Over the past decade, America's military and federal-civilian employees, as well as contractors, have performed vital and dangerous tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Contractors' support however, has been unnecessarily costly, and has been plagued by high levels of waste and fraud. The United States will not be able to conduct large or sustained contingency operations without heavy contractor support. Avoiding a repetition of the waste, fraud, and abuse seen in Iraq and Afghanistan requires either a great increase in agencies' ability to perform core tasks and to manage contracts effectively, or a disciplined reconsideration of plans and commitments that would require intense use of contractors. Failure by Congress and the Executive Branch to heed a decade's lessons on contingency contracting from Iraq and Afghanistan will not avert new contingencies. It will only ensure that additional billions of dollars of waste will occur and that U.S. objectives and standing in the world will suffer. Worse still, lives will be lost because of waste and mismanagement.

The mission of the United States Army is to fight and win our nation's wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders. Accomplishing this mission rests on the ability of the Army to equip and move its forces to the battle and sustain them while they are engaged. Logistics provides the backbone for Army combat operations. Without fuel, ammunition, rations, and other supplies, the Army would grind to a halt. The U.S. military must be prepared to fight anywhere on the globe and, in an era of coalition warfare, to logistically support its allies. While aircraft can move large amounts of supplies, the vast majority must be carried on ocean going vessels and unloaded at ports that may be at a great distance from the battlefield. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown, the costs of convoying vast quantities of supplies is tallied not only in economic terms but also in terms of lives lost in the movement of the materiel. As the ability of potential enemies to interdict movement to the battlefield and interdict movements in the battlespace increases, the challenge of logistics grows even larger. No matter how the nature of battle develops, logistics will remain a key factor. Force Multiplying Technologies for Logistics Support to Military Operations explores Army logistics in a global, complex environment that includes the increasing use of antiaccess and area-denial tactics and technologies by potential adversaries. This report describes new technologies and systems that would reduce the demand for logistics and meet the demand at the point of need, make maintenance more efficient, improve inter- and intratheater mobility, and improve near-real-time, in-transit visibility. Force Multiplying Technologies also explores options for the Army to operate with the other services and improve its support of Special Operations Forces. This report provides a logistics-centric research and development investment strategy and illustrative examples of how improved logistics could look in the future.

Over the past decade, America's military and federal-civilian employees, as well as contractors, have performed vital and dangerous tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Contractors' support however, has been unnecessarily costly, and has been plagued by high levels of waste and fraud. The United States will not be able to conduct large or sustained contingency operations without heavy contractor support. Avoiding a repetition of the waste, fraud, and abuse seen in Iraq and Afghanistan requires either a great increase in agencies' ability to perform core tasks and to manage contracts effectively, or a disciplined reconsideration of plans and commitments that would require intense use of contractors. Failure by Congress and the Executive Branch to heed a decade's lessons on contingency contracting from Iraq and Afghanistan will not avert new contingencies. It will only ensure that additional billions of dollars of waste will occur and that U.S. objectives and standing in the world will suffer. Worse still, lives will be lost because of waste and mismanagement.

The Business of War incisively interrogates the development and contemporary implications of the military-industrial complex. It exposes the moral dangers of life in neoliberal economies dependent upon war-making for their growth and brings the Christian tradition's abundance of resources into conversation with this phenomenon. In doing so, the authors invite us to rethink the moral possibilities of Christian life in the present day with an eye toward faithful resistance to "the business of war" and its influence in every aspect of our lives. In combining biblical, historical, theological, and ethical analyses of "the business of war," the authors invite us to better understand it as a new moral problem that demands a new, faithful response. With contributions from: Pamela Brubaker Stan Goff Christina McRorie Logan Mehl-Laituri Kara Slade Won Chul Shin David Swartz Jonathan Tran Myles Werntz Matthew Whelan Tobia Winright