The fuel convoy has been a battlefield vulnerability for a century. That could finally change.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: S. Derek Phelps is a U.S. Navy submarine veteran and Head of Policy and Governmental Affairs at Twelve, a company developing advanced fuel technologies for civilian and defense applications. He previously served as executive director of the Connecticut Siting Council, where he oversaw the permitting of major energy infrastructure projects. The views expressed are his own.

Across the vast reaches of the Pacific during World War II, American victory depended as much on tankers as it did on tanks, and as much on fuel as it did on firepower.

Every amphibious assault, every carrier strike, every long-range bomber mission, and every island campaign required an immense logistical network stretching thousands of miles across the ocean. Tankers became as strategically important as destroyers. Seabees raced to construct fuel farms on newly secured islands. Entire operations were delayed or accelerated based not on enemy resistance, but on whether enough fuel could reach the next objective.

American forces prevailed because they mastered logistics as thoroughly as they mastered combat.

Today, the United States once again faces a vast Pacific theater and an adversary determined to challenge our ability to sustain forces across it. That lesson has never been more relevant.

Every veteran understands that fuel is the lifeblood of military operations. It powers the aircraft that establish air superiority, the ships that patrol contested waters, the armored vehicles that maneuver on the battlefield, and the generators that sustain communications, intelligence, and medical operations.

Yet every gallon of fuel carries another cost. Someone has to transport it, someone has to protect it and, too often, someone is placed in harm’s way because of it.

From the Pacific to Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel has remained one of the military’s greatest logistical challenges — and one of its most attractive targets for America’s adversaries. Fuel convoys, tanker aircraft, storage facilities and supply routes have long represented vulnerabilities because our enemies understand a simple truth: disrupt logistics, and you weaken even the world’s most capable fighting force.

As a Navy veteran who has spent much of my career at the intersection of energy and public policy, I have come to appreciate that military superiority is measured not only by the quality of our weapons, but by our ability to sustain them under the most demanding conditions.

That challenge is becoming even more important.

As the United States prepares for long-term strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific, our logistics networks will once again span enormous distances. Potential adversaries have invested heavily in capabilities designed to disrupt supply chains, threaten tankers, and complicate America’s ability to project power far from home.

The question is no longer simply how to defend those supply lines — but how to depend on them less.

That possibility is beginning to emerge.

American innovators are developing technologies capable of producing military-compatible liquid fuels using electricity, water and carbon dioxide. While still in the early stages of deployment, these systems point toward a future in which fuel could be manufactured much closer to where it is ultimately needed.

Imagine an expeditionary airfield producing its own aviation fuel rather than waiting for tanker deliveries.

Imagine a forward operating base reducing the number of dangerous fuel convoys required to sustain operations.

Imagine humanitarian and disaster-response missions becoming less dependent on fragile supply lines vulnerable to weather, geography or hostile action.

No one should mistake this for a near-term replacement for conventional fuel logistics. America’s global military operations will continue to require extensive transportation networks for years to come.

But transformational military capabilities rarely appear overnight.

Aircraft carriers did not immediately replace battleships. Nuclear-powered submarines did not instantly transform undersea warfare. Precision-guided weapons took decades to become standard equipment.

Each began as an emerging capability before fundamentally reshaping military doctrine.

Distributed fuel production deserves the same thoughtful consideration.

This moment is significant for another reason. During President Donald Trump’s first administration, the U.S. Air Force made one of the earliest investments in technologies capable of producing liquid transportation fuels from carbon dioxide, water and electricity. At the time, the effort attracted little public attention. That early support helped pave the way for Twelve’s 2021 production of the world’s first fossil-free jet fuel made from captured carbon dioxide — a milestone that demonstrated the technology’s military potential.

Today, under Trump’s second administration, the nation is once again emphasizing military readiness, industrial strength, domestic manufacturing and strategic competition. The technologies first championed years ago are beginning to mature into capabilities that could fundamentally reshape battlefield logistics.

There is something fitting about that. Defense innovation often comes full circle. The administrations that ultimately benefit from breakthrough technologies are not always the ones that first invest in them. America’s greatest military advantages have often resulted from sustained commitments that span administrations, political parties and election cycles.

That is precisely why continued investment in defense innovation matters.

America’s military has always succeeded because it has prepared for tomorrow’s wars rather than simply refighting yesterday’s. The ability to manufacture fuel closer to the point of need will not eliminate every logistical challenge. But it could reduce operational risk, increase flexibility for commanders, complicate enemy targeting, and allow American forces to operate more independently in contested environments.

For more than a century, protecting fuel has been accepted as an unavoidable cost of war. Perhaps the next generation of American service members will inherit something better.

If fewer Marines must escort fuel convoys, fewer sailors must protect vulnerable logistics ships, fewer airmen depend on increasingly contested supply lines, and commanders gain greater operational freedom because fuel can be produced where it is needed, that will represent far more than technological progress.

It will mark one of the most consequential advances in military logistics since the United States mastered the vast distances of the Pacific more than 80 years ago.

For generations, America’s military has accepted that victory required moving fuel to the fight. The next revolution may be giving our warfighters the ability to bring fuel production to the fight instead.

If that day comes, historians may well look back on it as one of the defining innovations in military logistics of the 21st century.