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How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? Assessing Comparative Risk in Sourcing Decisions

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How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? Assessing Comparative Risk in Sourcing Decisions CHILD POLICY This PDF document was made available CIVIL JUSTICE from www.rand.org as a public service of EDUCATION the RAND Corporation. ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE Jump down to document6 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS NATIONAL SECURITY The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit POPULATION AND AGING research organization providing PUBLIC SAFETY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY objective analysis and effective SUBSTANCE ABUSE solutions that address the challenges TERRORISM AND facing the public and private sectors HOMELAND SECURITY TRANSPORTATION AND around the world. INFRASTRUCTURE Support RAND Purchase this document Browse Books & Publications Make a charitable contribution For More Information Visit RAND at www.rand.org Explore RAND Arroyo Center View document details Limited Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law as indicated in a notice appearing later in this work. This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non- commercial use only. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents. This product is part of the RAND Corporation monograph series. RAND monographs present major research findings that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND mono- graphs undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity. How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? Assessing Comparative Risk in Sourcing Decisions Frank Camm, Victoria A. Greenfield Prepared for the United States Army Approved for public release; distribution unlimited The research described in this report was sponsored by the United States Army under Contract No. DASW01-01-C-0003. ISBN: 0-8330-3736-6 The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. © Copyright 2005 RAND Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND. Published 2005 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 201 North Craig Street, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-1516 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org/ To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Preface The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs raised a concern that the Army’s use of contractors on the battlefield did not stem from any clearly articulated policy and could well be inappropriate. It asked RAND Arroyo Center to identify the policies and processes that appeared to be driving Army decisions to use contractors on the battlefield and offer ways to increase the likelihood that these policies and processes would yield outcomes consistent with the Army’s high-level goals. Arroyo’s analysis proceeded along two parallel tracks. One looked from the top down at the risks associated with using contrac- tors on the battlefield and what could be done to manage these risks more effectively. The other examined one of the largest contracts supporting deployed Army forces to understand better how Army use of contractors works from the bottom up. This report details Arroyo’s findings from the first track. Arroyo’s findings on the second track are reported in Risk Management and Performance in the Balkans Support Contract, by Victoria Greenfield and Frank Camm, MG-282-A, forthcoming. This report should interest policymakers and analysts responsi- ble for identifying and assessing the risks associated with using con- tractors on the battlefield and for making sourcing decisions based on such assessment. Decisions that affect the Army’s use of contractors occur in many places discussed in this report—outside the Army; in its services acquisition, force development, and system development communities; and in the support planning staffs that support com- iii iv How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? batant commanders in individual contingencies. This report focuses on the Army context but addresses issues relevant throughout the Department of Defense. Much of our treatment could be generalized as well to sourcing support services in nonmilitary organizational locations or “venues.” This report does not address or recommend specific changes in sourcing decisions. Rather, it focuses on how to improve the Army’s understanding of the benefits, threats, risks, mitigations, and ulti- mately the residual risks—the risks that remain after all mitigations have been implemented—associated with using a contractor rather than a military unit on the battlefield. It recommends specific ways and places to apply the Army’s doctrinal approach to assessing opera- tional risks to risks associated with using contractors on the battle- field. This research was sponsored by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and was conducted in RAND Arroyo Center’s Manpower and Training Program. RAND Arroyo Center, part of the RAND Corporation, is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the United States Army. For more information on RAND Arroyo Center, contact the Director of Operations (telephone 310-393-0411, extension 6419; FAX 310-451-6952; email [email protected]), or visit Arroyo’s web site at http://www.rand.org/ard/. Contents Preface....................................................................... iii Figures ...................................................................... xi Tables ...................................................................... xiii Summary....................................................................xv Acknowledgments..........................................................xxv Abbreviations ............................................................ xxvii CHAPTER ONE Introduction.................................................................1 Policy Motivation ............................................................1 Approach.....................................................................4 Roadmap.....................................................................6 CHAPTER TWO A Standard Way to Assess the Risks of Using Contractors on the Battlefield: An Overview ...............................................9 The Standard Army Approach to Risk Management........................9 High-Level Risk Factors Relevant to Using Contractors on the Battlefield ........................................................ 15 Quadrennial Defense Review ........................................... 16 Total Army Analysis .................................................... 17 Formal Army Documents on Using Contractors on the Battlefield.... 18 Risks to Consider in High-Level Assessments of Sourcing Options.... 20 Applying the Army Approach to Contractors on the Battlefield .......... 21 v vi How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? CHAPTER THREE How Army Use of Contractors Has Affected Risks on the Battlefield......................................................... 25 Hazards and Risks Associated with Using Contractors on the Battlefield ........................................................ 25 Reducing Risk by Using Contractors on the Battlefield ................... 32 Summary................................................................... 37 CHAPTER FOUR Using Risk Considerations to Frame a Sourcing Decision: Analytic Preliminaries.......................................................... 39 Comparing Specific Alternatives........................................... 41 Four Aspects of Risk ....................................................... 41 Five Considerations Likely to Affect Sourcing Decisions.................. 43 Decision Perspective ....................................................... 45 Planning Horizon and Relevant Contingencies ........................... 46 Summary................................................................... 48 CHAPTER FIVE Using Risk Considerations to Frame a Traditional Sourcing Decision............................................................... 51 A Brief Summary of the Sequence of Reasoning Used Here .............. 52 A Walk Through the Checklist ............................................ 55 1. Why Put Contractors on the Battlefield? ............................ 57 2. How Do International Agreements Allow Contractors to Operate on the Battlefield? ....................................................... 58 3. How Chaotic Is the Battlefield Expected to Be Where and When a Support Activity Operates There? ................................... 59 4. What Is the Effective Status of Contractors Performing an Activity on the Battlefield Under the International Law of War?................ 59 5. How Well Does the Contract Oversight System Deal with the Principal-Agent Difficulties Associated with Using a Contractor? .. 60 6. Can the Army Transfer an Activity Smoothly from Military to Contract Provision on the Battlefield? ............................... 61 7. Can the Army Control Internal Contractor Processes
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