Defining and Evaluating Reliable Options for Overseas Combat Support Basing

To meet the Air Force's goals of global strike and persistent dominance, it is vital that the support for the warfighter be efficient in all aspects of deployment, employment, and redeployment. In order for rapid deployments to succeed, the Air Force must determine where combat support assets should be forward positioned. Previously, much of the focus has been on allocating resources to different regions of the world; now the focus is on finding a more efficient and effective global allocation that is not regionally constrained. The objective of this dissertation is to identify a robust set of facility locations for the Air Force to place combat support basing materiel that will cover a broad range of potential missions (e.g., training, humanitarian, and major combat operations) that may occur around the world. These decisions are modeled using mixed integer programming models. Because the Air Force faces risks associated with the loss of access to such storage sites, this dissertation addresses the ability of the network to perform well even when parts of it fail, a concept referred to as reliability. These models are used to identify the additional costs necessary to build varying levels of reliability into the solutions. These solutions will take into account risk and uncertainties, while meeting time constraints associated with the delivery of materiel.