Global Combat Support: Robust Prepositioning Strategies for Air Force War Reserve Materiel

The ability to rapidly deploy forces into austere locations is essential to the global power projection concept of operation. Much of the materiel used by such expeditionary forces does not deploy with the unit. It is instead sourced from a global network of prepositioning storage locations to reduce the transportation requirements associated with the movement of such materiel. Current storage concepts for prepositioned materiel are based on planning assumptions from the Cold War era: that deployment scenarios and their associated support requirements could be fairly well identified in advance and the necessary materiel prepositioned at anticipated deployment sites. This monograph examines alternative approaches to storing combat support materiel to see if they would provide better support to deploying forces in an expeditionary environment that more closely resembles the current Department of Defense (DoD) planning guidance: frequent force projections, of varying sizes and of unknown durations, to wide-ranging locations.