United States Air Force Maritime Pre-Positioning of War Reserve Material and Joint Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration

Beginning in 1989, the world saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. All of these events changed the military strategy from containment of a single threat to a strategy of power projection and global engagement. At the same time, the US has become the sole military superpower on the world stage. With the increase in destabilizing conflicts around the world, the military has become more involved as a political instrument in world affairs. All of these factors--a reduced forward presence, sole superpower status leading to international expectations and increased number of conflicts--give credence to the need for a responsive force using strategic mobility. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the implications of the USAF proposal to use maritime pre-positioning of WRM as a means to significantly enhance agile combat support for future Expeditionary Aerospace operations. It starts with an explanation of the evolution of WRM forward basing and how the US went from a logistics mass in Europe during the Cold War to a mobile force depending on responsive logistics after the early 1990s. This thesis evaluates joint, Army and Air Force doctrine to define the process of deploying using maritime pre-positioning. This paper also focuses primarily on the joint reception, staging, onward movement, and integration (JRSOI) aspect of the maritime pre-positioning operation.