Air University Review, September-October 1977

Readiness

a logistician’s view

DURING the past year, the Air Force has made an intensive effort to assess and improve the readiness posture of its combat forces. As this review progresses, certain key issues must be addressed. At the risk of appearing parochial, I should like to stress the part played by the logistic segment of the triad of strategy, tactics, and logistics.

Here is not the time to belabor the issue of "equivalence." The equality of strategy, tactics, and logistics in military operations is a fact long acknowledged by competent military writers.^l Nevertheless, I sometimes feel the necessity to speak out in an advocate role--occasionally as the devil's--when logistics appears slipping in relative importance. Support of strategy and tactics is the key mission of the logistics process; without logistical support there can be no effective strategic or tactical operation.

Indeed, the old maxim "The Air Force's mission is to fly and fight" carries special significance for the Air Force Logistics Command. Our contribution to force readiness is an essential one, and without a responsive logistical support capability, our first line weapon systems would become little more than static displays. But fortunately for us all, AFLC has achieved its main task of improving materiel support to our forces while keeping wartime surge requirements foremost in its thoughts and actions.

The environment within which the Defense Planning, Programming, and Budget processes operate tends to obscure the objectives that guide the Air Force's war planning. The allocation of dollars, or the budgetary portion of this process, is geared primarily for a peacetime mode of operations while planning rightfully stresses the wartime mode. Simply stated, we are tasked to prepare for war, but we are being funded for peace. The resulting dichotomy adversely affects our readiness posture. The solution lies, in part at least, in achieving a balance of resources by integrating both peace and war requirements into the programming process. The Systems and Resources Management Action Group (SRMAG), in fact, addressed this issue in their Management Proposal No. 4, "Integrated Mission Area Analysis."² The introduction and successful application of this proposal could provide the Air Force with a management tool that will enhance our ability to combine our objectives, plans, programs, and budgets into an active readiness context.

To establish the role of logistics in the readiness equation, let us take a macroview of the logistics system and its critical interfaces. (See Figure 1.) Wartime scenarios establish the force posture needs. The Logistics Command translates the wartime planning scenarios and resultant force activity levels into materiel resource requirements. From these requirements we determine the resources, processes, and workloads that must be established and funded. But note that there is a return route within the system. If constraints (such as reduced funds) are placed on any component within the logistics system, there is a reduction in capability that in turn limits our support of the operational forces. If there were no constraints placed on the system, there would be no problem; but such a utopian situation will not and cannot exist. Peace inevitably creates more resource constraints than exist under mobilization conditions, but today, more than ever before, we must understand the effect these peacetime constraints will have on our ability to wage war.

The primary source of support requirements is the wartime planning scenarios developed by the operational planners of the Air Force. This places a weighty responsibility on them. Wartime scenarios and contingency plans must be as complete and as accurate as possible. They are the basis on which logistic actions are taken. Additionally, planners must carefully analyze the selection of weapons and the planned intensity of conflict because these factors too drive the resource decisions. If the planners have made poor choices in terms of logistics, the resulting chain of events will adversely affect the outcome of the conflict. Admiral Hyman Rickover has reportedly said, "Bitter experience in conflict has taught the maxim that the art of war is the art of the logistically feasible."

Planners must also contend with a certain measure of built-in flexibility in logistics. Logistical systems are sometimes slow to react because of long development and production lead times that are measured in months and years, not days. A large part of our job is to reduce lead time, but the more crucial element is that accurate planning base which allows adequate consideration of lead time factors.

The translation of war plans to required materiel support is a complex activity beginning with resources established to support the peacetime level of operation. In most cases, the level is far below wartime surge requirements. In fact, some weapon systems exhibit a 10 to 1 ratio of wartime to peacetime support needs.³ The surge requirement becomes a problem of magnitude with resultant turbulence in the logistic system. To ease this problem, we exercise the same direct command and control over our people, facilities, and resources as is required for operational forces. We are dependent on our \in-being resources to support early involvement in any contingency and to take up the slack caused by built-in logistic lead times. We rely, to a large extent, on our war reserve materiel (WRM) stocks to compensate for this lead time.

