stics will be formidable.
The land prepositioning of personnel, together with weapons systems, equipment, and supplies would be the obvious option, but for one factor one must know where in the world the next general purpose force employment will be required.5 There is also a political dimension to land prepositioning host countries in the desired geographical locations must accede to American prepositioning requests.6
Sea prepositioning can often avoid the political dimensions associated with land prepositioning. To a limited extent, sea prepositioning is also more flexible than land prepositioning. Sea prepositioning, however, is much more restrictive than land prepositioning in the context of the size
5Ibid., 180. 6C. E. Miller, Airlift Doctrine (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1988), 368.of the prepositioned force, and a sea prepositioned force is more vulnerable to enemy attack than is a land prepositioned force.
The air lift and sea lift options are also charactertized by both advantages and disadvantages. Air lift operation are rapid, and, in this context, they are inferior only to land or sea prepositioning. Air lift operations are flexible with respect to geographic location, and, in this context, are superior to either land prepositioning or sea prepositioning, unless the preposition locale is the scene of the fighting.7 Air lift operations, however, are severely limited in capacity, and cannot, alone, provide the necessary logistics support for general purpose force employment.8 Further, air lift operations are highly vulnerable to enemy attack.9
Sea lift operations are not constrained by the capacity limitations applicable to air lift operations.10 Sea lift operations, however, are quite slow, and in the context of rapid employment, are inferior to all of the other __________
7J. A. Skorupa, Airlift Operations in Hostile Environments (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabam...