
This Congressional Budget Office study—prepared at the request of the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services—looks at the technical, operational, and cost issues associated with alternative transportation systems that DoD might develop and procure to reduce the time needed to deploy forces. The study compares the advantages, disadvantages, and costs of six transportation alternatives: four that would use existing technologies and two that would develop more-advanced systems. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this study makes no recommendations.
1 Today’s Strategic Transportation Capabilities
1 The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Transportation Forces
1 The Structure of Current Strategic Mobility Forces
2 The Delivery Rate of Today’s Strategic Mobility Forces
6 Perceived Shortfalls of Current Forces
9 2 Factors That Affect Delivery Times of Strategic Transportation Forces
11 The Time Needed to Move a Unit to Its Destination
11 The Importance of Payload
16 3 Options for Improving Strategic Transportation Forces
19 Approach for Developing the Alternatives
19 Options to Improve Airlift 21 Options to Improve Surge Sealift
24 Options to Expand Prepositioned Forces
28 4 Comparison of Strategic Transportation Options
31 Promptness and Throughput Capacity
31 The Impact of Infrastructure Constraints
33 Length of the RSOI Stage 37 Survivability
39 Other Considerations
39 A How CBO Estimated the Costs of the Options in This Study
41 Glossary of Abbreviations
organizations listed in this resource as key users of this information include: Maritime Prepositioning Force, Maritime Prepositioning Force, NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization NAVSEA, Naval Sea Systems Command, DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DoD, Department of Defense, USTRANSCOM, U.S. Transportation Command.
Product Details
- Arthur, David
- CBO Study
- Cost of War
- Military Transportation
- Transports
- Defense Policy
- Defense Budgets
- Congressional Publications