Contractors and War

The Transformation of United States' Expeditionary Operations

Christopher Kinsey, Malcolm Hugh Patterson, Christopher Kinsey, Malcolm Hugh Patterson

• Editore: Stanford Security Studies
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780804782937
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politique et relations internationales
• Categoria: Liberté politique

The U.S. military is no longer based on a Cold War self-sufficient model. Today's armed forces are a third smaller than they were during the Cold War, and yet are expected to do as much if not more than they did during those years. As a result, a transformation is occurring in the way the U.S. government expects the military to conduct operations—with much of that transformation contingent on the use of contractors to deliver support to the armed forces during military campaigns and afterwards.

Contractors and War explains the reasons behind this transformation and evaluates how the private sector will shape and be shaped by future operations. The authors are drawn from a range of policy, legislative, military, legal, and academic backgrounds. They lay out the philosophical arguments supporting the use of contractors in combat and stabilization operations and present a spectrum of arguments that support and criticize emergent private sector roles. The book provides fresh policy guidance to those who will research, direct, and carry out future deployments.

I
THE NATURE OF CONTRACTOR SUPPORT IN FUTURE US MILITARY OPERATIONS

1
Overview of American Government Expeditionary Operations Utilizing Private Contractors

Robert Mandel

1. Introduction

The recent expanded reliance by the United States on private contractors in military operations overseas has reached unprecedented levels, so much so that “the scope of today’s wartime contracting dwarfs that of past military conflicts.”¹ Indeed, today the United States seems to be totally unable to engage in expeditionary operations without using private contractors: in particular, in 2007, over 190,000 contractors worked in Iraq on US-funded contracts, making the number of private contractors roughly equal to that of American government soldiers; in 2008, the Department of Defense spent around 316 billion dollars on contracted services, about as much as the total amount it spent on weapons systems and equipment; and in 2009, private contractors outnumbered military personnel in Afghanistan and nearly equaled the number of military personnel in Iraq.² No longer does the United States even attempt to achieve military self-sufficiency by maintaining enough government troops to fulfill its global security objectives.

This chapter’s explicitly conceptual analysis provides an explanation of why the American government chose recently to rely more on private contractors, the controversies surrounding this reliance, arguments identifying the strengths and weaknesses associated with American government use of private contractors, and the future course of private contractors in American expeditionary operations.³ The central purpose is to provide a deeper and more balanced perspective on well-publicized trends. In the process, this chapter carefully situates the private contractor issue within the broader security context.

2. Motivation for American Government Use of Private Contractors

This escalating use of private contracting has many roots. The supply and demand changes surrounding military personnel after the Cold War, the foreign policy limitations associated with exclusive reliance on government forces, and the reluctance by the government to undertake operations that risk significant citizen casualties have combined to foster a groundswell of interest and activity in this area. Private contractors have been adept recently at realizing and taking advantage of opportunities presented.

One of the pivotal causes is the post–Cold War downsizing of the American military.⁴ Since the mid-­1990s, “the Department of Defense (DOD) has increasingly viewed contracted support as a ‘force multiplier’ that supplements existing U.S. force structure capacity and capability”:⁵

The Department of Defense (DOD) has a long history of relying on contractors to support troops during wartime and expeditionary operations. Generally, from the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War, contractors provided traditional logistical support such as medical care, transportation, and engineering to U.S. armed forces. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a significant increase in contractors supporting U.S. troops—in terms of the number and percentage of contractors, and the type of work being performed. . . . According to DOD, post–Cold War budget reductions resulted in significant cuts to military logistical and support personnel, requiring DOD to hire contractors to “fill the gap.”⁶

Between 1989 and 2002, the Department of Defense’s total civilian workforce shrunk by 38 percent.⁷ Shortages of trained personnel still hamper American expeditionary operations, as the United States has assumed security responsibilities in multiple parts of the world without enough qualified government personnel to support these far-flung responsibilities. The post–Cold War downsizing of government military personnel, which occurred not just within the United States, released onto the global market sizable numbers of people with soldiering skills looking for employment, and thus provided private contractors with ready manpower and an ability to supply requisite services on the battlefield.

