FOCUS: AFGHANISTAN
for the drawdown from OEF, new lessons are being learned that will help define future sustainment operations.
ONE OBJECTIVE, MANY ROUTES The complexities of politics and terrain have made it critical to diversify transit routes and modes of transport between Afghanistan—especially the northern region—and the United States, senior leaders said.
In 2008, U.S. forces had one route in and out of northern Afghanistan, through Pakistan; now there are at least three coherent routes, with multiple modes of transport, said U.S. Navy Vice Admiral VADM Mark D. Harnitchek, Deputy Commander, U.S. Transportation Com- mand (TRANSCOM). Routes have been established through Central Asia from Western and Central Europe and from Pacific ports via Siberia.
OEF SURFACE DISTRIBUTION
This map illustrates the multiple transit routes into and out of Afghanistan, including the Northern distribution network (NDN) and Pakistan ground lines of commmunication (GLOC). SOURCE: June 23, 2010, TRANSCOM presentation at AUSA Institute of Land Warfare Army Sustainment Symposium and Exposition.
“None of us thought that we would be transiting Siberia,” Leonard noted. The experience of diversifying routes reminds him of Dr. Seuss’ book Oh, the Places You’ll Go, he said. “We have gone to some very interesting places as we’ve worked on the problem set in Afghanistan.”
Using the multiple available routes, “we must make redistribution one of our pri- orities” across the operational environment and back to CONUS, said BG Philip R. Fisher, Commanding General of the Missis- sippi National Guard’s 184th Expeditionary Sustainment Command. The 184th is in charge of Joint Sustainment Command- Afghanistan, the senior supply and logistics command for all U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Building redundancy into shipping routes costs money, as well as time. It costs $3 per pound to transport by air vs. 30 cents per pound by ground, Harnitchek said, and the newer routes take longer.
One way to reduce the logistics costs, of course, is to reduce the tonnage. Specifi- cally, Harnitchek said, the U.S. military needs to reduce the demand for fuel in theater and to identify efficiencies in fuel loading and consumption, as fuel is a major component of the tonnage shipped. (For more on reducing energy demands, read Shaping Sustainment for Tomorrow, an article by LTG Mitchell H. Stevenson, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4, in the May 2011 issue of AUSA’s Army Magazine, available at
http://www.ausa.org/publi- cations/armymagazine/archive/2011/5/ Pages/
default.aspx.)
RELIANCE ON COMMERCIAL SHIPPING INDUSTRY The United States could not maintain a global military presence without the commercial shipping industry, senior logistics leaders and a senior shipping executive agreed.
Eric L. Mensing, President and Chief Executive Officer of APL Maritime Ltd. and Vice President, Government Trade and Affairs of APL Ltd., noted that 21 percent of materiel shipped in Operation Desert Storm moved on commercial carri- ers; forOEF, the proportion is 77 percent. Foreign-flagged vessels, by contrast, account for 0.2 percent of the shipping in OEF vs. 23 percent during Desert Storm.
Mensing described the U.S. flag carrier fleet’s support for operations in Afghani- stan as “logistics on steroids ... without a doubt the most complicated logistics program that my company’s ever been involved in.”
Commercial carriers can change direc- tions and adjust their shipping networks rapidly, he said, while creating no military footprint—an increasingly important factor in politically sensitive regions of the world.
56 Army AL&T Magazine
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