Weapon System Sustainment Management: A Concept for Revolutionizing the ArmyLogistics System

摘要

This publication documents an executive-level briefing that summarizes a conceptfor revolutionizing the Army logistics system. The concept, called Weapon System Sustainment Management (WSSM), has been developed at RAND with the help of senior Army logistics leaders. The WSSM concept synthesizes the results of a very large body of logistics research conducted by RAND over several decades for the Services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The current logistics system was designed to support a massive European war. With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military is being downsized and reshaped to meet the requirements of a new era in which military power will need to be projected from the continental United States to any number of contingencies around the world. To meet the support needs of the Army in this new era, the Army logistics system must become leaner, more flexible, and more responsive: leaner because defense budgets will no longer enable the Army to maintain a massive logistics system; more flexible because the Army must prepare for a wide range of potential contingencies rather than focus on a major European case; and more responsive because of increased uncertainty regarding the nature of the threat and because neither forward positioning nor host nation support can be assumed.