles: Tanks, armored carriers and artillery.
• Ammunition: Artillery shells, missiles and small arms.
• Supplies: Medical gear, food and water.
• Support Equipment: Communications, fuel and transport assets.
• Specialized Gear: Aircraft, engineering tools and mission-specific equipment.

By integrating APS into exercises—and leveraging Joint Theater Distribution Centers to stage and forward this materiel—USARPAC ensures readiness and improves the distribution and resilience of these stocks. For example, in Talisman Sabre 2024, the Army positioned 330 vehicles and trailers and 130 containers in northern Australia.^[24] Equipment left idle in a warehouse has little deterrent effect, but the impact on adversary calculus may be significant when the Army demonstrates that it can rapidly access and deploy these stocks.

Developing and Exercising Logistics Interoperability

While interoperability is often associated with combat operations, logistics interoperability may be even more decisive in a large-scale conflict.

Pathways strengthens logistics cooperation with Indo-Pacific allies at both civil-military and military-to-military levels. Exercises engage partner nations’ civil authorities, port operators and commercial shipping companies to identify logistical impediments to reception, staging, onward movement and integration before conflict arises.^[25]

At the military level, exercises such as Talisman Sabre and Balikatan provide ample opportunities for combined sustainment training, including fuel management, airfield repair and convoy operations. Exercises enhance technical interoperability, addressing challenges observed in Ukraine, where incompatible systems have significantly complicated logistics and sustainment. Operation Pathways provides the foundation to bring this technology into the theater and test it with allies and partners, including the technology that is transforming logistics and sustainment.

The Contested Logistics Cross-Functional Team’s Support to Joint Logistics

Established in 2023, the CL CFT addresses contested logistics at the division and below levels. While the CL CFT has a broad portfolio, a significant focus is working closely with industry to develop innovative technological capabilities in four key areas: precision sustainment, human-machine integration (HMI), advanced power and demand reduction.^[26] These efforts complement USARPAC’s in-theater initiatives.

Precision Sustainment: Delivering the Right Support at the Right Time

In Indo-Pacific large-scale combat operations (LSCO), demand for materiel will outpace supply. The U.S. Army must be able to “see itself” and the joint force more clearly across the theater and distribute the support required to the precise point of need. Lieutenant General Jered Helwig, Deputy Commander of U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), noted, “Every pallet position has got to count, every piece of equipment that we mis-ship or put in the wrong place . . . creates a lot of additional friction that is not going to be helpful, and also holds that valuable space.”^[27]

“Every pallet position has got to count, every piece of equipment that we mis-ship or put in the wrong place . . . creates a lot of additional friction that is not going to be helpful.” Lieutenant General Jered Helwig
Deputy Commander, USTRANSCOM

To this end, the CL CFT is leveraging advancements in AI, which can not only provide the Army with the ability to identify what forces require, how much of it and where they need it (precision sustainment) but also enable the anticipation of these demands (predictive sustainment).^[28]

The potential uses of this technology for logistics and sustainment are profound, including quickly updating commanders and logisticians on fuel and ammunition consumption and the status of prepositioned stocks in the theater, anticipating maintenance demands and proactively prepositioning supplies.^[29] Especially when the Army shares the underlying data with industry, predictive and precision sustainment can improve efficiency, alleviate burdens on the supply chain, reduce the need for risky resupply operations and ultimately increase equipment readiness.

Human-Machine Integration: Enhancing Sustainment Through Automation

While often discussed for their kinetic role, autonomous systems—including UAS, robotic vehicles and autonomous watercraft—have ample potential in multi-domain sustainment.

Four Key CL CFT Portfolios

• Precision sustainment
• HMI-enabled distribution
• Advanced power
• Demand reduction

The CL CFT is collaborating with industry to develop systems for autonomous resupply of fuel, ammunition and medical supplies. In HMI formations, unmanned systems can handle “dull, dirty and dangerous” tasks,^[30] reducing unnecessary risk to Soldiers—whether conducting resupply missions or performing repetitive strenuous lifts—while freeing them to conduct tasks only humans can perform. For example, USARPAC has tested linking autonomous watercraft with UAS to perform unmanned resupply missions in austere locations.^[31]

Because unmanned systems can often be small, attritable and relatively cheap, the Army can acquire them at scale,^[32] providing Army logisticians with “massed precision” to help meet the joint force’s significant logistical demands in the Indo-Pacific.

