Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland

Abstract

This article argues that the United States must prepare for "the fight to get to the fight," focusing on deploying and maintaining military forces from a contested homeland amid near-peer threats. It extends existing literature by emphasizing US Transportation Command's role in mitigating cyber, kinetic, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. The methodology includes scenario-based analysis of adversary actions, leveraging intelligence estimates and modeling for resilience in transportation networks. This piece provides actionable insights into fortifying logistics systems crucial for strategic mobility and operational success, ensuring readiness and deterrence in contested environments.

Headnote

ABSTRACT: This article argues that the United States must prepare for "the fight to get to the fight," focusing on deploying and maintaining military forces from a contested homeland amid near-peer threats. It extends existing literature by emphasizing US Transportation Command's role in mitigating cyber, kinetic, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. The methodology includes scenario-based analysis of adversary actions, leveraging intelligence estimates and modeling for resilience in transportation networks. This piece provides actionable insights into fortifying logistics systems crucial for strategic mobility and operational success, ensuring readiness and deterrence in contested environments.

Keywords: USTRANSCOM,Transportation Command, contested homeland, conflict, Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise

Imagine the dark clouds of war have roiled into a storm with the future uncertain. A nation's security objectives are at stake as it postures its forces across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean against a formidable adversary. The opening blows of conflict play out with quick strikes and counterstrikes along the expected and distant lines of battle. And then, the unthinkable happens: an audacious adversary musters the cunning and stealth to employ unexpected weapons that circumnavigate defenses with strikes directly against the homeland- strikes that shake the foundation of the populace and cause the nation's leaders to recoil in surprise and dismay. The unexpected attack diverts resources from executing the nation's planned strategy against its adversary; military capabilities are instead expended to secure those near regions from which any future attacks may emanate against the homeland, and a realization arises that military forces may be inadequate to fight abroad and secure the homeland at the same time.

Although this narrative could be the beginning of America's next war, this scenario played out in April 1942 when the combined US Army Air Forces and Navy effort successfully launched the Doolittle Raid against Japan following the stunningly successful Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor just months before. In Doolittle's surprise raid, 16 B-25s struck multiple Japanese cities, including Tokyo, the emperor's home, and the national capital. Although the strategic implications of the Doolittle Raid may not have been significant, they exacerbated an already complex dilemma in that".. .Japan felt compelled to act to save face and prevent future attacks on the homeland by ruthlessly eradicating any threat of future raids emanating from Chinese airfields."1

The Continental United States (CONUS) has enjoyed relative impunity from attacks on the homeland in almost every conflict since the Civil War. Even during World War II, despite five documented categories of attacks on US soil, none of them generated significant damage or had measurable impacts on the outcomes of the conflicts.2

In the post-World War II era, the United State has deployed and sustained military forces with little to no interference, building combat capability and commencing military operations on America's timelines with few hinderances other than the fog associated with conflict. Over the last decade, the potential of near-peer conflict with China, the acute threat from Russia, and the ever-present regional threats from North Korea or Iran have driven changes in the character of war and accentuated the need for effective deterrence. These adversaries continue to expand their increasingly potent arsenals of weapons for use against the United States, and they will employ them early and often to disrupt and delay America's ability to project power.

The Fight to Get to the Fight

The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) is tasked to deploy and sustain the Joint Force and overcome these adversary-imposed impediments by leading collaborative planning efforts across military, commercial, and governmental partners in the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE).The organization leverages this enterprise to gain access to fleets of military and commercial transportation providers for airlift and sealift, along with road and rail conveyances and networks of civil highways, rail lines, seaports, airports, and operations centers.3

An assessment of plausible enemy courses of action in a potential conflict with a near-peer adversary indicates kinetic and non-kinetic threat activity are likely against US power-projection operations, with almost certainly that significant non-kinetic attacks will happen across a diverse and wide-ranging set of targets. These non-kinetic capabilities are further delineated as cyberspace operations, economic and other adverse pressures, and information operations. Since defending against all possible attack vectors is not feasible, a reasonable contested environment mitigation strategy for large-scale deployment operations is to understand resilience and points of consequence in our transportation networks better. This approach is built on other proven constructs, such as those espoused in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which offers well-developed approaches to remain secure and resilient by reducing vulnerabilities, minimizing consequences, identifying and disrupting threats, and hastening recovery4

Minimize-Maximize-Optimize

The following risk-management approach applied to defense transportation provides specific opportunities to promote resilience and manage points of consequence in three primary areas for deploying and supplying the Joint Force from the homeland:

¦ Minimize the impact of high-probability and consequential cyber threats on vulnerable elements of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise.

