Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 58

economic, social, infrastructure, and information
factors; and joint intelligence preparation of the operating environment. Completion of these tasks ensures
a clear linkage between specific OCS tasks and the
theater campaign plan, operation plans, and related
support plans. These planning actions set the context
and drive key OCS-related staff functions, such as
the joint requirements review board, that enable the
commander to maintain situational awareness and
exercise effective mission command.
Failure to integrate OCS increases the cost and
reduces the precision, efficiency, and effectiveness
of military efforts. It can also generate significant
friction between the U.S. military and its partners
inside and outside the U.S. government. Recent
accounts of the infamous $43 million gas station in
Afghanistan, for example, suggest both poor analysis
and a lack of synchronization between the DOD, the
State Department, and the Afghan government.17 The
United States can do better.
OCS gets us there faster and smarter. OCS enables
U.S. forces to conduct expeditionary operations more
rapidly and effectively. American forces currently operate
in places where a large uniformed military presence is
not feasible or desirable. Fortunately, our unified-action
team includes supporting commands and agencies, such
as United States Transportation Command and the
Defense Logistics Agency, whose suppliers provide extant
networks possessing regional expertise. These partners
can assist in overcoming issues such as customs and diplomatic-clearance delays. They can also build relationships
with host-nation vendors, assess infrastructure, and
provide the equipment, materiel, facilities, and expertise
to facilitate early entry.
OCS helps us set the theater. We cannot conduct expeditionary movement and maneuver without the ability
to rapidly deploy forces on a global scale. OCS allows U.S.
forces to set the theater, sustain operations, and maintain freedom of movement. This warfighting challenge
represents an essential U.S. Army responsibility whenever our nation sends military forces to conduct landbased operations. Meeting this challenge begins in Phase
0, when commanders engage in joint and multinational
operations and various interagency activities “to dissuade
or deter potential adversaries and to assure or solidify
relationships with friends and allies.”18 The Army relies
on OCS to support Phase 0 requirements such as military
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engagement and security force assistance missions and
the pre-positioning of equipment.
It is difficult for pundits and policymakers to
measure the impact of these missions, and even more
difficult to appreciate the enormous impact of OCS
on their success. When we deploy soldiers to train and
assist regional military forces in sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, we do not deploy large military sustainment
headquarters to support them. Instead, those training
teams depend on local contractors for everything from
food, fuel, and field services to translators and c ommunications. Our pre-positioned equipment and stocks,
meanwhile, provide us with forward-deployed combat
power around the world, but we cannot afford to station soldiers with that equipment in order to maintain
it. Instead, the Army relies on contractors to secure,
maintain, and repair these pre-positioned equipment
sets, whether on land or afloat.19
Setting the theater during Phase 0 also involves
identifying and validating reliable vendors for the
provision of services and commodities. This critical
process enables U.S. forces to rapidly expand local
sources of commercial support when necessary, while
reducing the risk of inadvertently funding criminal or
enemy networks.20 Planned carefully, these efforts also
contribute directly to a commander’s economic and
social objectives, while improving security and stability
within the operational area.
Planning usually works better than reacting.
Unfortunately, commanders and staff officers commonly ignore OCS until a crisis erupts, when it is too
late to plan and execute an effective OCS process,
much less incorporate that process within the commander’s operational design. Recent experience in Iraq
and Afghanistan suggests that our reliance on OCS will
escalate as we transition from Phase 0 into a contingency operational mode. In turn, that escalation will
challenge commanders’ ability to maintain situational
awareness of contracts, contractors, and contract facilities and equipment supporting the operation.
Control measures such as Theater Business
Clearance guidance and the contract integration and
validation process provide the commander with some
visibility over the status of OCS within the joint operational area.21 Developed in a vacuum, however, these
tools can provide more hindrance than help, delaying
the arrival of critical capabilities in theater.
November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW