Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 60

infrastructure, triggering avalanches, and killing thousands. The United States responded within hours.
Special operations teams already in Nepal provided immediate relief and medical support, and the Office of the
U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) within the U.S.
Agency for International Development deployed a disaster-assistance relief team on DOD aircraft. Meanwhile,
the OFDA representative at USPACOM headquarters
in Hawaii initiated coordination with military counterparts to assess potential DOD support capabilities.
Concurrently, a coalition of United Nations partners
began preparing relief packages for shipment to Nepal.25
The severely damaged international airport at
Kathmandu quickly became a bottleneck that delayed
the international relief effort. Fortunately, USPACOM
planners were able to work with commercial partners on
the ground in Nepal, such as Deutsche Post DHL Group,
to provide real-time intelligence, identify capability gaps,
and provide local expertise and ground-support equipment to help reopen the airport as the main reception
point for international aid.
The existing U.S. relationship with the contractors
in place accelerated the USPACOM staff ’s ability to
conduct joint intelligence preparation of the operational
environment and establish a distribution network. The
relationships and resulting quick action contributed
directly to the success of the U.S. mission.26

Conclusion
British historian Sir Michael Howard argued, “The
roots of victory and defeat often have to be sought far
from the battlefield in political, economic, and social
factors.”27 OCS ca n influence the social, cultural, economic, human, moral, and psychological dimensions
simultaneously, and thus it has the potential to shape
future military campaigns. By integrating OCS within
operational design, commanders will leverage the power
of commercial support to effectively frame the operational environment, initiate and develop relationships,
and, when necessary, enable a rapid response to crises.

Winning in a complex environment requires the
integration of simultaneous actions across multiple
domains along multiple lines of operation. In creating
multiple dilemmas for our enemy, we must learn to optimize our ability to fully leverage all available resources
and extant networks. OCS provides the ability to quickly
and flexibly establish nonstandard mechanisms—such as
commercial providers and facilities—that can dramatically expand both operational flexibility and freedom of
movement.
The current atmosphere of fiscal austerity has forced
senior leaders to accept risk within certain warfighting functions.28 OCS can and does mitigate these risks.
Managed carefully, the OCS process balances organic
capabilities with those external capabilities already
extant within a given theater. The wise commander will
operationalize OCS by involving the entire planning
staff, not simply the logisticians, to identify, synchronize,
and leverage commercial support capabilities across the
joint enterprise partners as part of the larger joint operational planning process.29
This article suggests the importance of the OCS
process within the Army operating concept. That
process enables a “set theater” from which to operate,
increases available options, enhances rapid transition
to crisis, and complements kinetic effects to shape
desired outcomes. OCS also reduces large-scale support
requirements and enhances the operational flexibility
of expeditionary forces by leveraging extant local networks and infrastructure.
Finally, OCS provides fiscal stewardship through
its inclusion within the operational planning and
design of any operation. This thought process must
begin at the strategic level during Phase 0 with an
understanding of transition points during subsequent
phases of operations. Commanders and planners who
understand these considerations and factor them into
campaign objectives will provide the appropriate capability and capacity required to produce desired mission
outcomes and effects.

Notes
1. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
Pamphlet 525-3-1, The U.S. Army Operating Concept: Win in a
Complex World (Fort Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 31 October 2014),
accessed 29 August 2016, http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/
pams/TP525-3-1.pdf.

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2. Joint Publication ( JP) 4-10, Operational Contract Support
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office [GPO],
16 July 2014), accessed 30 August 2016, http://www.dtic.mil/
doctrine/new_pubs/jp4_10.pdf.

November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW