Thomas R. Mockaitis

Soldiers of Misfortune? Thomas R. Mockaitis

The long counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have made two facts abundantly clear about military contractors: 1) The U. S. Army has become dependent upon them; and, 2) They frequently create problems for, and sometimes actually interfere with, accomplishing the mission. In order to free up Soldiers for their core task of fighting and winning the nation's wars, the U. S. Government began in the 1980s to hire private companies to provide services previously handled by the military itself. Contractors gradually took over building bases, running mess halls, and doing laundry for U. S. troops at home and abroad. Providing such logistics support allowed a smaller land force to do as much as a large one had previously done. Logistics contractors also provided a surge capacity. They could be hired for a mission and let go once the mission was completed.