On the subject of Contractors, the use of, current and historical, with a peculiar emphasis on Iraq.

Cliff sez:

You appear to be an historian. Can you point to anytime in history that we have contracted privately for security in theatre?

You do keep moving the bar around a bit, Cliff, having gone from contracting services in general to now being more specific regarding security.

Precedent for contracting services in general.

1. Revolution
2. War of 1812
3. War with Mexico
4. Civil War
5. Indian Wars
6. War with Spain
7. Philippine Insurrection
8. All Naval overseas supply operations, and most local, until the advent of at-sea replenishment and significant overseas basing.

The logistics establishment of the services was actually pretty small. WWI was the first time we really expanded logistics and put soldiers to the task, mostly because we found ourselves in a situation where the other combatants were fully occupied themselves, and shipping space to move a huge US military structure overseas was limited, and we were fighting a "total effort" war - overseas. A first for us.

WWII - same same.

Korea... I honestly don't know.

Vietnam - we had a draft army (something that happens to be coincidentally true of, hmmmmmm, WWI, WWII, and Korea) but we still started contracting out some services then.

Then, along comes July 1, 1973, and we're back to an all volunteer Army. Well, we are when the last intake of draftees end their terms without re-enlisting. The ones that stay, well, they obviously convert to... volunteers.

Since then we've been trying to balance teeth to tail, and what functions go where in the force structure.

And we *reverted* to our previous modus vivendi, contracting.

As for security in general - you have to consider the nature of the war, as Ry alluded to in his comment.

As a slightly snarky observation, in the Indian Wars we contracted out reconnaissance.... [Update: And, as Spade pointed out in the comments - Letters of Marque and Reprisal]

In the wars we fought up to Vietnam last century, we were fighting with large, draft-fed armies, and significant, well-organized allies who were fighting for their national lives. We were generally liberating occupied territory, and fighting an enemy who fought conventionally. This is especially true of WWI and II. The local political situation and the military reality of the crushing combat which had flowed both ways over the occupied nations, plus the issue of liberation, combined with huge armed forces made large-scale behind the lines security largely un-neccessary, Skorzeny notwithstanding.

Korea was largely similar - though in that war there was guerrilla activity by the UN behind NK/Chinese lines in the north (my father was involved in that) and a commando threat behind UN lines. But again, the population was generally friendly or at least neutral, and we had that largish, draft-fed Army, along with the South Korean army, which provided the requisite security.

Vietnam - the nature of that war was different, but the South Vietnamese government and armed forces, bad as bits and pieces of both were, were more fully functional than is true with the situation in Iraq.

And there was not the decay of infrastructure to deal with - the rebuilding requirement, not just of war damage, but correcting the decade of neglect caused by the sanctions, where Saddam et cie built palaces and let power plants decline.

And we still had that draft-fed Army.

Comes Iraq, volume I. We do start contracting out baseops functions and we did contract out some security. But as Ry noted in his comment - we were kicking Iraq out of Kuwait, putting us in a situation more similar to WWI, and we were doing it with the Cold War army of 780,000 troops.

Now comes Iraq, volume II. Having already conceded I think the March Upcountry was a brilliant campaign as an economy of force operation, but it should have been rather a different event in a more perfect world. Of course, we don't live in the perfect world.

So, now Cliff gripes about the 100,000 security contractors. He sort of conflates things, mixing all forms of security contractors into one lump, but let's run with that.

Again, we are now in the non-draft-fed Army era. There are only so many troops available for the job. There is a huge infrastructure rebuilding requirement, which is not going to be met by military engineering assets.

And the local government is shaky at best (save perhaps the Kurdish areas), with a significant internal security threat to be dealt with - not least because we were as humane as we could be in this last war and didn't just stomp everything flat, as we did with Germany and Japan.

There are large numbers of Iraqis who never saw an American during the major combat operations phase, who found themselves bewildered by what happened. You'd have been hard-pressed to find a German or Japanese in 1945 who wasn't fully cognizant that they had had their butt handed to them, nicely filleted and medallioned.

So, the security situation is completely different. And we don't have the troops to conduct ops *and* provide all the needed security. Neither do the Iraqis. And some of their better trained individuals are on the side of those causing the problems.

So, we contract out some security efforts, rather than diverting expensive and highly trained combat troops to those jobs.

And all the people coming in to do work, not able to get US troops or local troops/police to provide security, do what? Contract for private security.

So that, Cliff, is how I see Contracting.

1. It's not unprecedented. It's actually a reversion to a model we used previously, especially for logistics. Contractors hauled most of the supplies, even if they were issued by the Quartermaster. Troops cooked meals in squad groups, not centrally. Units built their own shelters, but war and campaigning were different then. Not to mention the washer-women, and the undertakers who followed the Armies. Then there's the Sutler - that is a function we've turned upside down - we've made that a quasi-governmental function - via AAFES (which is commanded by a Major General, currently of the Air Force).

2. Providing all our own security is dependent on several factors. And those conditions present, especially that draft-fed Army and War for Survival thing that allowed an armed force of 16 million men for WWII, 5 million during Vietnam, allow you some luxuries that the Economy of Force operation we are conducting now lacks.

3. Contracting, especially supervision thereof, has not been handled well. Plenty of room for criticism there and improvement. Among them may be the consensus to take on more of those functions in-house. Which will take more troops and/or government employees, most of whom will not be needed when it's over. Which will cost more over the long haul. One advantage of contracting, said the currently-idle contractor waiting his next task, is that you don't have a long-term commitment to me - to include medical or retirement. The company has that burden, or not, depending on how things are operating.

Does that answer your question, Cliff? Oh, and yeah, I'm something of a historian. At least, the Army paid me to be a military history instructor. But, as a long-term reader of my blog will quickly discern, my interest and specialty is more on the hardware.