The U.S. military operates in many places around the globe, defending the homeland from attack. Where logistics is concerned, however, their missions require different approaches. 

The non-combat missions engaged by the military are listed below and fall into one or several of the quadrants above.

The U.S. military has become the world's benchmark organization in delivering logistics solutions for non-combat missions whose frequency and duration are unknown.  These are primarily its humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. The mission-enterprise is a virtual organization, with a small oversight staff, whose objective is to ensure that when a mission event occurs, logistics processes have been defined to enable the military to assemble and disassemble the temporary mission-enterprise within desired timeframes. These processes include identifying, acquiring, maintaining, controlling, issuing, retrieving and redistributing supplies.

Resources (people, facilities, equipment, materials, and data/imagery/voice files) to be employed in each logistics process must also be defined, as do the suppliers of these resources. That definition includes what must be done organically by the military, by contractors and by the host country. The effectiveness of these resources will have to be validated through training exercises.

Logistics to the Rescue

Let's see how the mission-enterprise is exercised in the real world by reviewing the devastating tsunami of December 26, 2004.  This horrific event affected eleven countries, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and homeless.  On December 28 the U.S. Pacific Command based in Hawaii formed Joint Task Force 536, later named Combined Support Force 536, and gave it the mission of providing immediate and sustained relief to the region.  The relief operation was named Operation Unified Assistance.

While the assessment of military capability necessary for relief operations was underway on December 29, initial relief materials were already being delivered to those countries hardest hit by the resulting floods. Control and visibility of units and materials flowing into the region were emphasized in order to ensure useless assets did not enter the pipeline.