Browse by

Oct. 25, 2022

The Surface Deployment and Distribution Command: Operating Within the Larger Sustainment Enterprise

The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command is the global intermodal surface connector. It exists to move, deploy, and sustain the Armed Forces to deliver readiness on time, on target, every time. The organization executes this mission as a key member of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise, which is committed to integrating, synchronizing, and providing global deployment and distribution capabilities to deliver and sustain the U.S. military in support of the Nation’s objectives.

Oct. 25, 2022

Military Sealift Command: Joint Maritime Mobility

Military Sealift Command (MSC) provides a high-value service to the U.S. Navy and joint force and is constantly evolving to meet challenges across an increasingly contested maritime environment. Long focused on efficiency in force employment, MSC is evolving to focus on effectiveness in force development and force generation to assure readiness for strategic competition, crisis, or conflict. Key lines of effort are needed to build and reinforce the strategic advantage afforded to the United States as a maritime nation.

Oct. 25, 2022

Strategic Mobility in the Context of U.S. National Defense Strategies

U.S. mobility capabilities appear formidable but are dwindling and aging. These airlift, air refueling, and sealift capabilities separate the United States as a superpower from both our closest allies and our Great Power adversaries. That said, the mobility enterprise cannot be taken for granted and must not be further discounted. The speed and expanse of an Indo-Pacific conflict would require velocity at scale. Credible mobility capabilities—requisite capacity and necessary readiness for their employment—will continue to remain necessary and relevant to current and future defense strategies. Sustaining and recapitalizing these forces must be a DOD focus to ensure the mobility enterprise remains a national comparative advantage.

Oct. 25, 2022

Air Mobility Command: The Meaningful Maneuver for Joint Force Victory

In April 2021, General Jacqueline Van Ovost penned a white paper where she outlined Air Mobility Command’s deliberate shift in mindset and tactical approach to staying ready to compete with the high-end adversaries of tomorrow. Fifteen months later, AMC has found itself as the linchpin for several high-profile global operations. These often-unnoticed daily operations, continue to spotlight the unique strategic advantage that AMC offers the joint force. Future conflicts will likely be demanding, ambiguous, contested, and violent. To secure victory for America, the joint force will require the placement of forces to achieve the strategic advantage in conflict, also known as maneuver. AMC will be the meaningful maneuver for the joint force, and we will deliver victory.

Oct. 25, 2022

An Interview with Jacqueline D. Van Ovost

The character of war is changing, and our nation faces direct challenges across all domains, including daily adversarial activity in the cyber realm. From competition to conflict, these changes drive accompanying shifts in how U.S. Transportation Command is approaching the application of our global logistics capability. From ensuring the joint force can defend our homeland, support our allies and partners, protect our interests abroad, deter potential adversaries, and transport combat power to prevail, this command stands ready to deliver.

Oct. 25, 2022

Health Diplomacy: A Powerful Tool in Great Power Competition

Today, China is looking to compete with the United States for influence and access across Africa. Policy experts within the Department of Defense have focused on China’s effort to reach parity with the United States within traditional military domains; however, they have contributed less regarding the military policy implications of China’s expansion of medical and pharmaceutical assistance, an area that likely will continue to be a key line of operation in the post-pandemic world.

Oct. 25, 2022

Transparent Cyber Deterrence

The United States is under constant attack from state-enabled malicious cyber actors. These malicious activities are estimated to cost the U.S. economy as much as $242 billion annually. The majority of cyber attacks on the United States and its allies originate from Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, whose governments have adopted symbiotic relationships with state and nonstate malicious cyber actors. The U.S. Government must consider additional options that directly raise the costs of malicious cyber activities to deter them.

Oct. 24, 2022

Building an Enduring U.S.-India Partnership to Secure a Free, Open, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region

The United States has a national interest in a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. China poses the greatest threat to this interest by using its growing economic and military power to deprive the U.S. of intellectual property and military secrets, to limit economic and security choices for countries in the region, and to attempt to rewrite the rules governing the Indo-Pacific. A robust U.S.-India economic and security partnership could effectively counter China’s aggressive behavior, disregard for international law and norms, and efforts to recast international institutions.

Oct. 24, 2022

A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times

A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times is the narrative of Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense for the Trump administration, about his tumultuous 17 months in office, which ended with his November 2020 firing by Trump. A Sacred Oath confronts a vital first-order question for all uniformed and civilian military professionals: How do I faithfully adhere to my sworn oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic? This question is especially searing when it comes to upholding the oath as a senior civilian political appointee in the face of a domestic security threat from the White House itself. There is no perfect answer, but contextual factors help inform whether a senior Department of Defense (DOD) official should offer resignation rather than remain and enable the threat in hopes of moderating it.

Oct. 24, 2022

Air Power Supremo: A Biography of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor

In the pantheon of air power pioneers from the dawn of military aviation to the advent of the jet age nearly four decades later, Marshal of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Sir John Slessor never gained the stature and name recognition of such earlier air warfare icons as General Billy Mitchell of the U.S. Army Air Service. Yet viewed in hindsight, Slessor was uncommonly instrumental in the development of effective air doctrine, concepts of operations, and organizing principles during his 37 years as an airman, combat commander, and senior leader.