Professionals Talk Logistics: Sustaining Strategy and Operations

Professionals talk logistics. It is an adage offered around many a military conference room, a time-honored piece of wisdom that serves as a cautionary reminder that logistics both enables and constrains military strategy and to ignore one imperils the other. Few book-length works have been written specifically on logistics, which are often overlooked by historians who instead focus on the great captains of battle. While exceptions exist, those rare volumes tend to focus on the past, tracing the echoes of history while ignoring the implications of those echoes on future conflict. Military strategy is most assuredly informed by logistics, and contemporary operations reveal that leaders require more professional-and nuanced-discussion of military strategy and logistics. Drawing on a wealth of experienced and insightful strategists and logisticians, Professionals Talk Logistics explores that relationship from antiquity into the contemporary context and concludes with a cautionary and provocative view through a directed lens of future conflict.

Colonel Jon Klug is the Associate Dean at the United States Army War College. He is a veteran of multiple deployments, an experienced staff officer in American and NATO headquarters, and an award-winning military history instructor at the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy, and the Army War College. Jon holds a Ph.D. in History.

Steve Leonard is an award-winning faculty member at the University of Kansas School of Business, former senior military strategist, and career writer and speaker with a passion for developing and mentoring the next generation of thought leaders. Published extensively, he pens a weekly editorial column, Point of Departure, where his writing focuses on issues of leadership and leader development. He is a member of the editorial review boards of Military Strategy Magazine and the Arthur D. Simons Center's Interagency Journal; and the author, co-author, or editor of several books, including Power Up ( 2023), To Boldly Go (2021), Why We Write (2019), Winning Westeros (2019), and Strategy Strikes Back (2018).