NORAD and NORTHCOM logistics director: homeland is a theater of operations

In a Sept. 16 Warfighter Talk with Defense Logistics Agency employees, the top logistics officer for North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command urged planners to balance the projection of combat power overseas with the active defense of critical domestic infrastructure and sustainment networks. “The homeland is a theater of operations, and you have to think of it as a theater of operations,” said Army Maj. Gen. Mark W. Siekman, the director of logistics for NORAD and USNORTHCOM. “I think a lot of folks are still trying to wrap their head around what a contested homeland could look like.”

Siekman outlined three near-term priorities for USNORTHCOM: safeguarding U.S. territorial integrity, securing Arctic and far-north approaches, and fortifying domestic cyber and sustainment systems for the demands of a protracted conflict.

He cautioned that while military exercises often treat domestic threats as discrete events, U.S. adversaries could coordinate actions to disrupt the nation’s ability to mobilize and move forces and materiel. “I think you all have been planning here and across the globe for the different non-kinetic activities that will occur here in the homeland to not only disrupt and delay, but potentially destroy — and definitely degrade — our ability to move materiel at speed and at scale to the warfighter in whatever combatant command is requiring it,” Siekman said.

Turning north, Siekman said the Arctic and sub-Arctic are rapidly becoming critical operational axes, offering strategic advantages in the Pacific while posing severe sustainment hurdles. He cited environmental and infrastructure constraints such as frozen deep-water ports and aging ski-equipped aircraft that must operate in extreme cold, and said USNORTHCOM is evaluating options to pre-position stocks in coordination with other geographic and functional commands.

Siekman also described a framework of defense support nodes that would let combatant commanders direct capabilities and resources onto service-owned domestic installations during homeland defense contingencies. “This really came to the forefront around the southern border in being able to position forces and capability along the border,” Siekman said, adding that it’s also relevant for the Golden Dome for America to quickly approach military installations for setting up sensors and equipment.

On technology, he highlighted USNORTHCOM’s work with U.S. Pacific Command and the Defense Innovation Unit to field the Joint Sustainment Decision Tool, an AI-enabled planning system designed to fuse logistics data, model consumption rates, and help planners assess whether operational concepts are feasible from a sustainment perspective.