Huffington Post,21 December 2012
A report was released earlier this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary assessments that offers some useful observations on how well the United States has learned to effectively utilize PMSC. Sadly, it appears the U.S. has not yet absorbed the lessons it has learned at dear cost during the past decade, meaning it has used its contracting weapon badly.
They found that:
only a meager body of research exists on how U.S. resources in the form of wartime contracts can be used most effectively to rebuild a war-torn economy. Consequently, if the United States embarks on another attempt at nation building, it may again be found ill prepared without a more concerted research effort into the economic reconstruction aspects of warfare, often referred to as expeditionary economics. Despite the U.S. military's long history of engaging in reconstruction, expeditionary economics remains relatively less understood than other aspects of war.
Put more simply, after thousands of American lives lost and at least a couple of trillion dollars, we deserve more at this point than a Dummies Guide to Contingency Contracting.
In their report “Contracting Under Fire: Lessons Learned in Wartime Contracting and Expeditionary Economics,” senior fellow Todd Harrison and research assistant John Meyers assess the U.S. Expeditionary Economics effort employing four case studies: Iraq's State-Owned Enterprises, Local-First Programs, the National Solidarity Program and Commander's Emergency Response Programs.
