December 12, 2025: U.S. CENTCOM/Central Command personnel keep track of the military and political situations in 21 nations including Egypt, the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the five Stans of Central Asia. Recently CENTCOM personnel discovered that stockpiles of equipment for emergencies were in deplorable condition. The U.S. Army is responsible for maintaining these stockpiles and investigations are in progress to find out how this mess came to be.

The primary suspect is a company hired in 2016 to provide the required equipment. This was a $24 million contract that appears to have encountered another regional specialty, corruption. Contractors receiving this money to obtain and maintain equipment like tents and field kitchen and sanitary facilities failed miserably. Much of the equipment was damaged, not working properly and stored outside incorrectly. This sloppy storage led to most of the damage discovered when American troops went to receive and use the stored equipment. The U.S. Department of War IG/Inspector General teams advised that the army maintain better oversight of stored equipment they will eventually depend on. There are some things that should not be delegated to people you can’t court martial for malfeasance.

Prepositioned equipment isn’t always a disaster waiting to happen. Nine years ago the United States Army established storage and maintenance facilities in East Europe. Facilities in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria supported the U.S. Army weapons and equipment that were already there. The U.S. already has the equipment for an armored brigade in Poland, Estonia and Latvia. These are among the few NATO members that are adjacent to Russia. In addition to the brigade's worth of equipment, which includes 1,300 vehicles, a fifth of them armored, there will be smaller stockpiles of weapons and equipment for NATO allies in East Europe, for use if war breaks out.

The U.S. has similarly stored equipment worldwide. Most of it is in warehouses or ships, while in Norway the prepositioned gear is kept in caves. This prepositioning of military equipment goes back to the 1960s when the U.S. began pulling combat divisions out of Europe but still wanted to be able to bring these units back quickly if the Russians threatened an invasion. The solution was prepositioned equipment for several divisions of soldiers and marines. After the Cold War ended in 1991, the army and marines adjusted their prepositioned equipment deployment. This involved moving some prepositioned gear to new potential hot spots. Throughout the Cold War, most of the prepositioned equipment was in Europe. Since the 1990s some have moved to the Persian Gulf and Korea. But one brigade's worth was kept in Europe, and another was stored on ships off the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. After the 2003 Iraq invasion there were three brigade sets in the Persian Gulf, one afloat off Guam, one in Korea and one st

This stored equipment has actually been used for something other than training exercises. Prepositioned gear got a workout during the 2002-7 Iraqi operations and the troops were very pleased with the reliability and readiness of the prepositioned gear. The equipment is maintained by civilians under military supervision.

The prepositioned equipment for U.S. Marines is aboard ships. The U.S. Navy Maritime Prepositioning program cost about $7 million per ship per year to maintain. The navy MSC/Military Sealift Command maintains sixteen of these ships, to carry heavy equipment and supplies. These ships are organized into three squadrons with one stationed in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Each group of ships carries the equipment for a marine brigade and enough supplies going for 30 days. All you have to do is fly the marines in, land the equipment, and you have a marine brigade ready to fight. The process takes less than a week.

In each squadron, equipment is dispersed among the five ships so that the loss of one ship does not eliminate an entire category of equipment. Thus each ship in the squadron carries approximately 15 M1A1 tanks, 28 AAVs/amphibious assault vehicles, armored carriers for infantry, 153 Humvees, 100 MTVR/heavy trucks that can carry 15 tons of stuff on a road, half that cross country, two mechanized landing craft, eight 155mm towed howitzers, and 550 containers filled with spare parts, ammunition, medical supplies, food, and other material needed to keep a Marine brigade with 17,300 Marines and Sailors going for 30 days. The MPF squadrons performed well during the 2003 Iraq campaign, with their stored equipment being ready for action when unloaded.

Politics decides whether U.S. troops are used overseas, and politics can change. You can't quickly change your ability to move troops quickly. If you have to get a lot of firepower to a distant trouble spot, bomber aircraft don't always provide sufficient intimidation. Shiploads of tanks and troops deliver a more powerful message. In a world prone to random violence, ships that wait provide a quiet measure of security, as do warehouses and ships in several countries and caves in Norway.