Advanced Power: Enhancing Operational Endurance

Sustaining distributed forces at the tactical edge requires reliable, scalable and storable power. The CL CFT is accelerating alternative energy solutions to reduce reliance on liquid fuel supply chains,^[33] which are likely to be contested. A hybrid energy approach incorporating liquid fuel, solar, hydrogen power and other sources can provide even minor reductions in demand for liquid fuel, which, in the aggregate, can significantly reduce burdens on supply chains. Moreover, this approach can enhance operational endurance by providing readily available energy sources.

Advancements in battery technology and portable power systems that store generated energy are another key focus for the CL CFT. The CL CFT is working closely with industry to develop power systems such as lightweight, high-density batteries and modular microgrid technologies that can provide resilient, scalable power at the tactical edge.^[34] These systems can reduce the need for traditional generator-based power, which can be a significant logistical burden and increase a formation’s targetable signature.

Demand Reduction: Optimizing the Logistics Footprint

Each link in the logistics chain—including access to strategic resources, production sites, processes and the modes of transportation that deliver materiel—is a potential point of disruption. The CL CFT is therefore exploring ways to reduce forces’ requirements for a host of critical materiel, including munitions, medical gear and organic matter.^[35]

One way to reduce supply chain demands is to produce at the point of need. 3D printing capability can enable lower echelon units to produce spare parts on-site,^[36] eliminating the time it can take to order from a CONUS-based supplier, make the part and transport it to the point of need—a process that can take weeks even without an adversary actively contesting it. The CL CFT is even accelerating innovations in organic materiel production, including atmospheric water generation^[37] and biotechnology for food production.^[38]

Where point-of-need production is impossible, local sourcing from Indo-Pacific partners and allies can similarly reduce time and cost compared to shipment from CONUS. Integrating AI into supply chain management can provide the Army with a better understanding of what is available locally and of the most effective distribution routes to deliver materiel to the point of need.

Technology alone will not solve the challenges of CL. However, the CL CFT’s priorities across precision sustainment, autonomous, advanced power and demand reduction are vital enablers of the joint force’s logistics network in the Indo-Pacific.

The Way Ahead

USARPAC’s efforts to build a landpower network across the region, combined with the CL CFT’s technological innovations, position the Army to sustain the joint force in the Indo-Pacific. However, contested logistics is not so much a problem to be “solved” as it is a problem that DoD must continuously manage. Adversaries will persistently probe new ways to disrupt sustainment. The Army, DoD, Congress and industry must act urgently to build on current progress.

Contested Logistics Recommendations

Department of Defense/Department of the Army

Recommendation #1: Expand prepositioned stocks and improve infrastructure resilience.

DoD should continue to expand joint exercises, access agreements and basing throughout the Indo-Pacific. These engagements position the joint force advantageously while enhancing human, procedural and technical interoperability with allies. They also provide an opportunity to develop hardened, redundant prepositioned stocks. Even lower-level engagements employing SFABs, SF and the SPP can build lasting relationships that may yield long-term benefits.

Recommendation #2: Capitalize on the Replicator Initiative^[39] to enable joint sustainment.

DoD should ensure that unmanned systems with logistics and sustainment applications receive equal prioritization as those used for kinetic purposes. Massed precision sustainment may be just as vital in LSCO as massed precision fires.

Congress

Recommendation #1: Fully fund the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI).

Congress should leverage the PDI to further modernize Indo-Pacific logistics networks, prepositioned stocks and infrastructure. PDI funding should also support CL CFT innovations, including autonomous resupply, AI-driven predictive sustainment, advanced power generation and 3D printing at the tactical edge.

Recommendation #2: Streamline acquisition and provide flexible funding mechanisms.