¦ Maximize the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise's ability to recover rapidly or execute alternate transportation solutions given the likelihood of node / network infrastructure degradation.

¦ Optimize relationships with critical transportation providers and leverage federal, state, and regional transportation agency interactions to support elevated levels of deployment activity rapidly when faced with disruptions.

To employ this approach, USTRANSCOM assesses power projection operations where roughly 85 percent of the Joint Force originates from the continental United States, which requires the Department of Defense to prepare for large-scale combat operations with the added complexity of contested force flow. Understanding the scope and friction of contested deployment and sustainment is essential to exploring and appreciating fully the inherent challenges of these operations.5

Given that America's adversaries'goals are to gain time to achieve their objectives by delaying US power projection, USTRANSCOM leads collaborative planning efforts across diverse military, commercial, and governmental partners in the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise to achieve the desired end-to-end mobility effects.

The Transportation Command has developed a structured methodology to incorporate contested environment (CE) effects into wartime transportation analysis, which has been adopted as a best practice for depicting adversary threat activity impacts on deployment operations conducted via the Defense Transportation System (DTS).This approach uses a combination of plausible enemy courses of action informed by multifaceted intelligence estimates on adversary capabilities and intent to employ those capabilities against US transportation operations in time and space on a global scale. Threat categories are broadly addressed as either kinetic or non-kinetic activities, with weapons effects attributed in detail to each adversary capability.6

While the details remain classified, it is reasonable to assume that direct kinetic attacks with weapons such as air or maritime-launched missiles may occur against the homeland, however, there is near certainly that non-kinetic attacks will happen across a diverse and wide-ranging set of targets. These non-kinetic capabilities are further delineated as (1) cyberspace operations, (2) economic and other adverse pressures, and (3) information operations. Once threat activities are defined, blue force protection or mitigation actions are applied to determine the residual impact experienced within the Defense Transportation System. Authoritative sources in areas such as missile defense and defensive cyberspace operations provide blue-force mitigating attributes.

The ensuing product is a leaker analysis for CE effects that include the depth and duration of degradation on assets, nodes, routes, command-and-control facilities, and decision making. Additional assessments capture the effectiveness of recovery efforts, such as expeditionary airfield and port repair or reconstitution of information systems, nodes, and routes. The result is a catalog of impacts with delays (temporary) or attrition (enduring) diminishing transportation outpul as reflected in modeling and simulation. Instead of worrying about what harm the adversary might impose in the homeland, Transportation Command can employ this CE assessment on large-scale deployment operations to understand resilience and points of consequence in the transportation networks. Typically, results from these efforts are used in classified mobility studies or operational plan assessments to articulate risk to mission outcomes. These, in turn, inform DoD critical infrastructure protection requirements and mission assurance measures enabling continued operations in the face of degrading adversary actions. The fruition of these efforts allows Transportation Command to embrace this minimize-maximize-optimize framework to create resilience and manage consequences with high benefit for the Defense Transportation System.7

Minimize Cyber Domain Vulnerabilities

Transportation Command's focus on cyber domain mission assurance has been a recurring focus area over many years, with significant effort focused on continuity of operations-especially in command-and-control centers. Securing and protecting information networks is also a top priority because Transportation Command and its component commands, by necessity, conduct a considerable volume of operational activity for transportation operations on the unclassified DoD Information Network. While military DoD information networks enjoy elevated protective measures, America's commercial transportation partners are more vulnerable in cyberspace given the preponderance of activities occurring on unclassified networks. Commercial partners enrolled in emergency response programs such as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA), Voluntary Tanker Agreement (VTA), and the Universal Services Contract (USC), along with other transportation service providers (TSPs), gain significant daily and wartime contributions. These partners are so critical they are termed the "Fourth Component," in addition to Transportation Command's three primary military air, surface, and maritime component commands. Transportation Command's risk is intimately linked to these commercial partners. That is, their risk is our risk, prompting the need to raise the bar for cyberspace discipline as a key element in gaining resilience in our partnerships.8

Since 2018, USTRANSCOM has contractually required commercial transportation service providers to submit annual self-assessments of National Institute of Standards cybersecurity controls with significant improvements observed in recent years. Currently, self-assessments on the National Institute of Standards controls are voluntary. Under proposed rules for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0, however, the future may require more stringent compliance. Additional measures beyond these contractual requirements address roles between government and industry as elements in multiple executive orders, with a recent one indicating "much of our domestic critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and those private-sector companies make their own determination regarding cybersecurity investments." While these executive orders encourage industry to make ambitious investments in cybersecurity they also commit to improving information sharing between the US government and the private sector relating to cyber threat information. In that vein, a best practice gleaned from the financial and electrical power industries, sharing cybersecurity information and assistance, has been adopted with transportation industry partners. Transportation Command actively promotes federal assistance via the National Security Agency DoD Cyber Crimes Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Participation is voluntary and confidential with benefits realized for those who choose to utilize the tools and services from these organizations at no cost. These cybersecurity measures elevate the cost and effort for advanced persistent threat actors, with the expectation that the depth and duration of an inevitable cyberattack will have reduced consequences and allow recovery for continued military power projection operations.9

Maximize Infrastructure Resilience

While cyberattack disruptions are the most likely and pervasive threat to power projection from the US homeland, other threats or hazards may also create impacts, necessitating a comprehensive mission assurance approach with a focus on transportation infrastructure integral to the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise. Transportation Command is designated to lead Department of Defense efforts to conduct assessments and identify transportation-related strategic risk issues, and the command performs this task through several designated programs.10

Three national defense programs mandate that the Department of Defense work closely with the Department of Transportation, state and local agencies, and private-sector transportation providers to address national defense needs needs regarding highways, railroads, and seaports. These programs define the minimum infrastructure requirements to conduct major power projection operations under wartime conditions using civil and commercial capabilities. The Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) comprises more than 64,200 miles of interstate and connecting highways. Its origins date to 1919 in the aftermath of World War I when America's expeditionary requirement to use the highway system rapidly and reliably resulted in the War Department publishing the "Pershing Map" that captured military movement needs. A similar effort for rail called the Strategic Rail Corridor Network (STRACNET) incorporates 32,000 miles of privately owned rail lines and connectors that service 141 key military installations, defense sites, and strategic seaports across the United States. Transportation Command proactively works with government agencies to address potential impediments to surge operations, such as relief for truck and rail operator time-in-service limitations or processing of waivers for oversize and overweight highway loads at the state level.11

At the nodal level, a strategic seaport program with 18 commercial and 6 military ports, including 2 Military Ocean Terminals, is designated to meet military movement needs. Unique to high-net explosive weight ammunition movements at the Military Ocean Terminals is sufficient standoff distance from surrounding infrastructure, which makes them unique from their commercial counterparts. Each designated strategic seaport has an approved Port Readiness Plan identifying the port facilities necessary to meet the largest anticipated military movement. The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, in conjunction with Transportation Command and other interagency partners, monitors the readiness of the commercial seaports under the National Port Readiness Network. Under contingency conditions, timely access to civil and commercial infrastructure is paramount and a rated order under the Transportation Priority Allocation System can prioritize necessary access if voluntary measures are insufficient.12

These national defense programs lay the foundation for accessing the necessary infrastructure for major deployment operations but by themselves are insufficient to deal with the inevitable disruptions expected in modern warfare. Department of Defense reliance on civil and commercial infrastructure networks, with numerous embedded networked components such as industrial control system / supervisory control and data acquisition (ICS/SCADA) systems, introduce exploitable vulnerabilities. The criticality or consequence of these network exploits to movement operations become a key factor in designing resilient network paths. While it would be daunting to identify every possible exploit, a macro-level assessment about how road and rail networks degrade is a useful approach to discover when and where brittle outcomes contribute to an escalating loss of throughput in the transportation system. Transportation Command has completed route vulnerability analyses on the highway and rail networks for military movements associated with specific wartime scenarios. Insights from this work determined that simultaneous interdiction of a considerable number of road and rail segments would be necessary to degrade wartime military movements significantly. With more than 15,500 total road and 18,000 rail segments in the Strategic Highway Network and the Strategic Rail Network, these well-established civil infrastructure networks afford a consequential foundation of resilience in the continental United States. For the few areas where degraded flows were discovered, they occurred in the vicinity of installations or ports where routes converge to limited points of access, requiring more robust workarounds. Airfields to support deployments are also critical, with the majority of them either on installations or in close proximity thereby limiting the same opportunity for route exploitation.13

