XBradTC

This is another look at the sea-based logistics response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010, particularly the port opening and amphibious elements.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere but after decades of poor governance it was starting to pull itself out from that dubious title. The USA had a number of interests in the country; it was a major source of mass migration, had many areas of weak governance that were a haven for drugs transhipment activities and former President Bill Clinton had only recently been appointed UN Special Envoy to the country.

via The Sea Based Logistics Response to the Haiti Earthquake – Think Defence.

As usual, Think Defense does a splendid job of examining an issue, in this case the humanitarian response to the catastrophic earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.

Our military does logistics pretty dang well, by and large. But the fact is, it does so in a relatively small volume compared to civilian industry. The advantage the military logistical system has is that it is less reliant on infrastructure and degrades more gracefully in the face of failures.

TD takes a look at some of the lesser known aspects of logistics, such as hydrographic survey, that allowed our military to begin to open Haiti back up, and at the shortcomings military logistics face in such a humanitarian challenge.

There are plenty of interesting pictures and graphics.

One interesting thought that I don’t think TD addressed. I don’t know, but I strongly suspect that over the last decade and a half the military has gotten much better at working with other government agencies, and with non-governmental agencies, to integrate operations such as this.