Introduction: Turbulent Circulation: Building a Critical Engagement with Logistics

Abstract

Since the mid-20th century, logistics has evolved into a wide-ranging science of circulation involved in planning and managing flows of innumerable kinds. In this introductory essay, we take stock of the ascendancy and proliferation of logistics, proposing a critical engagement with the field. We argue that logistics is not limited to the management of supply chains, military or corporate. Rather, it is better understood as a calculative logic and spatial practice of circulation that is at the fore of the reorganization of capitalism and war. Viewed from this perspective, the rise of logistics has transformed not only the physical movement of materials but also the very rationality by which space is organized. It has remade economic and military space according to a universalizing logic of abstract flow, exacerbating existing patterns of uneven geographical development. Drawing on the articles that make up this themed issue, we propose that a critical approach to logistics is characterized by three core commitments: (1) a rejection of the field's self-depiction as an apolitical science of management, along with a commitment to highlighting the relations of power and acts of violence that underpin it; (2) an 2 interest in exposing the flaws, irrationalities, and vulnerabilities of logistical regimes; and (3) an orientation toward contestation and struggle within logistical networks.

Hidden carbon costs of the “everywhere war”: Logistics, geopolitical ecology, and the carbon boot‐print of the US military

“…As Chua et al. (, p. 618) have argued, logistics must be understood both as a “calculative rationality” and a “suite of spatial practices” that ensure the circulation of capital, commodities, bodies, services, and information, to overcome the “friction of distance” (Gregory, ). Logistics is a calculative rationality insofar as it seems to abstract the movement of people, goods, and services from their operational context; subject these movements to logics of precision and streamlining efficiency; and finally (re)orient the movements along predetermined pathways (i.e., the supply‐ chain ).…”

“…“Logistical thinking,” Chua et al. write, “prioritizes quantity over quality, reducing the diverse relations of production and distribution to delivery times, stock‐keeping units and other values amenable to measurement and calculation” (, p. 621). Logistical thinking is coupled with a sprawling physically networked infrastructure – whose management can often be messy, improvised, and thus flexible – from containers to container handling equipment, container ships and GPS tracking systems, to IT networks and new software.…”

“…For us, focusing on the geopolitical ecology of military fuel consumption means paying particular attention to the material‐ecological metabolic flows (e.g., hydrocarbon‐based fuels) enacted through US military supply chains. Building on this framework, we draw novel links between critical logistics and supply studies (Chua et al., ; Cowen, ; Tsing, ), geopolitics, and political ecology (Benjaminsen et al., ), with the purpose of setting a new geopolitical ecology research agenda. Moreover, in doing so, we bring together the insights of civilian energy geographies (Bouzarovski & Haarstad, ; Bridge et al., ; Lyall & Valdivia, ; Mulvaney, ) and recent cutting‐edge geographical work on the infrastructure–nature–finance nexus (Cantor & Knuth, ; Usher, ) with the massive hidden carbon costs of the US military.…”

Someone else’s chain, someone else’s road: U.S. military strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and island agency in the Pacific

“…Namely, assemblages are made real through material infrastructures that aim to orient islands toward particular functions and toward particular places. U.S. officials may see the islands of the Pacific as a constellation of military outposts, and Chinese planners may see them as nodes along a Maritime Silk Road, but they do not function as either without the construction of actual runways, ports, and other facilities (Chua, Danyluk, Cowen, & Khalili, 2018;Cowen, 2014). These infrastructures may have the ability to carry out multiple functions (as discussed below), but their builders frequently design them to have interoperability with other nodes in their assemblage in such a way as to channel and direct interaction into specific 'technological zones' (Barry, 2006;Dittmer, 2018).…”

Circulating Power: Humanitarian Logistics, Militarism, and the United Arab Emirates

“…The conception of logistics “as a calculative logic and spatial practice of circulation that is at the fore of the reorganization of capitalism and war” (Chua et al. ) forms a central framing element for the analysis that follows. Nonetheless, while critical authors of the logistics revolution have examined the roots of business logistics in military violence, there is a major gap regarding its role in humanitarian engagements.…”