This analysis illuminates alternatives that, if recognized, can expedite the ability to fight through disruptions while elevating critical paths warranting greater protections or mitigations. Whereas the model used in this analysis rapidly identified degradation and found alternate paths innately, in the real world, the ability to assess disruptions and reroute cargo flows relies on commercial providers and nodal operators to act autonomously for the desired throughput. In the pursuit of resilience, disruptions are expected with recovery or rerouting alternatives readily discernable across multiple echelons of activity- all core elements in USTRANSCOM transportation engineering methodologies.

Seaport resilience is achieved with a similar approach reflected in a DHS report indicating that "a cyber attack on networks at a port... could result in port disruptions ... which could last days or weeks," noting that the impact depends on the ability to divert shipments to other ports. Transportation Command sizes the number of ports on the East, Gulf, and West coasts so that the aggregate port capacity is more than the peak wartime demand, thereby providing sufficient port output to accommodate the loss of several ports. Seaport assessments address all the port features necessary to support the deployment of military equipment landside and waterside. They also parse out port capabilities not critical for loading or discharging roll-on / roll-off vessels-such as gantry cranes, which may cause port vulnerabilities writ large, especially for container shipments, but are not required for military equipment movements. Congressional interest in seaports has always been high, with the most recent 2020 USTRANSCOM report indicating most ports in the Strategic Seaport Program have no significant deficiencies and are capable of supporting DoD requirements. Ongoing assessments indicate the condition of the road and rail connectors to the ports are also sound. If a port has limitations for any reason, the Department of Defense would use "in-lieu-of" infrastructure at the impacted port or shift to another strategic seaport, given the robust footprint designed for each coastal region. Transportation Command's Army component, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, reinforces this approach with a "port diversification" practice to shift movements routinely across a range of ports to ensure they are ready and create a diverse pattern of operations that contributes to resiliency. The value in this approach is having tools to assess the impact on node and network degradation and developing courses of action to recover or divert across nodes and networks, which can be decisive in negating the consequence of potential port disruptions.14

The two ammunition ports operated by Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command in California and North Carolina are unique in their high-net explosive weight capability limiting potential use of commercial seaport alternatives. Therefore, greater scrutiny placed on key cyber terrain assessments and evaluations of other dependencies to decrease vulnerabilities is coupled with the development of in-depth mitigation playbooks to reduce the consequences if either terminal were in jeopardy.

These examples reinforce Transportation Command's position that resilience can be engineered and consequences managed. This resilience is gained through concerted efforts to understand how the transportation network responds to disruptions and identify where elevated points of concern are found when the system is operating under wartime demands and timely transportation output matters.

Optimize Relationships

The time that will challenge the effectiveness of the Defense Transportation System will certainly be at the beginning of a major deployment in the homeland when national security is on the line. Relationships with key transportation partners matter, and the time to develop and solidify those relationship is before they are tested. Transportation Command has developed excellent working relationships at the executive and operational levels with DoD transportation industry partners and government counterparts in every portion of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise. The National Defense Transportation Association fosters multiple venues across committees with industry partners from airlift and sealift to surface, including seaports, rail, trucking, and functional areas such as cybersecurity.

Transportation Command also hosts a recurring set of engagements through executive working groups designed to allow frank and open dialogue about classified and unclassified areas of mutual interest or concern for the timing and tempo of crisis or wartime operations. These are clearly differentiated from acquisition venues to avoid the perception of constructive changes to contract terms while providing the necessary basis of shared understanding. These working group sessions are scheduled on a recurring basis multiple times per year and embrace every industry sector to ensure robust dialogue and mutual trust sustain these critical relationships. During periods of greater intensity, these engagements increase to enhance situational awareness and posture for future operations. Several examples illustrate the power of these relationships, allowing the Defense Transportation System to operate effectively even under duress.