The services require flexible funding to quickly acquire platforms and software as they prove valuable in real-world applications.^[40] The pace of technological change means some current solutions will be inefficient or even obsolete before the end of the Future Years Defense Program cycle. Congress should ensure budgets do not lock the services into outdated systems.

Recommendation #3: Where feasible, explore co-production opportunities and grant ITAR exemptions to close Indo-Pacific allies.

The U.S. joint force will not fight alone or sustain itself alone. The root of logistics lies in the resilience of the defense industrial base—not only that of the United States but also that of its allies and partners. Congress should identify Indo-Pacific allies and partners who can produce critical technologies and then should grant ITAR exemptions where appropriate. Moving from a “supply chain” to a “supply web” will strengthen the resilience of coalition supply chains.

Defense Industry

Recommendation #1: Prioritize logistics and sustainment in capability development.

The Indo-Pacific requires balancing a system’s exquisite capabilities with ensuring forces can sustain it in a contested environment. Systems should be designed with sustainment at the forefront, considering factors such as repairability at the tactical edge, reduced dependence on liquid fuel and resilience in the Indo-Pacific environment. Platforms should also be capable of integrating with autonomous systems and 3D printing capabilities.

Recommendation #2: Incorporate Soldier touch points as early and often as possible.

There is no replacement for getting developmental technology into Soldiers’ hands. Feedback from operators and logisticians employing technology in-theater can identify impediments to sustaining new systems before the Army fields them at scale. Operation Pathways and U.S. Army units transforming in contact^[41] provide industry ample opportunities to test, validate and refine the resilience of innovative technology in a contested environment.

Recommendation #3: Support the Army’s right to repair.

The U.S. Army’s ability to repair its equipment to the greatest extent possible is a matter of both operational effectiveness and sound stewardship of resources. In an Indo-Pacific conflict, the joint force cannot afford the time or cost of relying on distant, centralized repair facilities. Defense industry partners should collaborate with DoD to ensure that contracts protect intellectual property while providing the necessary tools, data and authority to conduct repairs at the point of need. In this priority theater, readiness must take precedence.

“In this AoR, effective sustainment isn’t just important, it’s existential.” Admiral Samuel Paparo
Commander, USINDOPACOM

Conclusion

The Indo-Pacific represents the most challenging logistical environment the U.S. military has faced in decades. Its vast distances, difficult terrain and contested domains require logistics and sustainment to be a top priority for the joint force. Through Operation Pathways, USARPAC is positioning forces strategically while leveraging CL CFT innovations. These efforts are shaping a more dispersed, flexible and survivable logistics network. Continued support from DoD, Congress and industry is essential to countering adversary contestation and ensuring sustainment.

Much of the character of warfare is in flux, but the fundamentals of war remain. Militaries are not powered so much by their tanks, ships or guns as by the fuel, ammunition, food and medical supplies that make these platforms and the people operating them functional. Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu observed that “the line between disorder and order lies in logistics” at the tactical level. As the Indo-Pacific faces the risk of great power conflict for the first time since World War II, whether the U.S. military and its partners can maintain the long-standing strategic “order” may depend just as much on logistics.

