Every year, the US Department of Defense allocates more than $400 billion to for-profit firms. Which raises the question: Where does the money go? Thomas Bruneau takes a deep dive into the murky waters of national defense outsourcing to answer that question. Moving beyond the issue of private military contractors, Bruneau investigates the scope, legality, and implications of the private sector's vast involvement in securing the nation.

Faced with a decreasing supply of national troops, dwindling defense budgets, and the ever-rising demand for boots on the ground in global conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, decision makers are left with little choice but to legalize and legitimize the use of private military contractors (PMCs). Outsourcing Security examines the impact that bureaucratic controls and the increasing permissiveness of security environments have had on the U.S. military’s growing use of PMCs during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bruce E. Stanley examines the relationship between the rise of the private security industry and five potential explanatory variables tied to supply-and-demand theory in six historical cases, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia in 1995, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Outsourcing Security is the only work that moves beyond a descriptive account of the rise of PMCs to lay out a precise theory explaining the phenomenon and providing a framework for those considering PMCs in future global interaction.

"The story behind the ultimate American privatization, which has taken place gradually and almost invisibly: how we privatized our national security"--

This paper examines outsourcing and its potential impact on the operational commander. The author attempts to show the reader that outsourcing may not be in the best interest of either the operational commander or the Department of Defense (DoD). Additionally, the author makes an assertion that outsourcing may not be producing the vast returns that DoD has touted over recent years. In the eyes of the author, outsourcing simply moves funds from one account to another in order to pay contractors for the same services previously performed by military members or government civilians. This paper advocates that by outsourcing services, the government ultimately surrenders a significant amount of control over DoD operations. American corporations (to include the powerful small business Political Action Committees or PACs) vigorously lobby members of congress to open up DoD jobs for outsourcing. DoD obliges congress by continuing to outsource military services which in-turn shifts significant control over to DoD contracting officers and away from commanding officers. Is this smart business for the operation commander?

Among other topics, the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces considered whether the Department of Defense (DoD) should contract out--outsource--support services that DoD now produces in-house and, if so, (1) which services DoD should outsource and (2) what DoD can do to make outsourcing more cost-effective. This report reviews a set of issues relevant to these questions. The report first reviews barriers and objections to outsourcing that have been raised by earlier studies and government commissions that have addressed outsourcing. It then reviews insights from commercial-sector experience with outsourcing that DoD could use to guide its own actions on outsourcing. Finally, it offers suggestions about how to structure an implementation plan for large-scale outsourcing of support services. In particular, it identifies the attributes of support activities that DoD should consider outsourcing first and how DoD could facilitate an outsourcing program.

Allison Stanger examines the American government's approach to outsourcing, discussing the evolution of military outsourcing, the privatization of diplomacy, and homeland security; and offering an alternative approach.