In August 2021, coincident with the final withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the United States evacuated more than 79,000 people from Kabul International Airport in C-17s, with commercial long-range passenger aircraft needed to complete the movement for Operation Allies Refuge to the United States. Commercial airline partners were contacted at the onset of planning to determine how much capacity they could make available. In the end, the Department of Defense activated Civil Reserve Air Fleet Stage I for the third time in history to enable this intense airlift effort. Similarly, in 2022 and 2023, US support for Ukraine swung into high gear with increased airlift required to provide military assistance. A steady rate of deliveries was made using numerous commercial Boeing 747 cargo aircraft to avoid further saturating heavily tasked United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster Ills and C-5M Super Galaxies, achievable only with strong commitments from several air carriers. More recently, in late 2023 and early 2024, with heightened tensions in the Levant, Transportation Command engaged its sealift industry partners in classified discussions about elevated threats in the Red Sea to apprise industry with risk-informed options and safe-passage protocols. On any day, carrier calls are made between operational-level planners across all modes of transportation, intimately connecting Transportation Command with Fourth Component commercial carriers. They know us, and we know them.

While USTRANSCOM's relationship with the commercial transportation industry is solid, there will likely be concerted efforts by adversaries in the early stages of a conflict to create confusion and sow seeds of doubt. In her 2023 congressional posture statement, USTRANSCOM Commander, General Jacqueline Van Ovost indicated that, "DoD's ability to project military forces is inextricably linked to commercial industry," and the relationships built and sustained over many years provide the strong foundation that, together, we will deliver even when adversaries contest our ability to operate.15

An often-overlooked set of relationships essential for generating Transportation Command's wartime output are linked to Reserve and National Guard units found throughout the Department of Defense mobility force structure. These reserve component forces compose about 65 percent of military airlift and air refueling capabilities, 85 percent of the aeromedical evacuation forces, and 90 percent of the soldiers to manage seaports under wartime conditions and are fully integrated into daily operations, with volunteerism being critical to providing non-mobilized capacity. These total force relationships are seamless and a testament to the professionalism of reserve component members. However, under crisis or wartime conditions, the ability to gain timely access to these forces is based on a series of national-level decisions. A key consideration for the USTRANSCOM commander is when and at what levels to request the mobilization of mobility-enabling forces from the Secretary of Defense. Not only is this a major decision impacting the Reserve and Guard forces, but it is also a signal to adversaries that the United States is gearing up for a possible conflict. Early mobilization facilitating the movement of deterrence forces is likely fraught with uncertainty and potential for undesired escalation, while delayed decisions will impact the force flow with the likelihood for cascading delays. Confounding these mobilization decisions is the potential for a simultaneity gap on competing missions. This conundrum exists when the expectation of support from the Department of Defense for the US civil populace during crisis may rely on the same Reserve and National Guard forces being mobilized to deploy. Thus, the final set of relationships that matter demands a firm exercise of the protocols and expectations at the national level of leadership for timely access to the reserve component forces necessary to commence and maintain large-scale deployment operations from the homeland.16

Conclusion

The homeland is no longer a sanctuary, so the entire enterprise must prepare for the inevitable when engaged in the process of deploying from a contested homeland. The Department of Defense must now embrace a diverse set of activities, along with civil and commercial partners, to bolster resilience and manage points of consequence. Transportation Command's approach to this reality is to deter adversaries who believe they can cripple the United States at the starting gate by taking actions in three areas:

1. minimizing the impact of high-probability cyber-threat actions on vulnerable elements of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise, with a concentration on commercial transportation providers;

2. maximizing the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise's ability to maintain alternate transportation solutions across degraded node or network paths no matter how the disruption occurs; and

3. optimizing the contributions of critical transportation providers along with federal, state, and regional transportation agencies through strong trust-based relationships that can withstand the friction of modern conflict and operate in a distributed manner.