Computations of WRM levels are made to stock the consumable supplies and spare\parts required to carry on the planned wartime activity until the industrial capacity of the Air Force and the nation can react to sustain our forces. If our computations are accurate, funding deficits become the major constraining factor on our ability to surge. In spite of some recent fiscal relief, we are still in an era of funds shortages.⁴ With reduced dollars, we have been unable to buy WRM in sufficient amounts. Worse, we have had to borrow from existing WRM to satisfy some peacetime support requirements. Industrial preparedness also suffers when financial resources are scarce.⁵ In the face of his reality, we are working hard to increase the effectiveness of our logistic systems. We want to squeeze every last measure of efficiency and effectiveness out of the resources that are provided. To the extent that significant shortages continue, the Air Force must face the alternatives of (1) failing to meet planning requirements or (2) reconstructing the response of our forces by developing new strategies that we can support.

We seek increased effectiveness within the logistic system through in-depth analysis of our various processes. We are looking at the depot repair functions and the utility of contractor repair to achieve higher readiness levels. Decisions as to whether a contractor performs repair on our spares or whether the repair is performed in-house depend to a large extent on how such a contract might affect our ability to react to the wartime surge. ⁶ We continue to refine our analytical models to assist in assessing these alternatives.

Unfortunately, we cannot give full and equal support to all weapon systems. This fact of life has prompted us to develop a criterion for dynamic support. Weapon systems have become active competitors for our limited logistic resources. All too often, AFLC must decide on resource allocations that affect a weapon system's readiness posture without full knowledge of those variables outside the logistic arena. The critical element in this situation is the need for an effective system of priorities which can be applied in making logistic support decisions affecting our weapon systems or forces.

Major logistic decisions—not operationally ready, supply (NORS) objectives, WRM stockage, modification funding, and the like—require a priority system which assures that maximum readiness is obtained. Such a priority system must be oriented toward total force planning with the capability to discriminate between peace and wartime situations and problems. We have developed a prototype of just such a system and are introducing it incrementally into our decision-making processes. ⁷ If this effort is successful, an effective management tool will be available to Air Force planners.

Increased efficiency and effectiveness must be guided by major objectives in our war planning efforts. We can look on those objectives as a continuum, ranging from the peacetime objective through the reconstitution objective:

• Effective support to forces in peacetime with maximum economy (peacetime objective)

• Effective response to rapid buildup of forces (readiness objective)

• Effective support to wartime forces at any level of conflict (sustainment objective)

• Effective reconstitution of support to postconflict residual forces (reconstitution objective).

Constraints impact on the attainment of these objectives. For example, in peacetime, operating with budget-imposed shortages of spares and WRM stocks, Air Force readiness is affected directly. Underfunding our requirements to support the force until industrial capability reaches its wartime level will not allow us to sustain the force at the necessary level of conflict. Last, we must be able to plan for the reconstitution of our force so that residual stocks are in balance with the residual forces and capable of returning them to the desired postconflict level.

The need to keep these objectives in the forefront of our planning and programming efforts is imperative. Each objective must be considered during the logistic decision-making process. Failure to take into account any one of these objectives, especially readiness and sustained conflict, may throw the system out of balance. We at AFLC are aware of the need for balance in the establishment of our requirements computations, procurement, distribution, and maintenance policies. The task is made more challenging by the total force policy that is included in our support planning and magnifies the depth and breadth of the planning problem manyfold.

The Logistics Command must be able to support the varied contingencies that involve the total mission of the Air Force, including the Reserves and Air National Guard; the ever-present risk of suboptimization is real and must be avoided. For example, we cannot establish policies that enhance the general purpose forces to the detriment of the strategic forces. Balancing the available support among operational forces sometimes causes a commander to assume that AFLC is not providing him the support he needs. In fact, the variances he sees are created by AFLC's mandate to provide balanced support within the priorities of forces and with limited resources.

An assessment of our posture cannot be simply a "snapshot" of today's requirements; it must also address the "what if' questions and provide alternatives based on realism rather than self-fulfilling prophecies. Our assessments must provide a clear measure of readiness in terms of sortie generation, weapon delivery, attrition, and other pertinent factors affecting the requirement. Only in this way will our assessments have the kinds of credibility that will cause our national leaders to understand the consequences of their funding decisions.

Contingency assessments are no more than an exercise of our information systems unless we act on the findings. There can be no sacred cows in our strategic, tactical, or logistical forces. Certainly, we can be advocates of a particular cause, but our advocacy must be justified in light of total force requirements. We must continually evaluate our priorities and question even the fundamental precepts on which we base our decisions. The time is ripe for innovative action with increased combat capability as our objective. Let us put our best minds to the task. Air Force schools, for instance, should direct their research efforts toward finding ways improve readiness. ⁸ Our planners, both operational and logistical, should embark on joint plans review and option analysis, an where it makes sense, our organization structures must be adjusted to facilitat readiness planning.

There is a pressing need to maintain and even expand the attention being accorded readiness planning. Insofar as the Air Force is concerned, there are several specific actions that I feel would keep this issue vital

• Activation of a coordinated mission-area planning concept across the Air Force

• Review of war plans and their total system implications

• Development of a comprehensive and improved priority system for universal resource allocation decisions

• Development of credible capability assessment systems that measure output activity versus resource input in terms of readiness

• Intercommand coordination of research for improving readiness

• Review of USAF and MAJCOM organizational structure pertaining to readiness and readiness planning

• Establishment of "open channel" information networks in readiness planning.

Logistical readiness cannot be maintained in a vacuum. Complete operational command participation in the planning process is a necessity. In that regard, the Logistics Command has been working with the operating commands to review their readiness goals and to take action in pursuit of those goals. It is to our mutual benefit to assure that the role of logistics in the planning and operation phases of force employment is properly taken into account. In this business of readiness, the operator and the logistician do indeed walk together and work together.

These few observations hardly qualify as earthshaking revelations, but they do need to be discussed and acted on if our readiness posture is not to suffer. Much remains to be done if we are to attain the kind of readiness described by Sun Tzu in The Art of War, written about 2500 years ago:

Rely not on likelihood of the enemy not coming, but in our readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. ⁹

Hq Air Force Logistics Command

Notes

1. For example, the student of Napoleon, Baron Antoine Henri Jomini in Précis de l'art de la guerre (1836), and American George Cyrus Thorpe in Pure Logistics (1917).

2. SRMAG was chartered in 1975 by the USAF Chief of Staff, General David C. Jones. The group's final report contained some 37 management proposals to the Air Staff. The intent of these proposals was to improve the way the USAF acquires and manages its total resources.

3. This figure is an interpolation of representative war requirement ratios found in War Mobilization Planning (WMP) documents.

4. For example, in just the area of recoverable aircraft replenishment spares, the increase in the FY77 budget of $267 million still leaves us short $617 million.

5. We are not able to maintain alternate sources of repair, which will be required during a major war, thus reducing our capacity to surge.

6. AFLC currently maintains a 70 percent in-house versus 30 percent contract workload ratio. "Mission essentiality" most directly bears on the decision to use organic capacity or to contract out for certain goods and services.

7. This concept, known as "Logistic Support Priorities" (LSP), relies upon a complex data base drawn essentially from peacetime programs, unit priorities, and wartime plans.

8. For example, AFIT's School of Systems and Logistics, the USAF Academy, the Defense Systems Management Course (DSMC).

9. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, reprinted in Roots of Strategy, A Collection of Military Classics, edited by Major Thomas R. Phillips, USA (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Military Service Publishing Co., 1940).

General F. Michael Rogers (B.S., University of Maryland) is Commander, Air Force Logistics Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. A squadron commander and fighter ace in World War II, he has held responsible positions with Headquarters USAF, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Air Force Systems Command. He was senior member of the Military Armistice Commission with the United Nations in Korea in 1970-71, served as Vice Commander of Air Training Command in 1972-73, and as Commander, Air University in 1973-75, prior to assuming leadership of AFLC in August 1975. He is a graduate of the National War College.

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