Mother Nature’s power and reach is a wonder to see. Sometimes its fury can be overwhelmingly destructive and cruel—one has to look no farther than Haiti for confirmation of that.

One word breathed life at Haiti’s core—logistics. Normal times in Haiti still required outside assistance for many essential services including food, water and medical care. The country is now on outside life support. Without donor aid—either in funding to support services and non-governmental organizations providing food, water, medical supplies, etc., or the people to get the job done, the country would surely languish. Logistics is what is keeping the country alive. The ability of several militaries, as well as a number of commercial providers moving material and supplies into country, organizing and protecting the lines of communication, and securing and providing an organized distribution chain is how the country will take the first steps away from this tragedy.

The U.S. military deserves especially high marks for organizing a rapid response and then executing relief efforts. Whether it was air or sea lift, providing ground equipment to unload and move supplies, rapidly building up medical care capabilities or just having boots on the ground, all of the services and the Coast Guard did what need to be done.

On a different line, the president’s FY11 budget request has been issued. Asking for $708.2 billion ($548.9 billion in base funding and $153.3 billion in overseas contingency operations funding) reflects a 3.4 percent increase, or 1.8 percent after adjusting for inflation. Coming in at slightly under $8.1 million per hour, rebalancing the force is a key theme of the new budget request. There will be some programs that see nice gains, while others may fall into non-funded limbo if not onto the scrap heap altogether. For example, the Defense Logistics Agency’s FY11 operations and maintenance budget tops $448 million, an increase of about $66 million over FY10. In the next few months MLF will take a look at several logistics-oriented programs and see how their funding pans out.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any comments or suggestions.

All the best.

Jeff McKaughan, Editor This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it