Balancing combat strength with logistics

Altmark's example is applied to defence debates and NATO. Fighting strength has little practical value when fuel and supplies cannot reach the battlefield, so auxiliaries must be maintained alongside frontline units. The tank analogy makes the constraint concrete: a million tanks are of limited use if each can move only until its onboard fuel runs out. A support system capable of supplying tanks anywhere in the world would be equally unbalanced if there were too few tanks to fight. Effective force structure depends on matching combat platforms with the capacity that keeps them operating.