In his monograph, Improving the Sustainment of SOF Distributed Operations in Access-Denied Environments, Robert Haddick examines a variety of emerging technologies and techniques that could improve the sustainment and effectiveness of distributed SOF operations, especially in access-denied environments. This is a terrific piece of scholarly work. The writing style is compelling, well sourced (directly drawing from historical contexts to frame proposed solutions), contains realistic technology assumptions, and most importantly, actionable recommendations. The monograph begins by describing a challenging yet plausible notional unconventional warfare (UW) campaign scenario. The first chapter describes how current SOF planners would attempt to cope with this scenario under current doctrine and sustainment capabilities. Haddick finds that SOF units and planners assigned to the campaign would benefit from emerging technologies and techniques that could reliably overcome the access barriers in the campaign scenario. In addition, these technologies and techniques provide sustainment and mobility to distributed SOF and insurgent forces in the UW operating area, and reduce their demand for outside sustainment, which would ease the burden on whatever logistics system emerged from the planning process.
Improving the Sustainment of SOF Distributed Operations in Access-Denied Environments JSOU Report 16-2