Brig. Gen. Kenneth L. Kamper, 4th Infantry Division deputy commanding general, discusses different rail loading strategies with leaders assigned to the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, during a predeployment site survey at Camp...
Military history is riddled with accounts of operations that failed, faltered, or assumed additional risk because of ineffective or poor logistics intelligence. Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of Grenada in 1983, is one example of the U.S. military being hindered by not only an unexpectedly strong Cuban and Grenadian resistance but also difficulties in planning, intelligence, and logistics.
Planners made unexamined assumptions about logistics and medical support and failed to integrate sustainment into planning efforts. This failure was directly affected by a compartmentalized planning process and operational security restrictions that limited logistics planner involvement.
Prior to the operation, the critical intelligence needed about roads, potable water sources, local sources of supplies and services, medical facilities, and airfields was incomplete or unavailable. Maps were generally inaccurate and not available in sufficient quantities. The Marines supporting the operation had only six crude maps for an entire battalion landing team. Additionally, since standard military maps were not available, nonstandard maps and tourist maps were used with an improvised military grid overlay.
THE ANALYSIS
Army Doctrine Publication 4-0, Sustainment, states that sustainment preparation of the operational environment (SPoOE) is "the analysis to determine infrastructure, environmental factors, and resources in the operational environment that will optimize or adversely impact friendly forces means for supporting and sustaining the commander's operations plan."
SPoOE tasks executed by sustainment planners and staffs provide a basis from which sound sustainable plans can be built. This analysis allows the commander to better visualize the operational environment (OE) and see how conducive the OE is to sustaining military operations. The challenge for a sustainment planner, as was learned in Operation Urgent Fury, is how to obtain the data early on to support this analysis.
Field Manual (FM) 100-16, Army Operational Support, referred to this analysis as logistics preparation of the theater, which is now called SPoOE. Although it is now obsolete, the manual provided useful information that was not captured in other doctrinal publications. This useful information included directions to potential sources of logistics intelligence and information.
Per FM 100-16, potential sources of intelligence or information include U.S. bilateral relations fact sheets from the Department of State, CultureGrams, assessments from Army civil affairs units, country studies, and weather or terrain data gathered from intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB). Having this logistics intelligence better enables operational-level commands to assess the logistics suitability of countries within their areas of responsibility.
At the time that FM 100-16 was printed, much of the intelligence gathered about a country was obtained from tangible printed documents. The same was true during Operation Urgent Fury. Today, based on advancements in technology and automation, sustainment planners have access to these same products digitally. Digital innovations have enabled planners to attain greater detail for their SPoOE assessments.
THE TOOLS
Army Doctrine Reference Publication 4-0, Sustainment, provides six factors for examining the SPoOE: geography, supply and services, facilities, transportation, maintenance, and general skills. Assessing these factors is best done in country through a predeployment site survey or by an in-country assessment team.
However, an in-country assessment is not always possible based on the tactical or political situation within the country or region. In these instances, sustainment planners can execute a virtual SPoOE assessment by leveraging digital research.
Planners can access these tools and the valuable unclassified data the tools provide using open and common access card-enabled web sources. Some of the sources may also require approval of a system access request. These are some of the more beneficial digital research tools to access for SPoOE assessments:
• Air Mobility Command maps.
• Army Geospatial Center products.
• Civil affairs operations running estimates on MilSuite.
• Country handbooks from the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity.
• Country information resources from the Combined Arms Research Library.
• CultureGrams from ProQuest.
• Integrated Service Distribution Data Cleansing Tool maps from the Electronic Transportation Acquisition.
• Intellipedia-U from Intelligence Community Enterprise Services.
• NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System.
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency maps.
• The Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook.
• SkyVector aeronautical charts.
• The Transportation Infrastructure Archive from the Transportation Engineering Agency.
• The U.S. Transportation Command's Single Mobility System.
• The World Port Source website.
• U.S. Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets from the Department of State.
