The challenge of providing logistics sustainment to forces in the field is not a new phenomenon. Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu noted, “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” One need not be a historian to understand the importance of logistics to warfare over many millennia. From Alexander the Great (who noted: “My logisticians are a humorless lot…they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay”) to Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (“Logistics are as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work”) to General Robert Barrow, then-Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, who coined a phrase that is still a staple of U.S. War College curricula: “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”
Navy-Marine Corps amphibious operations represent perhaps the one area where logistics cannot fail. Once Marines are on the beach, they have few options to continue the fight if their logistics train breaks down—and might even have to withdraw. The prospect of assaulting a hostile shore today is more daunting than ever. The capacity of Marines to seize the beach and push inland depends on the security of their logistical support.
