Contractors on the Battlefield: Resolving the Remaining Policy Issues
Abstract
Despite progress in policy development, the United States military is not ready to hit the ground running and effectively provide needed contract support in a new, contingency operation in an environment anywhere nearly as complex and challenging as it was in Iraq in 2003. Civilian contractors supporting contingency operations have virtually become a third component, along with the active force and reserve forces, of the U.S. military. In-theater contractor support constitutes both an enhancement of capabilities and a potential constraint on operations. Efforts of contractors supporting contingency operations need to be closely integrated with and responsive to the military command structure. This imperative, in turn, indicates some traditional contract and contract management concepts may be inadequate under conditions likely to be encountered in future contingency operations. Planning, training, concepts of operations, and ways of doing business also need to reflect the likely future environment. This research looks at policy issues from a three-tiered perspective, namely, (1) top-level policy, primarily exemplified by DOD and Joint policy documents, (2) the real world implementation of policy, primarily as reported in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, (3) the institutionalization of policies, as exemplified by the doctrine, personnel, training, logistics and other practices relating to contract support for combat operations by the military services. Top-level policy has been very slow to develop, considering that the Army initiated the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) concept in the mid-1980 s and that the 1990 s saw a series of contingency deployments where contractor support was at a much higher level than in previous operations (e.g., Bosnia 1:1 ratio of contractor personnel to military, and in Afghanistan it is now much higher still).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA623332
Entities
People
- Richard L. Dunn
Organizations
- University of Maryland