U.S. Army Logistics in the 21st Century and the Challenge of Change.

The ongoing doctrinal and conceptual debates over Force XXI, will profoundly impact not only on how the U.S. Army of the 21st Century will fight but also how it will be logistically supported and sustained. The purpose of this paper is to examine logistics lessons learned from Operation Desert ShieldStorm ODS in the context of emerging Force XXI logistical concepts and to provide recommendations concerning logistics doctrine, organizations and materiel requirements for the U.S. Army of the 21st Century. When ODS logistics lessons learned concerning strategic sealift, deployment planning, host nation support, coalition responsibility sharing, transportation vehicle shortages and support of high tempo mechanized operations are overlaid on the emerging Force XXI logistics assumptions, threats and required capabilities then the resulting recommendations are far more evolutionary than revolutionary.