The Pentagon Needs to Approach Service Providers As Military ‘Auxiliaries’ (From RealClearDefense)

The U.S. military learned many valuable lessons from its nearly two decades of war in Southwest Asia. One of the most important of these is the central role that the private sector will play in future operations. For most of this long period of conflict, contractors outnumbered Coalition soldiers in the theaters of conflict. It is time for the Pentagon to stop holding commercial logistics and sustainment providers at arm’s length. In the event of a major war or even a sustained regional conflict, victory could well go to the side with the best system for sustaining its forces, repairing battle damage and ensuring high levels of platform availability. I have written more on this subject for RealClearDefense here.