Potential Combat Risks from Outsourcing of Selected Sustainment Functions
Abstract
This paper concerns itself with the danger of taking a good strategy too far. It examines the emerging tension between combat risk avoidance and best business practices, and the degree to which theater Commanders-in-Chief are able to manage the combat risks introduced by Service outsourcing decisions in theater preparations for war. Fueled by the desire to generate modernization funding under a tight budget constraint, there is a strong impetus within DoD to further outsource logistic functions traditionally performed by uniformed service members. Within this growing outsourcing trend, defense acquisition policy holds clear potential for inducing significant combat risk through the introduction of advanced weapon, intelligence, and command and control systems which will be substantially dependent on embedded contractor maintenance at all echelons. These systems are being fielded without an associated generation of trained military maintenance technicians, and the sophisticated skills required for maintaining them will preclude the rapid generation of a substitute military capability if needed. Significantly, these outsourcing initiatives are being conceived and implemented under the conditions of peacetime engagement or operations other than war. Though recent experience in contingency operations has demonstrated that civilian contractor personnel are willing to confront austere and hostile conditions, none of these cases has embodied exposure to hazard levels expected under high-intensity conflict. Under such scenarios, there may be serious implications for the execution of outsourced functions because some of them may directly support critical warfighting tasks and it is unreasonable to assume that a civilian contract employee can or will endure the same scale of peril under which uniformed service members are expected to serve.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA353783
Entities
People
- Blair A. Ross
- Terreance J. Spoon
Organizations
- United States Army War College