These tools provide valuable sources of data and information; however, a framework is needed to provide context and translate the data into sustainment knowledge of the OE.
THE MODELS
A number of effective models are available to translate data. Four of the most common models include the blended framing construct model, the joint doctrine model, the IPB model, and the SPoOE planning process, which is taught at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC).
THE BLENDED FRAMING CONSTRUCT MODEL. The blended framing construct model uses elements and variables from Army doctrine to frame the information as it relates to the sustainment suitability of a selected country or region. It is not possible to visualize the sustainment suitability of an OE using a single framing construct; however, visualization is improved considerably by using and combining multiple framing constructs. This tailorable approach to SPoOE allows the sustainment planner to assemble parts and elements of the constructs that are key to theater sustainment planning in order to form a single planning model.
THE JOINT DOCTRINE MODEL. A second approach to analyzing the sustainment suitability of an OE is using the joint doctrine model. Joint doctrine, the Universal Joint Task List, and the logistics staff estimate provide a common framework for conducting theater logistics analysis (the joint version of SPoOE) to achieve a common understanding of the environmental factors potentially affecting sustainment support. Joint publications are useful for conducting this analysis because many of the logistics-related publications include appendices with checklists for analyzing airfields, seaports, roads, joint logistics over-the-shore operations, bulk petroleum, health service support, and labor, to name a few. These checklists provide a common frame of reference for examining the OE's sustainment suitability as it relates to joint force requirements.
THE IPB MODEL. The IPB model provides a third approach to analyzing an OE's sustainment suitability. One of the greatest lessons learned from Operation Urgent Fury was that integrating logistics and sustainment into operational-level planning is not only preferred but essential to an operation's success. This model includes integrating sustainment intelligence and information requirements into IPB while analyzing the OE and determining its effects on the operation. Planners are aided in this task using the Generic Intelligence Requirements Handbook. The handbook, produced by the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, provides frequently used intelligence requirements. These intelligence requirements are well-suited for assessing the SPoOE for a given country or region.
THE SPOOE PLANNING PROCESS MODEL. In 1995, the Command and General Staff School included the SPoOE planning process model as an appendix in its Student Text 4-1, Theater Sustainment Battlebook. Since that time, the model has been taught within the Command and General Staff Officer Course curriculum.
CGSC's Department of Logistics and Resource Operations expanded the previously mentioned six factors (geography, supply and services, facilities, transportation, maintenance, and general skills) into fifteen topics for operational-level sustainment planners. These fifteen topics were further developed into the Logistics Preparation of the Theater Mission Analysis Process. Based on changes in doctrine, the process was updated and further refined into today's SPoOE planning process. This CGSC model is arguably the best of the models for sustainment planners as it was designed specifically with them in mind.
These models and tools enable sustainment planners to collect, categorize, organize, and interpret sustainment data. Once the operational-level sustainment planner identifies the "so what" of this data, he or she can better understand what resources are available in the host nation or region, what capability gaps exist, and how best to develop a support concept or plan before executing an operation.
With today's technology, digital planning tools, and models that provide an expanded and more thorough process to identify, collect, and analyze logistics intelligence information, future operational-level sustainment planners will be better educated and equipped to plan for missions much more complex than Operation Urgent Fury.
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Lt. Col Thomas E. Goyette is a security assistance officer at the Military Assistance Program--Jordan, U.S. Embassy, Amman. His past assignment was as an assistant professor in CGSC's Department of Logistics and Resource Operations at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a bachelor's degree in health care administration from Wayland Baptist University and a master's degree in emergency and disaster management from American Military University.
William L. Knight Jr. is an assistant professor in CGSC's Department of Logistics and Resource Operations. In 1983, he was the maintenance officer for B Company, 82nd Aviation Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, and deployed with this unit to Grenada to support Operation Urgent Fury.
The authors of this article thank Bob Bayless for his contributions to the article.
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This article was published in the January-February 2018 issue of Army Sustainment magazine.
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