Military Times reports that “the Army is putting the finishing touches on a bold new strategy for how it pre-positions stocks of critical equipment around the globe, how it uses those stocks to speed deployments — and who pays for it.”  

“Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno ordered the revised strategy last year as part of his vision to make the service more capable of deploying quickly to meet threats, and assist in humanitarian and disaster relief missions.”  

“And a key element of the plan is to pass off some of the cost of using and resetting the equipment to the combatant commanders.”  

The piece continues: “The idea is to break up the massive stocks of vehicles, weapons, and ammunition the Army has traditionally warehoused across the Middle East, Europe and aboard ships into smaller, theater-specific “activity sets” that troops can simply fall in on. This way, units can fly in with only their personal gear and make use of the heavy equipment already in place, then leave the equipment behind once the event is over.”