In his slide on 'Global Perspective' the major transport nodes were identified as Hawaii, Alaska, California, South Carolina, UK (2 sites), Spain (2 sites), Germany (2 sites), Italy, Diego Garcia, Guam, Japan (4 sites) and Singapore. Our officials have been keen to remind the US about the value of Changi Naval Base and Paya Lebar Air Base and it seems that GEN Schwartz agrees.

An empirical question: Is Singapore is the only location on the list that is not under direct US military command and control? My understanding is that US bases like Ramstein in Germany, Aviano in Italy, Kaneda in Japan are not just springboards for US power projection but, juridically, also project US sovereignty to a degree that the use of CNB and PLAB does not. Interesting speculative questions include whether Singapore-type arrangements will become more or less common in the future and to what extent has the GWOT reversed downward trends in overseas US military basing.

It was rather surprising at how young an organization USTRANSCOM is. Prior to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, it was even illegal for the Department of Defense to consolidate its individual service transport organizations under a single body. To date, even though USTRANSCOM is the Distribution Process Owner in the DOD, a Joint Logistics Command has yet to be established which is why GEN Schwartz emphasized how he was working to achieve unity of effort rather than unity of command. I had a naughty question (but didn't ask it) about whether some of the challenges of jointness came from how, until 2005, Commander USTRANSCOM was always a USAF four star general (who also double-hatted as the Air mobility component commander) and whether we'd see a US Army, Navy or Marine four star take command anytime soon.

This situation also highlights how older organizations with more deeply embedded cultures and traditions can lead to more bureaucratic inertia, infighting and stove-piping - the kind of things keeps Graham Allison's Essence of Decision on contemporary IR reading lists even though it was first published decades ago. In a sense, the relative youth of the SAF as a whole meant that jointness could be more readily implemented in organizational structure and process. The SAF's current HJL, the formidable BG Philip Lim Feng, certainly seems to have a lot on his plate.

Commercial companies and the military have become increasingly intertwined, not least in terms of excruciatingly pretentious management speak rampaging through the military vocabulary - the world seriously needs more people like Lucy Kellaway and Dr E.L. Kersten to combat this global menace! The notion that the private sector plays an invaluable role in military readiness, operations and sustainment is not a new one but this talk made me more keenly aware of how the military must carefully balance the need to maintain organic capability against discouraging the private sector from maintaining surge capacity. GEN Schwartz pointed out this surge capacity was important to long term planning and cost control, thus commercial partners were often given contracts on government freight to sustain their fleets as well as the need to temper over-enthusiasm in organic growth e.g. the need for a balanced view on the current C-17 procurement plan.

The IISS's 2007 Military Balance reported how the RSAF has moved into more public-private partnerships in terms of training aircraft and maintenance but there's always a question mark as to how 'private' a Singapore Technologies company is, relative to say, UPS or DHL in relation to USTRANSCOM. The sheer size of the US domestic market also ensures that significant surge capacity can be maintained if properly managed. In contrast, a domestic air freight market in Singapore is simply implausible. In terms of organic capability, the SAF is well-regarded in terms of quality but the 2004 tsunami relief operations highlighted how one humanitarian event managed to soak up all of the SAF's organic heavy sealift (3 LSTs, one in the Gulf) and heavy helicopter lift (Chinooks). It will be intriguing to see if there will be significant civil resource mobilization for any massive regional humanitarian disaster in the future.

The highlight, for me, of GEN Schwartz's talk was his comparison of 2005 vs 2006 helo deployment for the 10th Mountain Division from South Carolina to Afghanistan. In a remarkable display of candour, he detailed how the 2005 deployment was completed 7 days after the latest arrival date using a total of 847 flying hours from the US to Germany and then onward to Afghanistan. Among the hiccups included adverse weather conditions (which aircraft are still vulnerable to), changes to diplomatic clearance in Germany and limited fuel availability in Afghanistan.

In contrast, the 2006 deployment used sea lift from the US to Spain (Roda) and then onward via air to Afghanistan - this was achieved 4 days before the latest arrival date, using 457 flying hours and 16% cheaper (USD 11.4 million). One of the key efficiency generators was how Roda combined both seaport and airport facilities, allowing cargo to be unloaded from ship and loaded almost straightaway onto C-17s. What was unsaid and most interested me was how USTRANSCOM did their 2005 After Action Review, learnt from the problems and came up with a counter-intuitive plan that was successfully executed - but like transport and logistics, AARs tend to be regarded as unglamorous even though they are indispensable.