The Role of External Support in Total Force Planning

This study addresses the potential for wartime host nation support (WHNS), contingency contracting, and other forms of external support to either reduce the current shortfall in Army combat service support (CSS) forces or to reduce the overall requirement for CSS forces. This study is based on two different analytic efforts. As a first step IDA investigated the Army's use of external support in the Gulf War and estimated the units that would have been required had that support not been available. In the second step, IDA analyzed the troop list the Army developed for its Total Army Analysis for the year 2003 (TAA03) and made estimates of the levels of external support that might be achieved in Southwest Asia and Northeast Asia given a vigorous effort at obtaining WHNS agreements and contingency contracts. The study concludes that more aggressive planning for external support could reduce the demand fo support forces for all Services and could reduce the demand for strategic lift assets that would otherwise be required to deploy American support forces to a contingency.