While this approach allows for the collective pursuit of tangible actions that enhance the nation's power-projection posture, it is not a panacea. The potential for debilitating or cascading black swan events remains a concern that the enterprise must continue to explore. Correspondingly, increased whole-of-government mission clarity and improved capabilities to protect, defend, and respond against ever-increasing adversary threats to the homeland are necessities to preclude being overwhelmed and stymied during a contingency. Nonetheless, these concerns are not an excuse for inaction. In the end, when it really counts, if we embrace this approach as the foundation, the USTRANSCOM motto "Together, we deliver," will be more than a tagline-it will be a path to success when the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise must fight to get to the fight.

Bruce Busier

Bruce Busier retired in 2024 as a member of the Senior Executive Service after serving nearly 14 years as the director of United States Transportation Command's Joint Distribution Process Analysis Center as well as the executive director of the US Army's Transportation Engineering Agency under the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command. He is also a retired US Air Force colonel and command pilot with more than 3,800 flight hours in airlift and trainer aircraft. Busier is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, the Air Force Institute of Technology, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

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Footnote

Endnotes 1. H. P. Willmottj Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 (Naval Institute Press, 2008); and Chris Byrd, "Bombers over Tokyo, The Strategic Importance of Doolittle's Raid," The Strategy Bridge, April 18, 2018, https://thestrategybridge.Org/the-bridge/2018/4/18/bombers-over -tokyo-the-strategic-importance-of-doolittles-raid. Return to text.

2. Evan Andrews, "5 Attacks on US Soil During World War II: The Germans and Japanese Waged Small-Scale Campaigns of Bombing, Sabotage and Espionage," History, August 23, 2023, https://www.history.com/news/5-attacks-on-u-s-soil-during-world-war-ii. Return to text.

3. US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) exists to project and sustain combat power at a time and place of the nation's choosing in support of other combatant commands. Transportation Command's six UCP missions include serving as the single manager for common user and commercial transportation, global patient movement, global bulk fuel management, and leading efforts for the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE). USTRANSCOM, "Unified Command Plan (UCP)," in United States Transportation Command Fact Book (USTRANSCOM, October 2023), https://www.ustranscom.mil/cmd/docs/USTRANSCOM%20FACTBOOK%200CT23.pdf; and "Distribution Process Owner," Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE) Planning and Operations, DoD Instruction (DoDI) 5158.06, April 7, 2020, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54 /Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/5l5806p.pdf. Return to text.

4. Resilience: The ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions; includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents. "National Infrastructure Protection Plan and Resources" (2013), Cybersecurity 8c Infrastructure Security Agency, https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure -security-and-resilience/national-infrastructure-protection-plan-and-resources; Consequence: The effect of an event, incident, or occurrence ..., both direct and indirect and other negative outcomes to society [in this application, the negative outcome to military movement operations]; "National Infrastructure Protection Plan"; and "National Infrastructure Protection Plan: Partnering for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience," Department of Homeland Security, 2013. This plan addresses threats and hazards to physical and cyber critical infrastructure, which is largely owned by the private sector. The plan employs an integrated approach to identify, deter, detect, disrupt, and prepare for threats and hazards to America's critical infrastructure; reduce vulnerabilities of critical assets, systems, and networks; and mitigate the potential consequences to critical infrastructure of incidents or adverse events that do occur, https://www.cisa.gov /resources-tools/resources/2013-national-infrastructure-protection-plan. Return to text.

5. Posture and Readiness of the Mobility Enterprise - TRANS COM and MARAD, Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, 118th Cong. (2024) (statement of General Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, US Air Force, Commander, USTRANSCOM), https://armedservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle .aspx?EventID=3550. Return to text.

6. Department of Defense (DoD) guidance requires combatant commands to ". . .coordinate with USTRANSCOM to update transportation feasibility analysis, as appropriate, and obtain contested environment force flow modeling and analysis." "Contingency Planning Guidance (CPG): 2023-2025" (2023) (classified); and Management and Review of Campaign and Contingency Plans, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) Instruction 3141.01F (CJCS, 2019), https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents /Library/Instructions/CJCSI%203141.01F.pdf. The Defense Transportation System is the portion of the worldwide transportation infrastructure that supports DoD transportation needs in peace and war. It consists of two major elements: military (organic) and commercial resources. Those resources include aircraft, assets, services, and systems organic to, contracted for, or controlled by the Department of Defense. The Defense Transportation System infrastructure includes ports, airlift, sealift, railway, highway, in-transit visibility, information management systems, customs, and traffic management. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) The Defense Transportation System, Joint Publication (JP) 4-01 (JSC 2017). Return to text.

7. "National Infrastructure Protection Plan and Resources"; "National Infrastructure Protection Plan"; and Mission Assurance: A process to protect or ensure the continued function and resilience of capabilities and assets, including personnel, equipment, facilities, networks, information and information systems, infrastructure, and supply chains, critical to the execution of DoD mission-essential functions in any operating environment or condition. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Mission Assurance (MA), DoD Directive (DoDD) 3020.40 (DoD, 2018), https://www.esd.whs.mil /Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/302040p.pdf?ver=2018-09-ll-131221-983. Return to text.

8. Mobility Enterprise. Return to text.

9. National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-171 defines 110 security controls for the largest transportation service providers. Over the last six years, significant gains have been realized, with the majority of large transportation service providers attesting to implementation of all 110 controls while smaller providers express difficulty in implementing costly security controls. "Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations," National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-171 (2020), https:// doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-171r2; cybersecurity executive orders (EO) germane to the Defense Transportation System include'Tmproving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity," Exec. Order 13636, February 12, 2013, https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/eo-13636-improving-critical -infrastructure-cybersecurity-508.pdf; "Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing," Exec. Order 13691, February 13, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office /2 015/0 2/13/execu t ive - order-promo ting-private-sec tor-cybersecur it y-inf or m at ion-shari; and "Improving theNation's Cybersecurity," Exec. Order 14028, May 12, 2021, https://www.federalregister. gov/documents/2021/05/17/2021-10460/improving-the-nations-cybersecurity; and "FACT SHEET: President Signs Executive Order Charting New Course to Improve the Nation's Cybersecurity and Protect Federal Government Networks," May 12, 2021, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet -president-signs-executive-order-charting-new-course-improve-the-nations/. Return to text.

10. DoD, Mission Assurance Construct, DoDI 3020.45 (DoD, 2018). Return to text.

11. DoD Transportation Engineering, DoDD 4510.11, and DoD Transportation Engineering Program, DoD Manual 4510.12, prescribe the highways for national defense, the railroads for national defense, and the ports for national defense programs and the strategic highway network (STRAHNET), the strategic railroad corridor network (STRACNET), and the strategic seaport information based on the national defense programs managed by the US Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Transportation Engineering Agency; DoD, Transportation Engineering, DoDD 4510.11 (DoD, 2014); and DoD, Transportation Engineering Program, DoD Manual 4510.12 (DoD, 2023). Return to text.

12. The Transportation Priorities and Allocation System is administrated by the Secretary of Transportation in support of the Department of Defense under title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 33. A memorandum of understanding between the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation defines expectations for the hazard conditions necessary for timely access, typically within 48 hours. Return to text.

13. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), "Annex E: Freight Rail," in Transportation Systems Sector-Specific Plan: An Annex to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (DHS, 2010), https://www .dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nipp-ssp-transportation-systems-2010.pdf; and STRACNET information based on national defense programs managed by the US Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Transportation Engineering Agency. Return to text.

14. Operational Analysis Division, Consequences to Seaport Operations from Malicious Cyber Activity (Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis / DHS, 2016), https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/2l588 -document-07-department-homeland-security; National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020, "Assessment and Report on Strategic Seaports," sec. 3515, 116th Cong. (2020); and DHS, Consequences to Seaport Operations. Return to text.

15. On the State of the Command, 118th Cong. (2023) (statement of General Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, US Air Force, Commander, USTRANSCOM), https://docs.house.gov/meetings /AS/AS28/20220331/114614/HHRG-117-AS28-Wstate-VanOvostJ-20220331.pdf. Return to text. 16. The fiscal year 2020 NDAA directed a Mobility Capability Requirements Study (MCRS-20), USTRANSCOM, June 2021 (classified). The study provides an assessment on the sufficiency of mobility forces to meet the National Defense Strategy for daily competition and wartime demands. Return to text.