Contractors in Conflicts: Adapting to a New Reality – CNAS
Contractors have become an enduring feature of modern American conflicts, and the United States cannot now engage in hostilities or in reconstruction and stabilization operations without them. At their peak, there were more contractors on the ground in Iraq than American troops in uniform and there are more contractors today in Afghanistan than there are U.S. troops on the ground. However, while private security contractors (PSC) like Blackwater (now knows as Xe Services) have gotten the bulk of public and congressional attention, they only compromise about 5 percent of all contractors in hostile environments – this working paper addresses the other 95 percent