FORT LEE, Va. (May 21, 2015) -- Members of the Fort Lee community attended a leader professional development session focused on the importance of energy security May 14 at the Lee Theater.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, and Michael Breen, executive director of the Truman National Security Project, hosted the interactive discussion following the viewing of a documentary called "The Burden."
The film -- created by Roger Sorkin Productions and the Truman National Security Project -- tells the story of how American dependence on fossil fuels is the greatest long-term national security threat confronting the United States, and how the military is leading the transition away from oil.
Since retiring, Zinni said he was looking for a cause to champion, and when he learned about "The Burden" project, he was motivated to get involved to show the public how dependence on oil affects the military and everyday life.
"When Roger Sorkin -- who produced this documentary -- came to me and talked about the idea, it meant something to me," he said. "I told him whatever he needed, I would be willing to support it in any way. Not just being part of it, but also in sessions like this to bring attention to it.
"What we've seen in this film, one of the biggest requirements -- certainly in volume -- is the fuel you need to keep a force going; to keep it fighting," continued Zinni. "It represents to you several challenges. One is just getting it there to the theater of operations. The second is the storage requirements and the ability to maintain it there. The third is the ability to move it where it is needed on the front lines. This creates logistics problems, transportation issues and security issues, and you realize this in spades when you become a combatant commander."
During the LPD session, Zinni gave insight to his time as commander in chief of CENTCOM and as a combatant commander.
"One of the things I did in Afghanistan was fly over some of our logistics bases," said Zinni of his time at the helm of CENTCOM. "I couldn't believe what we had laid out on the ground. We are not a cheap date. I had two service chiefs tell me to put one Soldier or one Marine on the ground for one year costs $1 million. A large portion of that is the sustainment regarding fuel."
Keeping sustainment in mind as the military gets involved in remote parts of the world will be vital to its success in those areas, said Zinni, and the military has to have a way to lighten the footprint.
"As a combatant commander, I'm worried about host nation support, how big of a footprint we put down, how vulnerable we can become and what are the security requirements," he said. "By the way, my bosses -- the Secretary of Defense the president -- are telling me don't kill the taxpayer on this. Afghanistan and Iraq have now come to a total bill for the American taxpayer of $3 trillion. That kind of cost is going to continue to rise."
One source of continuously rising prices is technology, said Zinni. Many think introducing new technology is the way to improve the military.
"That technology comes with a cost to sustain it," he said. "As you saw in some of the statistics (in the documentary), our dependency on fuel has gone up. Even though our forces can do more with less people and seemingly with less equipment, the requirement to fuel those resources has still gone up. If we don't get a handle on this, with the coming budget cuts and us trying to decide what kind of military we need for the future, we are going to find ourselves so dependent on this, that it's going become a major vulnerability."
For those interested in learning more about the documentary, visit www.theburdenfilm.com.
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