Preparing the INDO-PACOM AOR for Adaptive Basing: Logistics and Sustainment

Without an asymmetric advantage in factors space, time, and force, the United States will need to adjust its operating procedures away from consolidation and efficiency and begin to operate in a more adaptive, less targetable manner. The concept of Adaptive Basing lessens the reliance upon legacy bases, fixed infrastructure, and large targetable platforms. The smaller size and greater number of bases create many complex issues with logistics and sustainment. For the Adaptive Base concept to succeed, the Combatant Commander (CCDR) must direct changes to logistics and sustainment systems well before hostilities begin. To ensure success, the CCDR must direct logistics and sustainment changes to ready forces to operate from Adaptive Bases. These changes include signaling the need for forces to be prepared to operate from Adaptive Bases with less infrastructure, instilling a more modular logistics construct, update sustainment system tools and computers, integrate Sea Basing with Adaptive Basing, and seek innovative future sustainment methods. Without the focus of planners and resources to these foundational pre-kinetic underpinnings, the Adaptive Base concept is unlikely to survive contact with the enemy.