Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Readiness – Uniqueness – Dependent on PMC’s Now

US remains dependent on PMC’s – post-Cold War downsizing of the government and changes in military strategy created demand.
Weiner 8 (The Hidden Costs of Contracting: Private Law, Commercial Imperatives and the Privatized Military Industry Rebecca Ulam Weiner, December 2008, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Hidden%20Costs%20of%20Contracting_Dec%202008.pdf)KM

In the U.S., the proliferation of PMC’s owes more to changes in policy than to changes in geopolitical circumstance. Here, the demand for outsourced force was driven by the coalescence of two philosophical and strategic trends in post Cold War statecraft and military policy. The first was widespread downsizing of the government, which was motivated by the assumption that public-private partnerships can harness the efficiency of the market economy to improve even the most vital state functions, including the administration of violence. 8 Because the demand for military services fluctuates so drastically, the military was thought to be particularly well-suited to respond to the advantages of outsourcing.9 According to proponents of military privatization, PMC’s provide valuable “surge capacity” that makes it more efficient for the military to hire from a pool of temporary, highly trained experts in times of war, even at a cost premium, than to rely on a permanent standing army that drains resources in peacetime with pension plans, health insurance, education benefits and child care aid.10 The second is a series of dramatic changes in military technology, which some have termed a Revolution in Military Affairs.11 By relying on surgical strikes by precision-guided munitions and stealth weaponry, and by focusing on joint-service operations that flatten and decentralize the command structure, the military has transformed warfare by using the tools of the information revolution.12 As it has done so, it has relied increasingly upon civilian contractors for their technical expertise. 13 During the Iraq war, for instance, civilian contractors ran the computer programs that generated the tactical air picture for the Combined Air Operations Center, supported the data links that the Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used to transmit information, operated the guided missile systems on some naval brigs, and supervised the digital command-and-control systems of ground troops. Contractors continue to maintain the Army’s Guardrail surveillance aircraft.14

Readiness – Uniqueness – No End Strength Now

End strength is strained now with troop deployments, future conflicts will demand greater troop numbers.
AUSA 9 (Association for the United States Army,“Exceeding active duty end strength would reduce strain on force, personnel officials say” 7/1 http://www.ausa.org/publications/ausanews/archives/2009/july/Pages/Exceedingactivedutyendstrengthwouldreducestrainonforce,personnelofficialssay.aspx)KM

The Army’s senior personnel officer said “we see an increase in demand” in the near term for soldiers to be deployed but discussions were being held in the Pentagon about “seeking authority to temporarily exceed” that active-duty end strength of 547,400 to reduce the strain on the force. Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee May 20, said the ratio of “one year deployed for 1.3 years home” for the active force was “absolutely unsustainable” and the “one year deployed to three years home” for the reserve components was “equally unsustainable.” The key factor in reducing stress on soldiers and their families is to increase dwell time, he told the subcommittee. Rochelle said that to have a “healthy, balanced and prepared force” would be a challenge “directly in front of us for the next several years.”

Readiness – I/L – General

PMC’s kill key internal links to readiness

Kidwell 5 (Deborah C, Assistant Professor of Military History at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, “Public War, Private Fight? The United States and Private Military Companies”, http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/kidwell.pdf AD: 6/24/10) jl

Remember that the increased reliance on PMC’s to conduct US military operations is a conscious choice made by national political and military leaders. The current role of corporate entities on the battlefield blends the public and private spheres of interest in unique and uncharted ways. A number of risks, to include mission completion, force protection, loss of command and control, and disruption of civil-military relations, accrue to the growing dependence of national military forces on contracted services. Policy makers must continually revisit the lessons learned from experience, examine theoretical projections, and revise military policy and doctrine if the US is to manage effectively its resources and to maintain the military capabilities to achieve national security objectives

Multiple reasons PMC’s kill readiness – No competition, lack of oversight, dependency, kills public support

Kidwell 5 (Deborah C, Assistant Professor of Military History at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, “Public War, Private Fight? The United States and Private Military Companies”, http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/kidwell.pdf AD: 6/24/10) jl

The current use of contractor support, from historical and practical perspectives, includes elements from the worst-case scenarios. No-bid and cost plus contracts thwart the very competition and financial incentives the government hoped to benefit from by using PMC’s. The lack of oversight and visibility of the contracting process encourages fiscal abuse and poor performance. Taken together, these factors make it difficult to establish the cost efficiency of the current system of military contracting. Moreover, evidence suggests military effectiveness is impaired by a growing dependency on contractor support, a lack of command authority over contractor personnel, and the unclear boundaries between private and public (military) organizations. The very real change in the civil-military relationship presented by the overuse of contractor support and the social consequences of war without public mobilization detracts from a consistent national foreign policy and national security. The roles of the public and private spheres in government have intertwined so completely that a complex, and often vague, body of regulations is inadequate to untangle them.

PMC’s make it HARDER for the military to fight effectively

RAND 2010 (Sarah K. Cotton, Ulrich Petersohn, Molly Dunigan, Q Burkhart,

Megan Zander-Cotugno, Edward O’Connell, Michael Webber, http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG987.sum.pdf, date accessed: 6/24/2010) AJK

Skeptics, however, hold that the operations of PSCs may inadvertently place additional strain on the armed forces. Th is is because, when contractors engage the enemy in the course of their work, they may require rapid support from the military.1 In short, this school of thought holds that PSCs can at times cause more strain than relief for the armed forces, because they may need military aid when under attack. Although such logic applies to both armed and unarmed contractors, the fact that armed contractors have the ability to engage the enemy in a fi refi ght makes this line of thought more applicable to them than to other types of contractors.