DOD has increasingly been involved with other agencies in complex humanitarian operations. Military logisticians are faced with the fast pace of events and insufficient and inaccurate information. Time is critical in getting relief supplies to affected areas. DOD has the resources and know-how to be an invaluable interagency partner in these efforts to project the best of American values. The experience of U.S. European Command in bringing relief in the Georgia crisis of 2008 provides lessons learned about the logistics aspect of effective U.S. Government responses to humanitarian crises.

President Eisenhower warned against the pernicious effects of the massive defense industrial complex in 1961. Yet the defense industrial base continues to give America an advantage over potential adversaries. It has weakened through the erosion of the manufacturing base, waste, cost overruns, underperformance, a shaky economy, and the uncertainties of today’s warfare. Despite these vulnerabilities, the modern defense industrial base remains innovative, creative, and relatively efficient and responsive to its customer, DOD. It is imperative to national interests to preserve this asset even as its inefficiencies are rooted out, and there are important steps that can ensure its ongoing vitality.

Transnational criminal organizations have become too well armed, resourced, and influential to be contained by law enforcement resources in Latin America, where official corruption is widespread, police are not trusted, ungoverned spaces leave a vacuum for crime to penetrate, and vulnerable publics are open to anyone who will provide the services and security the state cannot. The effects of crime and corruption on such a scale, permeating the political, social, and economic realms, must be met with an integrated law enforcement, military, and intelligence effort within a whole-of-government approach. Several countries are having success through a variety of approaches, but the problem remains severe