Middle-Tier Technology: An Invisible Bottleneck

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The discussion over shortfalls in weapons and equipment stockpiles tends to focus on two opposite extremes. At one end, there are the precision-guided munitions, jets, and other sophisticated equipment. Inventories are always small, and production is bottlenecked even in the best of times. At the other end is ammunition (mostly artillery shells), drones, and other equipment that can be cranked out at scale—provided the industrial capacity exists to begin with.

Less commonly noted, there exists a vast middle ground of specialized equipment—less sophisticated than the boutique systems, needed in smaller numbers than simpler weapons—which is nevertheless necessary to keep a modern war going. It spans a wide range of functions: EW, demining, bridging equipment, airlift, etc. These are also in short supply in most military inventories around the globe, posing yet another constraint on their ability to wage war.

The Ukraine War has left militaries rushing to incorporate EW at all echelons. Beyond the difficulty and expense of doing so, it remains to be seen whether developments in UAV guidance won’t make this obsolete in the not-so-distant future.

Even before Ukraine brought the question into sharp relief, most countries have had to rely on outside support when engaged in active hostilities—this has been true for the past decade at least. This is a relatively simple problem at the high and low ends: aside from the technical training needed to operate advanced weapons, it is mostly a question of how much ammunition can be provided, whether that is artillery shells or GMLRS.

Things are not so easy at the middle tier. Although there are some cases where resources can be provided directly—the US provided airlift to France in 2013 for operations in Mali, for instance—most cases are far more complex. Not only does the equipment itself require a lot of personnel to operate, but it must also be integrated into the force structure, which often requires training an entire combined-arms formation around its use.

As an example, think of what goes into a basic river-crossing operation. Not only must trained engineers be present with all their equipment on hand (itself a logistical hurdle amidst wider operations), but the tactical commander must provide ISR, fire support, and have his units ready to cross in sequence. This is hardly an insuperable obstacle, but becomes far more challenging amidst the competition for resources and training time with higher- and lower-end tech.

A bridging company from the Connecticut National Guard conducting bridging operations. Beyond the difficulty of the task alone, this becomes much more complex as part of large-scale combat operations.

Enter the Contractors

Above all else, manpower remains one of the critical bottlenecks for large-scale modern wars. The combination of rising affluence and falling birthrates makes governments loath to put their own youth at risk, creating a strong incentive to hire outside help to do the actual fighting. Add to this the budgetary constraints that advanced economies face—amidst exponential growth in weapons cost, no less—and it appears unlikely that countries will maintain adequate manning levels for all the niche functions necessary in a conflict of any size.

I have argued elsewhere that manpower constraints will stimulate the growth of mercenaries in coming decades. We have already seen this throughout Africa, where countries often want to mask own their involvement, and in conflicts such as Yemen, where smaller states entered the fighting directly. The combination of permanent staffing shortages and niche technological requirements at the middle tier creates an opportunity for private military contractors to get involved.

There is already ample precedent for this. The US relies heavily on contractors at that technological middle tier for intelligence work and for maintaining C2 systems in theater (Booz Allen and Palantir come to mind), while other contractors serve in direct combat roles at the lower end.¹ It is therefore not too much of a leap to imagine combat engineering services, as an example, contracted to work closely with uniformed personnel in the midst of high-intensity combat operations.

Bloc Control

The emergence of such PMCs hinges entirely on the market for them; yet any country requiring their support will only know when it faces a very unexpected shortfall—few countries would force their combat troops to rely on an untested service. This catch-22 makes it very difficult for any contractor to build a business. Added to this is the complication that any business touching on national security prerogatives is typically carefully guarded by its home country—military assets automatically become a diplomatic asset.

Current geopolitical configurations divert acquisition efforts toward one of two large blocs: the US its allies, or the broader China-Russia bloc. Only a few countries are able to straddle the two (e.g. India), although factions are less constrained in more localized conflicts where the requirements are smaller and the stakes lower—witness Libya, where the national government received backing from Turkey and Italy, whereas France, Russia, and the UAE provided support to General Haftar.

This raises the possibilities that poorer countries will be the first to start contracting combat functions they cannot provide organically—mine-clearing, fortification construction, and EW are a few obvious places to start. As richer countries open to the idea of contracting them, it is conceivable that equipment manufacturers may start to use PMCs to advertise their wares by demonstrating their combat effectiveness, much as the wars in Syria and Armenia did for drones. Combat support contractors could thus likely become inextricably linked with the broader ecosystem of defense contracting and acquisitions.

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1. This is not to mention the extensive use of contractors for combat service support (chow halls, base construction, etc.).