Bolstering deterrence in Eastern Europe on short notice is yet another reminder of why it is important for the US military to always be prepared for the unexpected and to keep a higher margin of equipment and training on hand than what is needed for the moment.

Take the Army’s prepositioned weapons stocks containing hundreds of items — ranging from power generators to medical equipment to howitzers. Prepositioned materiel “reduces the demands for strategic airlift and sealift assets by locating heavy and bulky materiel closer to the theater of operations,” according to CRS.

Congress had ensured many of these stocks were replenished and modernized in recent years. Good thing they did.

Army Chief of Staff General James McConville highlighted how these are supporting more soldiers at a single time than any “in recent memory” as the White House beefs up military forces in Europe to support NATO allies as Russia continues its bloody invasion of Ukraine.

On short notice, the Army sent an armored brigade combat team to Germany using this prepositioned equipment. This meant soldiers could to fly out on short notice and fall in on their equipment without having to wait for it to arrive by boat. Within a week of getting orders, soldiers were driving tanks on test ranges, the Army Chief of Staff General James McConville said recently.

The war in Ukraine is also another
reminder, according to the chief, of “the importance of complex logistics in
large-scale combat.”

Put simply: “If you don’t have logistics, if you don’t have gas, if you don’t have parts, if you don’t have all the ammunition, then those weapon systems become paperweights,” General McConville said.

Or, worse, sitting ducks.

While Army leaders have been opening more prepositioned weapons stock locations in Europe in recent years, the same must now be done in the Indo-Pacific region, and quickly. While logistics enables the sustainment of forces for longer periods, consistent funding is important to buildup supply lines and caches in Asia.

“Holding back this year might cost you for the next three,” Curt Higdon, Chief of the War Plans and Strategy Division at Army Materiel Command, told Inside Defense. Negotiating access to sites and then building warehouses takes careful planning and long lead times.

However, the investment more than pays for itself. Prepositioned stocks serve not only as a useful deterrent but also “one of the most important things that we have in the competition phase, because it allows people to see what we can do.”

Congress requested an update in its recent defense policy bill on posture, infrastructure requirements, prepositioned stocks, and munitions inventories in Europe. All the services should use this opportunity to bolster support for the important but unsexy strategic mobility triad that enables the armed forces to project power around the world.

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