Logistical Decision Support and Planning in a Counterinsurgency Environment

Future U.S. conflicts increasingly involve operations against insurgents in asymmetric environments. Ongoing operations have demonstrated that insurgents can effectively disrupt the Army’s ability to establish and maintain the logistical lines of communication (LOCs). Insurgent success is based on rapidly changing, low technology tactics that are difficult to counter. Consequently, there are few secure “rear areas” suitable for conventional logistic operations. Simultaneously, the DoD transformation embraces a decreased in-theater logistic footprint to effectively support quicker and more agile combat forces. As a result, sparse logistics assets are at greater risk – increasing force protection requirements. Given the leaner nature of the Army’s future force, increased logistic force protection must be achieved with little direct support from in-theater combat units. When planning logistic operations, there is a need to account, not only for local terrain and friendly doctrine/forces, but predicted enemy activity. TSC proposes an innovative solution to plan logistics operations that mitigate potential insurgent attacks before they occur. In Phase I, TSC will leverage an existing logistic decision aid and data discovery engine developed on previous efforts for the Army to demonstrate feasibility. In Phase II, TSC will develop an end-to-end prototype tool to extract related information, assess risk of insurgent attack, and incorporate risk metrics into logistics planning.