United States
In 1985, Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) was established primarily to preplan for contingencies and to leverage the existing civilian resources. However, it was not until three years later before it was first used. In support of a United States Third Army mission, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) used LOGCAP to contract for the construction and maintenance of two petroleum pipelines systems in Southwest Asia.
Later, USACE awarded the first contract under LOGCAP umbrella concept to Brown and Root Services (now KBR) in August 1992 as a cost-plus-award-fee contract, which was used in December that year to support the United Nations forces in Somalia.
Some contractors have served in advisory roles, that help train local militaries to fight more effectively, instead of intervening directly. Much of the peacekeeper training the United States provides to African militaries is done by private firms, and with the increasing absence of Western military support to international peace operations, the private sector is commonly utilized to provide services to peace and stability operations from Haiti to Darfur.
The Center for Public Integrity reported that since 1994, the Defense Department entered into 3,601 contracts worth $300 billion with 12 U.S. based various PMCs within the United States, specifically during the initial response after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Domestic operations are generally under the auspice of state or federal agencies such as the Department of Energy or the Department of Homeland Security rather than the Department of Defense. Driven by increasingly greater fears of domestic terror attacks and civil unrest and disruption in the wake of disasters, more conventional security companies are moving into operations arenas that would fall within the definition of a PMC.
The United States State Department also employs several companies to provide support in danger zones that would be difficult for conventional U.S. forces.
Read more about this topic: Private Military Company
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Vanessa wanted to be a ballerina. Dad had such hopes for her.... Corin was the academically brilliant one, and a fencer of Olympic standard. Everything was expected of them, and they fulfilled all expectations. But I was the one of whom nothing was expected. I remember a game the three of us played. Vanessa was the President of the United States, Corin was the British Prime Minister—and I was the royal dog.”
—Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943)
“As a Tax-Paying Citizen of the United States I am entitled to a voice in Governmental affairs.... Having paid this unlawful Tax under written Protest for forty years, I am entitled to receive from the Treasury of ‘Uncle Sam’ the full amount of both Principal and Interest.”
—Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)