{"number":7,"slug":"alliances-logistics","title":"Alliances & logistics","score":0.5,"position":62.5,"rating":"U.S. edge","tone":"us-edge","confidence":"Moderate","call":"The alliance network is a structural U.S. advantage, but it becomes military power only when access, permissions, repair, fuel, data, weapons, and standards work under attack. Public oversight shows that the logistics conversion remains incomplete.","reasoning":["Allies multiply geography, production, intelligence, legitimacy, and combat power; none of those effects are automatic.","Fuel distribution, pre-positioned stocks, maintenance, and contractor oversight are fragile precisely where the strategy expects distributed operations."],"subcategories":[{"name":"Alliance network","score":2.0,"position":100.0,"rating":"U.S. lead","tone":"us-lead","rationale":"Treaty allies and capable partners create reach and capacity no competitor can easily reproduce."},{"name":"Combined interoperability","score":1.0,"position":75.0,"rating":"U.S. edge","tone":"us-edge","rationale":"Major exercises demonstrate increasingly integrated multidomain operations."},{"name":"Contested theater logistics","score":-1.0,"position":25.0,"rating":"Competitor edge","tone":"competitor-edge","rationale":"Fuel, pre-positioning, maintenance, and distribution remain exposed and incompletely exercised."},{"name":"Co-production and exportability","score":0.0,"position":50.0,"rating":"Contested","tone":"contested","rationale":"Policy is moving toward earlier exportability and collaboration, but approvals and divergent requirements still slow scale."}],"policy_label":"Convert the edge","policy":"Turn alliances into a standing industrial and logistics network: design exportability into requirements, align common munitions and data standards, pre-negotiate access and repair authorities, pool selected stockpiles, and grade major exercises on sustained throughput and regeneration rather than participation counts.","indicators":["Days of distributed fuel, munitions, and repair capacity available by theater node","Share of priority systems designed exportable and interoperable from program start","Combined-exercise throughput sustained after simulated infrastructure loss"],"sources":[{"title":"2026 National Defense Strategy","url":"https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/23/2003864773/-1/-1/0/2026-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY.PDF","kind":"Strategy","date":"Jan 2026"},{"title":"Reforming Foreign Defense Sales for Speed and Accountability","url":"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reforming-foreign-defense-sales-to-improve-speed-and-accountability/","kind":"Policy","date":"Apr 2025"},{"title":"Military Readiness: Challenges Across Air, Sea, Ground, and Space","url":"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108888","kind":"Oversight","date":"Mar 2026"},{"title":"Valiant Shield 2026 Multidomain Allied Exercise","url":"https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4522795/allies-come-together-in-the-indo-pacific-for-exercise-valiant-shield-26/","kind":"Exercise evidence","date":"Jun 2026"}]}