Contractors Supporting Military Operations

Abstract

Contractors supporting combat operations have become essential to the way the United States fights wars and conducts operational deployments. The trend toward increasing reliance on contractors for logistical support and to supply expertise not otherwise available to the military is not new. It is surprising to conclude, as this research does, that the issue of who is in charge of contractors in the zone of combat operations is still an open question. While there have been important policy developments in recent years, some fundamental questions concerning contractors supporting combat operations remain to be answered. During policy formulation in the past year the military maxim of unity of command met the procurement imperative of the contracting officer's authority and the military came up short. This research reviews recent policy developments. It then applies the perspective of history to the subject through a series of case studies. Concluding that incremental policy developments of recent years have been inadequate, this paper includes recommendations for radical changes in the approach to dealing with contract support including temporarily militarizing some contractors. N.B. This paper was presented at the Naval Post Graduate School Acquisition Research Conference held in Monterey, California, 17-18 May 2006. It appears in the proceedings of that conference. Comments to aid in improving the paper, or, for or against the ideas presented have been solicited. The author provided drafts or copies of the paper to a number of subject matter experts prior to and after the conference. The paper was posted several weeks prior to the conference in an electronic library of an American Bar Association group studying issues relevant to the paper. The paper includes a final section summarizing comments received and recent developments.