See Ahead
✦
Stay Ahead
Contested Logistics
[ Thesis ]
In 1948, with a divided Berlin on the brink of starvation and Soviet forces blocking all ground access, the U.S. launched one of the most audacious logistical operations in history: the Berlin Airlift. For 11 months, American and Allied planes flew round-the-clock missions, delivering food, coal, and medicine to over two million people trapped behind the Iron Curtain. At its peak, a plane landed every 30 seconds, demonstrating that logistics could be as decisive as any weapon in maintaining peace and projecting power.
Today, America faces the threat of a different kind of blockade—one of its homeland. A threat bottling up our forces and supplies by contesting our ability to move beyond our shores. ASI’s thesis is that the key to prevent our adversaries from undermining the key to our global power is to deploy advanced software that synthesizes and advantages all the logistics assets at our disposal.
America’s power projection is at its most precarious point since WWI; the bedrock of economic prosperity, a deterrent to war, and the shield for democracy. This strength hinges on a singular capability: the ability to deliver and sustain military assets precisely where and when they’re needed. Without this logistical backbone—and the deterrent effect it provides— America’s power crumbles.
America’s logistical network must be as formidable as its weaponry.
America is geographically blessed with oceans on either side. But these vast expanses also present a challenge. Unlike most other continental powers, whose industrial bases are located closer to the frontlines, the U.S. must transport equipment and personnel over thousands of miles. So America’s logistical network must be as formidable as its weaponry. Otherwise, our geographic advantage risks transforming into vulnerability.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is rightly spending hundreds of billions on developing next-generation autonomous weapons systems and revitalizing the industrial base to manufacture arms at scale for America and its allies. But the systems facilitating the movement of weapons, ammunition, and troops around the homeland and abroad are largely shackled by software relics from the 1990s and PowerPoint slides.
America faces unprecedented logistical challenges. A great power conflict would differ dramatically from counterinsurgency operations. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. had uncontested control of both the sea and air, allowing it to move supplies into theater with relative ease. But it’s not just our enemies growing stronger—America’s declining capacity makes logistics even more challenging. During WWII, the U.S. launched entire fleets at record speed; today, our shipyards limp along, producing a fraction of what they once did. The U.S.-flagged merchant fleet has collapsed, shrinking by 94% since the 1960s and now accounting for less than 0.5% of the global fleet. Meanwhile, China dominates the world merchant fleet, with over 65% of the world’s bulk cargo carriers flying its flag.
A great power conflict can only be won with a strong and secure homeland
A war with China redefines the battlespace, turning global sealanes and airspace into fiercely contested zones. This is not the familiar enemy of the last two decades. China has engineered a strategy and already laid the foundation to strike deep into America's supply chains, crippling logistics nodes and dismantling critical infrastructure abroad and here at home–military and civilian. A great power conflict isn’t confined to the Taiwan Strait or the Indo-Pacific; it is a full-spectrum assault to challenge the U.S. America risks a strategic blunder if we limit our policy and military preparations for a conflict with China to the scope of Taiwan or the Indo-Pacific theater. China will target key logistical nodes within the U.S. homeland, where 80% of the U.S. force and industrial base is located. A great power conflict can only be won with a strong and secure homeland.
The U.S. military alone cannot carry the weight of a great power conflict.
China’s industrial base is staggering in its scale and scope. With a population of 1.4 billion powering its manufacturing juggernaut and one out of every six vessels at sea enlisted to move its products, Beijing can mobilize its entire private sector as an extension of its military strategy. America’s defense capacity, standing alone, is dwarfed by comparison.
To counter this, the U.S. must lean on its allies and the private sector, forging a tightly integrated, multinational logistics network.
But this collaboration brings its own set of challenges. Aligning diverse supply chains, coordinating disparate national industries, and responding at the speed of conflict require more than traditional methods. These logistical hurdles can only be overcome with advanced software systems. It’s not just about moving goods and forces—it’s about data sharing, predictive optimization, and seamless coordination across borders. Only by leveraging America’s software and AI superiority can we create the agile, resilient logistics required to remain competitive in a great power conflict.
Deadweight tonnage
in million >1,000 GT by country or alliance
Merchant ships
>1,000 GT by country or alliance
Dual-use must go beyond simply transferring technology between sectors
Building those advanced software systems is ASI’s mission. For the last five years, we’ve been relentlessly investing in a new generation of true dual-use software that predicts, simulates, and optimizes the operating domain for mission-critical private sector industries and the government alike. We believe dual-use must mean more than simply transferring technology between sectors. It’s about forging a seamless connection between private industry and military entities through software and data—creating a powerful force multiplier.
In war, coordination between the DoD and industry isn’t optional—it’s survival. During WWII, America mobilized its industrial base to churn out tanks and planes at unprecedented speed and cost efficiency.
Now, we need a unified software stack and dataflows. The same software platforms should power both sectors, enabling the DoD to tap private capacity at the speed of conflict. In a crisis, merchant ships, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF), and private logistics networks could be a seamless extension of the Pentagon’s reach. For the U.S. a fractured digital logistics framework means failure—no matter how advanced our weapons or vast our manufacturing.
Outmaneuvering China requires shattering the single pane of glass.
For over a decade, the DoD has invested in software that promised a unified battlespace view—a “single pane of glass” to integrate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. But the promise of the “single pane of glass” fell short because it solved the wrong problem. The real question isn’t “What is happening?” but “What should I do?” Great power conflict demands decision superiority, not situational awareness. Real-time dashboards lock us into reacting to the present while our adversaries shape the future. In a contested environment, where logistics depend on seamless coordination with allies and the private sector, the commander who can optimize decisions based on tomorrow’s challenges, not today’s data, will dominate the fight.
Where is the next aircraft carrier-class size effort for warfighting software?
The DoD once redefined warfare by pushing the limits of physics—transforming fighter jets and aircraft carriers into unparalleled instruments of power. But when it comes to software, it continues to buy yesterday’s software dressed up as tomorrow’s solution. Despite unprecedented computational power, commoditized AI models, and at last a glut of the best tech talent eager to tackle the nation’s hardest problems, we’ve sunk billions into outdated systems that limp along, unable to compete with even the most basic commercial platforms. The result? A software ecosystem that is bloated, brittle, and too slow to react to the demands of modern warfare. The average DoD software acquisition cycle takes over 7 years, while companies like Amazon deploy code every 11.7 seconds.
We’re buying tools designed for a battlefield that no longer exists. Meanwhile, adversaries rapidly develop capabilities that sidestep our legacy systems altogether, leveraging agility and speed where we are sluggish and risk-averse. If we can’t reimagine software as the linchpin of battlefield dominance, we will lose not because we lack weapons, but because we lack the ability to wield them with the precision, speed, and scale that only modern software can provide. Where is the next aircraft carrier-class size effort for warfighting software?
Prediction machines are our new GPS. We need to give commanders foresight not hindsight.
The past two decades have been spent consolidating data, ensuring decision-makers have accurate, detailed views of unfolding events. Real-time situational awareness locks commanders into a reactive cycle. They play catch-up as events cascade—making almost every planning process moot once first contact with the enemy is established. In a logistically contested, globally complex theater, speed and, more critically, anticipation, define victory. Reacting in real time isn’t just slow—it’s losing by design. Victory belongs to those who predict, adapt, and act before the enemy has even moved. Anticipation is the new high ground.
America must harness its leadership in artificial intelligence to implement predictive systems that don’t just support decisions—they shape and drive them before the battle even begins. Progress in AI must go beyond flat chat interfaces and extend into the multi-dimensional battlefield.
Commanders need tools that don’t merely show what’s happening but project what’s coming, from the homeland to the front line, enabling them to operate within the enemy's OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop, flipping reaction into high probability prediction.
The next generation of warfighting software will transform the OODA loop from a reactive sequence into a predictive weapon system. We must harness the advances made in AI to unleash capability that gives our commanders foresight rather than hindsight.
If we aim for yesterday’s technology, we will lose tomorrow’s fight.
Just as a software evolution was pivotal in countering terrorism, we now need systems that deliver not just information but actionable, data-driven foresight–true Prescience–a software capability to look across time and space. This isn’t a minor tweak. It’s the defining change for America to outpace and outmaneuver China in the era of great power competition. If we aim for yesterday’s technology, we will lose tomorrow’s fight.
The silver lining? The private sector is already leading the way, proving these solutions can deliver massive, game-changing success.
We have no time to spare. America cannot afford to cling to broken systems, waiting for failure in the crucible of conflict to learn what should have been built.
That’s why we at ASI didn’t wait. We invested our own capital, built our software platform Prescience, and deployed it in mission-critical operations. Now, three years after initial deployment, our platform serves both private and public sector, delivering the data and software advantage that American commanders and critical industry need to see ahead and stay ahead.