The problems are, roughly, that moving freight is not glamorous.
The Congress does not, therefore, get the point, that we need many, many more airlifters such as the C-17, and that we need, not only to convert some nuclear subs --- formerly scheduled to the wrecking yards --- into conventional attack subs, but also into transports of liquid supplies. (The submarine is a more "missile environment" survivable profile for transporting fleet fuel.)
The Office of the President has not been used by anybody since Reagan, to appreciate the transport need.
Basically, to have mobility, means having transports and all that their manufacture ... on up to ... maintenance and employment require.
The cost of this is in competition with the more flashy weapons systems which attract much more curiosity, at the Pentagon, in the Congress, and with too many chief executives in the "military-industrial complex," as well as, on occasion, a Chief Executive; all of whom think that this next "really neat" thing of destruction, will, though it be a "big ticket item," be efficient and save federal funds (as opposed to yours and mine!).
What, with that fancy new killing machine, the "higher-ups" all to often overlook, is that its logistics support is much larger than the previous killing machine. Much of this demand, comes from the higher technology equippage and field support attending. An example:
Air Force Association Magazine Online, February 2002 Vol. 85, No.02
Task Force Hawk
by Benjamin S. Lambeth
Baggage ProblemsAs one might have expected with that much additional equipment and personnel, however, the Apache deployment soon encountered the predictable consequences of the Army's decision to accompany the AH-64s with such a surfeit of arguably unnecessary extra baggage. It was at first estimated that 200 USAF C-17 transport sorties would be needed to airlift the assorted support elements with which the Apaches had been burdened. (The airport at Tirana, Albania, lacked the required taxiway and ramp specifications to accommodate the more capacious C-5.) In the end, it took more than 500 C-17 sorties, moving some 22,000 short tons in all, to transfer Hawk in its entirety. Commenting later on the deployment, one Army officer complained that the Army is "still organized to fight in the Fulda Gap." Even the outgoing Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, admitted in an internal memo to senior Army staff officers once the deployment package had finally been assembled in theater that the manifold problems encountered by Hawk had underscored a "need for more adaptive force packaging methodology."
In general, our need for many more C-17 aircraft, has not been taken seriously by those who expect "mobility."