Outsourcing

There have been a lot or arguments lately about whether the military is big enough or not, and whether the fighting force here in Iraq should be increased or decreased. I think many of the articles are missing the point though, especially the ones calling for a larger military (leave aside the point that, with decreasing enlistment numbers, dramatically increasing the size of the military would be cost prohibitive). There is no doubt that we need more “fighters,” the security forces and the guys out seeking out the enemy- the Special Forces, Field Artillery guys, Stryker teams and others. But, in my opinion, there is also no doubt that we don’t need more support soldiers. Soldiers like me.

In a traditional war you would have the support guys, the maintenance units and others, following the first wave and occasionally taking fire. This is how it was in the initial invasion. The problem now is that the traditional part of this war is over and has been for quite some time. We should be replaced by civilians and freed up to do the tasks that can’t be done by civilians. Because of the inherent bureaucracy of a monopolistic entity, the military in this case, it is simply not possible for us to be as efficient across the board as a private company would be. The military, by necessity, has leaders whose primary focus is to supervise not only the work but also all of the military tasks. We’re middle management heavy. And, it’s extremely difficult for the military to move support people around to where they’re needed. If a private company was brought in, they would be much flatter- more workers, less managers- and would be able to be more efficient in their work.

If, for example, there aren’t a lot of night vision goggles coming in for the next few months (and this can be determined to a large extent by the number of units and inspection requirement dates), then a few of the night vision guys can be flown to Baghdad, for example, where they may be needed. So now, instead of having ten night vision guys here and ten in Baghdad, you only need ten total. You pay them more than you pay the military, but you’re eliminating the overhead and on the whole, you’re saving money. Even more importantly, the military can then take twenty night vision soldiers and turn some of them into war fighters and send some of them home. The private company will have more accountability, since they can actually fire and reassign workers, and more mobility. I believe that this replacement is possible on a large scale throughout this country.

It’s not just with maintenance units, it can be done for a host of other tasks. The goal should be, in as many situations as possible, for the military to be freed up to do security and war fighting. The military should primarily be used for tasks that no one but the military can effectively perform. If a private company can effectively transport goods, or perform maintenance, or engineering, then they should be the ones to do it. On a macro level, this would be the way to increase the military’s reach without increasing its size. It would also allow the military to give longer breaks between deployments, which would eventually lead to more enlistments and reenlistments.