The Retrograde of Shipping Containers from Afghanistan
Abstract
During the past 11.5 years, hundreds of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians have deployed and redeployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). As a result of this effort, there are 92,566 Twenty-Foot Equivalent (TEU) shipping containers presently on the ground in Afghanistan at an enormous cost to the U.S. Government. The U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) Command has conducted some preliminary planning and estimate that only 23,000 TEUs will be required to retrograde all necessary supplies and equipment from the theater of operation back to the United States. Employing current processes and procedures the United States military cannot retrograde all OEF shipping containers out of Afghanistan and back to the United States in an efficient and cost effective manner by the end of 2014. This Civilian Research Paper will look at the history of container management from Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, techniques to improve container management visibility and accountability, OEF retrograde routes and efforts to reduce transportation costs, and alternate methods of container disposition to allow the U.S. military to meet the 2014 target withdrawal date.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA592976
Entities
People
- Daniel K. Rickleff
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology