8th Theater Sustainment Command Modernizes Sustainment Transformation Across the Pacific

WASHINGTON – 8th Theater Sustainment Command leaders discussed how the Army is transforming sustainment across the Pacific during their Army Current Operation Engagement Tour (ACOET), highlighting initiatives that enable the Joint Force through forward logistics, regional partnerships and operational readiness.

Maj. Gen. Gavin Gardner, commanding general of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command, described sustainment as a critical component of deterrence and emphasized that maintaining readiness across the Pacific requires setting the theater before a crisis begins rather than reacting after conflict starts. Throughout the engagement, he outlined how forward sustainment, regional partnerships, and empowered Soldiers are reshaping how the Army supports operations across the theater.

Sustainment transformation is already underway across the theater through the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and a growing network of forward-positioned capabilities. These efforts enable the Army to provide large-scale logistics support across the Joint Force.

“What we see is Army support to other services is we do logistics at scale,” said Gardner. “We're fundamentally designed to do that, and that's what we've been doing the last year and a half.”

Gardner said the Army is modernizing sustainment by positioning equipment, supplies and maintenance capabilities closer to where Soldiers operate. Instead of waiting weeks or months for parts and equipment to arrive from the United States, units can repair equipment faster, spend more time training, and maintain a higher level of readiness across the Pacific. This forward posture is shaping how the Army sustains operations across the region’s dispersed islands and contested waterways.

Sustainment in the Pacific requires more than traditional logistics. The command is expanding Army watercraft capabilities while exploring autonomous systems, including Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), to move supplies across dispersed islands and contested waterways. Combined with conventional watercraft and commercial shipping when appropriate, these capabilities provide commanders with more options to distribute supplies, reduce risk to personnel, and sustain joint forces across the theater.

“We know we need to have distributed watercraft,” said Gardner. “Watercraft vessels help us close some of the gaps where we don't necessarily have the current force structure to meet the need.”

Gardner also mentioned readiness is built through repetition. Exercises conducted across the Pacific allow sustainment formations to validate concepts, refine logistics networks and improve interoperability with allies before those capabilities are required during a crisis. Rather than waiting until conflict begins, the Army continuously rehearses how it will sustain the Joint Force across dispersed islands, contested environments and extended lines of communication.

“It's one thing to set the conditions. It's another thing to rehearse them and practice them on the terrain,” said Gardner.

Operation Pathways connects 49 exercises across the Pacific, allowing sustainment formations to rehearse key mission sets, gain familiarity with the operating environment, strengthen relationships with allies and partners and validate sustainment concepts before they are needed in a crisis.

The command is also balancing readiness requirements and managing resources by prioritizing mission-essential maintenance and deferring work that does not immediately affect equipment availability or operational readiness.

“We don't want to send things if we don't have to all the way back to the continental United States. Sometimes it's cheaper to bring our artisan workforce and our capabilities forward,” said Gardner. “If it’s not broken, it’s not deadline and not mission capable, we’re deferring it.”

Modernization also includes changing how the Army maintains equipment. Repairing vehicles and systems closer to where they operate reduces downtime, improves equipment availability and allows units to focus more on training and mission readiness.

Gardner emphasized that rehearsing sustainment operations, combined with forward-positioned capabilities and partnerships across the region, strengthens the Army’s ability to support the Joint Force and reinforces the role of sustainment as a foundation of deterrence.

By expanding forward-positioned capabilities, strengthening partnerships and continuously rehearsing sustainment operations, the 8th Theater Sustainment Command is building a more responsive logistics network to support the Joint Force and maintain operational readiness across the Pacific.