• [1] SGT Johanna Pullum, “INDOPACOM Commander Underscores Importance of Land Forces, Deterrence, and AI in Indo-Pacific Security,” Army News Service, 13 May 2025, https://www.army.mil/article/285494/indopacom_commander_underscores_importance_of_land_forces_deterrence_and_ai_in_indo_pacific_security.
• [2] Matthew Olay, “Indo-Pacom Commander Highlights Army’s Regional Contribution,” DOD News, 14 May 2025, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4186821/indo-pacom-commander-highlights-armys-regional-contribution/.
• [3] John E. Whitley, Underfunding the Army Has Risky Implications, Association of the United States Army, Special Report 23-1, 11 January 2023, 9.
• [4] SGT Johanna Pullum, “General Clark Underscores Land Power’s Pivotal Role in Indo-Pacific Security at LANPAC,” USARPAC, 13 May 2025, https://www.usarpac.army.mil/Our-Story/Our-News/Article-Display/Article/4184745/general-clark-underscores-land-powers-pivotal-role-in-indo-pacific-security-at/.
• [5] “LANPAC ‘25 Symposium and Exposition - Intro/ Opening Remarks/ Keynote Pres. - Adm. Samuel J. Paparo,” YouTube, uploaded by USARPAC PAO, 13 May 2025, 41:25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCMBZdEI_30.
• [6] SSG Andre Taylor, “Forging Synergy: US Army and US Air Force convene at Agile Combat Employment Summit,” Army News Service, 4 September 2024, https://www.army.mil/article/279416/forging_synergy_us_army_and_us_air_force_convene_at_agile_combat_employment_summit.
• [7] Charles McEnany, Multi-Domain Task Forces: A Glimpse at the Army of 2035, Association of the United States Army, Spotlight 22-2, March 2022.
• [8] Charles McEnany and Colonel Daniel S. Roper, USA, Ret., The Russo-Ukrainian War: Protracted Warfare Implications for the U.S. Army, Association of the United States Army, Spotlight 24-2, October 2024, https://www.ausa.org/publications/russo-ukrainian-war-protracted-warfare-implications-us-army.
• [9] For purposes of clarity, “contested logistics” is not abbreviated as “CL” when discussed as a concept in this Spotlight. It is, however, abbreviated as CL when using the title of the Contested Logistics Cross-Functional Team, or CL CFT.
• [10] Army Field Manual 4-0, Sustainment Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 14 August 2024), 10-11.
• [11] Noah Robertson, “Pentagon watchdog to review JLOTS system used for Gaza aid pier,” Military Times, 20 August 2024, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/08/20/pentagon-watchdog-to-review-jlots-system-used-for-gaza-aid-pier/.
• [12] Laraib Ali and Dr. Maliha Zeba Khan, “Mitigating Natural Disasters in the Indo-Pacific: A Study of Sri Lanka’s Naval and Coast Guard Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Operations,” Air University, 5 August 2024, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/3859398/mitigating-natural-disasters-in-the-indo-pacific-a-study-of-sri-lankas-naval-an/.
• [13] Colonel Maximillian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco, “The Four Tyrannies of Logistical Deterrence,” Stimson Center, 8 November 2023, https://www.stimson.org/2023/the-four-tyrannies-of-logistical-deterrence/.
• [14] Major Matthew Parget, “Generating Readiness, Interoperability in Indo-Pacific through Operation Pathways,” Army News Service, 16 October 2024, https://www.army.mil/article/280583/generating_readiness_interoperability_in_indo_pacific_through_operation_pathways.
• [15] “Campaigning,” U.S. Army Pacific, https://www.usarpac.army.mil/Our-Approach/Campaigning/.
• [16] Charles McEnany, The U.S. Army’s Security Force Assistance Triad: Security Force Assistance Brigades, Special Forces and the State Partnership Program, Association of the United States Army, Spotlight 22-3, October 2022, https://www.ausa.org/publications/us-armys-security-force-assistance-triad-security-force-assistance-brigades-special.
• [17] “Campaigning,” U.S. Army Pacific, https://www.usarpac.army.mil/Our-Approach/Campaigning/.
• [18] Jen Judson, “‘We don’t have a NATO here’: How the US Army plans to counter China,” Defense News, 11 October 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2022/10/11/we-dont-have-a-nato-here-how-the-us-army-plans-to-counter-china/.
• [19] Gordon Arthur, “Largest Ever Talisman Sabre Exercise Wraps in Australia,” USNI News, 4 August 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/08/04/largest-ever-talisman-sabre-exercise-wraps-in-australia.
• [20] Sergeant Jared Simmons, “Forward Posturing for a Safer Indo-Pacific,” U.S. Army Pacific, 16 May 2024, https://www.usarpac.army.mil/Our-Story/Our-News/Article-Display/Article/3778444/forward-posturing-for-a-safer-indo-pacific/.
• [21] “LANPAC ‘25 Symposium and Exposition - Intro/ Opening Remarks/ Keynote Pres. - Adm. Samuel J. Paparo,” YouTube, uploaded by USARPAC PAO, 13 May 2025,1:00:05.
• [22] Greg Wilson, “Army Prepositioned Stocks send strong message of deterrence,” Army News Service, 3 December 2024, https://www.army.mil/article/281749/army_prepositioned_stocks_send_strong_message_of_deterrence.
• [23] Cameron M. Keys, “Defense Primer: Department of Defense Pre-Positioned Materiel,” Congressional Research Service, last updated 12 December 2024, 2, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11699.
• [24] “US military stockpiling supplies in Australia in readiness for any confrontation with China,” Reuters, 1 February 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/01/us-military-stockpiling-supplies-australia-china-confrontation.
• [25] Specialist Richard Carlisi, “I Corps prepares for Operation PATHWAYS, showcases well-disciplined, combat-ready force,” Army News Service, 23 January 2023, https://www.army.mil/article/263464/i_corps_prepares_for_operation_pathways_showcases_well_disciplined_combat_ready_force.
• [26] Don Bates, “Precision Sustainment and Predictive Logistics in USINDOPACOM,” Army News Service, 18 July 2024, https://www.army.mil/article/277265/precision_sustainment_and_predictive_logistics_in_usindopacom.
• [27] Meghann Myers, “Army prepping for Pacific conflict with prepositioned equipment, logistics hubs,” Defense One, 14 May 2025, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/05/army-prepping-pacific-conflict-prepositioned-equipment-logistics-hubs/405331/.
• [28] Kirk Jones, “Operations Change the Army’s Approach to Sustainment,” Army News Service, 22 January 2025, https://www.army.mil/article/282480/operations_change_the_armys_approach_to_sustainment.
• [29] Jen Judson, “What is the US Army’s new contested logistics team working on?,” Defense News, 9 October 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/10/09/what-is-the-us-armys-new-contested-logistics-team-working-on/.
• [30] Jen Judson, “The robots are coming: US Army experiments with human-machine warfare,” Defense News, 25 March 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2024/03/25/the-robots-are-coming-us-army-experiments-with-human-machine-warfare/.
• [31] Jen Judson, “US Army’s fresh look at watercraft includes unmanned options,” Defense News, 27 March 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2024/03/27/us-armys-fresh-look-at-watercraft-includes-unmanned-options/.
• [32] McEnany and Roper, The Russo-Ukrainian War: Protracted Warfare Implications for the U.S. Army, , 8.
• [33] Marian Accardi, “Army Futures Command exploring contested logistics,” Redstone Rocket, 16 August 2023, https://www.theredstonerocket.com/military_scene/article_7b2fffdc-3bed-11ee-a2b8-5f7ceee563ff.html.
• [34] Staff Sergeant Joshua R. Charles, “The Future Possibilities of Operational Energy,” U.S. Army, 22 January 2025, https://www.army.mil/article/282481/the_future_possibilities_of_operational_energy.
• [35] Judson, “What is the US Army’s new contested logistics team working on?”
• [36] Jen Judson, “US Army inches closer to 3D-printing spare parts under fire,” Defense News, 14 October 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/10/14/us-army-inches-closer-to-3d-printing-spare-parts-under-fire/.
• [37] “Contested Logistics Industry Week,” U.S. Army, 19 September 2024, slide 34.
• [38] Lieutenant Amos C. Fox, USA, Contested Logistics: A Primer, Association of the United States Army, Landpower Essay 24-1, February 2024, 4, https://www.ausa.org/publications/contested-logistics-primer.
• [39] McEnany and Roper, The Russo-Ukrainian War: Protracted Warfare Implications for the U.S. Army, 8–9.
• [40] Mark Pomerleau, “Army seeks more flexible funding on electronic warfare capabilities, programs,” Defense Scoop, 17 October 2024, https://defensescoop.com/2024/10/17/army-seeks-flexible-funding-electronic-warfare-capabilities-programs/.
• [41] “‘Transformation in Contact’ Changes Army Approach to Combat,” Association of the United States Army, 16 October 2024, https://www.ausa.org/news/transformation-contact-changes-army-approach-combat.