“Cocaine Logistics†for the Marine Corps
Walker D. Mills, Dylan “Joose†Phillips-Levine, and Collin Fox
July 22, 2020
In a future conflict with China, how would the Marine Corps supply small units deep inside enemy controlled areas, hundreds or even thousands of miles from their logistics bases?
Right now, the service would have to send ships and aircraft to feed, fuel, and arm these scattered forces just to keep them alive and in the fight. However, sending manned logistics ships into this lethal environment ranges from risky to reckless, while cargo aircraft lack the carrying capacity required to keep marines fed and equipped for very long.
The Marine Corps’ new operating concept, expeditionary advanced base operations, is bold but logistically difficult. It seeks to “further distribute lethality by providing land-based options for increasing the number of sensors and shooters beyond the upper limit imposed by the quantity of seagoing platforms available.†Simply put, islands make for unsinkable aircraft carriers and each one is a potential base for attack aircraft, missiles, and sensors. Keep these advanced bases supplied and they are a lethal thorn in the enemy’s side. Without a means to sneak supplies through a maritime no man’s land, however, the marines there would be divided instead of distributed and vulnerable to defeat like the one suffered by the Imperial Japanese Army on Guadalcanal in World War II.
https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/cocaine-logistics-for-the-marine-corps/
