Logistics

The Oxford English Dictionary defines logistics as "the branch of military science relating to procuring, maintaining and transporting material, personnel and facilities."

"The history of war proves that nine out of ten times an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been cut off.... We shall land at Inchon, and I shall crush them.” -- General Douglas MacArthur

"Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics." - Tom Peters - Rule #3: Leadership Is Confusing As Hell, Fast Company, March 2001

"Gentlemen, the officer who doesn't know his communications and supply as well as his tactics is totally useless."

- Gen. George S. Patton, USA

"Bitter experience in war has taught the maxim that the art of war is the art of the logistically feasible." - ADM Hyman Rickover, USN

"Forget logistics, you lose." - Lt. Gen. Fredrick Franks, USA, 7th Corps Commander, Desert Storm

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980

"Logistics sets the campaign's operational limits."

- Joint Pub 1: Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States

"Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point."

- Jomini: Precis de l' Art de la Guerre. (1838)

"Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician."

- M. Cox

"Logistics ... as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work."

- Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration, 1912

"The essence of flexibility is in the mind of the commander; the substance of flexibility is in logistics."

- RADM Henry Eccles, U.S. Navy