At the same time the American military has been downsizing, global disruptions and threats to US interests abroad have appeared to multiply and diversify. The end to the Cold War opened the door to different kinds of foreign threats, including an increasing number of domestic insurgencies, internal civil wars, failing states, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, transnational organized crime, and violent acts perpetrated by transnational terrorists. Emerging threats have been typically covert, dispersed, decentralized, adaptable, and fluid, with threat sources relatively difficult to identify, monitor, target, contain, destroy, and with these sources’ past actions not necessarily a sound guide to their future behavior. This pattern reflects “the ‘de-massification’ of threats in the world,” where “a single giant threat of war . . . is replaced by a multitude of ‘niche threats’ ” in which “war will not be waged by armies but by groups we today call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits, and robbers.”⁸ Many of these dangers are asymmetric threats involving ruthless adversaries that call for strong coercive responses. Because of widespread anti-American sentiments in various parts of the world, the United States or American interests are frequently directly or indirectly a target of these disruptions. So the demand for expeditionary operations to promote or maintain international stability has increased.

Recognition of foreign policy limitations associated with the use of government forces in expeditionary operations also has contributed to private contractor reliance. The inability of the United States to achieve a ground force victory in Vietnam “persuaded a generation or more of American and Western generals that the use of Western and particularly American ground forces in foreign conflicts is a mistake”; indeed, the “mounting human and financial costs” resulting from helping to manage “seemingly intractable civil wars” overseas has created a kind of “intervention fatigue” among Western states.⁹ Moreover, “the unanticipated length and complexity of post-conflict operations in Iraq and Afghanistan” provided incentives to move away from reliance on uniformed government soldiers.¹⁰ Particularly in dealing with the elusive security challenges they face today, the use of conventional government military forces alone has not shown itself consistently to be the most efficient and effective way to manage the threat.

In a related manner, casualty aversion helps to explain the increased reliance on private contractors. American political leaders have to some extent become “quite terrified of taking casualties” through interventions overseas, and as a result private contractors have begun to look awfully attractive: several years ago an American ambassador in Europe confessed “that his country could no longer emotionally, psychologically or politically accept body bags coming home in double figures.”¹¹ When a government chooses to outsource to private contractors, the attraction may result from the state bearing little public accountability for undesired consequences, deaths of citizens, or moral and legal dilemmas about the legitimacy of an intervention.¹² Moreover, when the US government wants to restrain its commitment in its international intervention, private security outfits give it a low-risk means to do so. Utilization of private contractors can capitalize on the vast numbers of trained, skilled former military personnel in foreign countries, many of which have depressed economies and have qualified people looking for work. As a result, missions that the United States would like to undertake for political or security reasons that do not warrant the loss of American lives or that do not enjoy substantial domestic political support (in Congress and the public) could then still be undertaken, since public concern would be much lower for the lives of foreign nationals who voluntarily sign a paid contract indicating a willingness to fight and die for American interests. Because the prevailing international security environment fosters considerable ambiguity in prioritizing areas for expeditionary operations, versatility in deployment options—facilitated by private contractors—becomes critical to cope with changing priorities.

3. Controversies Surrounding Private Contractor Use

Controversy surrounds the use of private contractors in recent American expeditionary operations. Areas of debate include (1) the level of corruption within private contractor activity; (2) the money savings (or lack thereof) associated with private contractor activity; (3) private contractors’ loyalty and suitability to the security tasks assigned; (4) private contractors’ level of adherence to high moral standards; (5) the proper balance between public and private support for expeditionary operations; (6) tensions between private contractors and government military personnel; and (7) the availability of appropriate policy options as alternatives to reliance on private contractors. Participating in this heated discussion are not just academic and policy experts but also members of the mass media and of antagonistic public interest groups.

Unfortunately, the character of this debate is far less than ideal. First, much analysis is polemical, evidencing a preconceived bias for or against the use of private contractors and simply attempting to find evidence supporting this prejudice. For opponents of American use of private contractors, the Blackwater scandal appears to be the primary—and in some cases the only—reference point. Second, many observers talk past each other because of the lack of specificity about what kind of private security in what context is being discussed. Specifically, the use of private contractors by the United States for expeditionary operations differs markedly from the use of private contractors by Third World countries to help with their own security or by international organizations for humanitarian assistance. Third, many analysts prefer to jump right to prescriptions about private contractors without first enhancing understanding of current and future opportunities and dangers. Lastly, many observers are exclusively concerned with the American use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, without considering the broader implications of articulated critiques beyond these specific ongoing conflict zones.

One key ongoing disagreement surrounds the accusation that military contracting in Iraq and Afghan...