ABSTRACT
Contractors play an increasingly important role in sustaining and providing military
capabilities in support of contingency operations. This chapter looks at contractor
activities in connection to maintenance and field services, technical services related
to modern logistics, and at cases where contractors operate equipment and systems
for the military. When it comes to the American and the British forces, it is quite
obvious that they simply cannot operate in any theatre without contractor support. It
is less known that other armed forces are also becoming more and more contractor
dependent, at least with respect to certain technical services in connection to lift
capacities, base operations and other logistics services. In international contingency
operations, e.g. in the Balkans and Afghanistan, such armed forces like the French and
German, which are notoriously reluctant to use contractors in deployed operations,
have used them in at least some functions.
