Command Issues Related to Civilians Who Accompany Deployed U.S. Forces

The number of civilians accompanying United States (U.S.) forces has increased significantly during each of the past several major conflicts, and this tend is likely to continue into the future. During the 1990s three factors, the end of the Cold War, warfare transformation that blurred the separation between soldiers and civilians, and the trend of the government to outsource and privatize government functions, combined to give rise to a private military industrial complex. The size of military forces was reduced, reliance on the private industry to support the remaining forces increased.