Security contractors do not generally provide direct support of military operations. Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, military contractors engaged in direct support of military operations may be legitimate targets of military interrogation.
In the United States, defense contracting has taken an increasingly larger role. In 2009, the Department of Defense spent nearly $316 billion on contracts.[1] Contractors have assumed a much larger on-the-ground presence during American conflicts: during the 1991 Gulf War the ratio of uniformed military to contractors was about 50 to 1, while during the first four years of the Iraq War the U.S. hired over 190,000 contractors, surpassing the total American military presence even during the 2007 Iraq surge and 23 times greater than other allied military personnel numbers.[1] In Afghanistan, the presence of almost 100,000 contractors has resulted in a near 1-to-1 ratio with military personnel.[1] The surge in spending on defense services contractors that began in 2001 came to a halt in 2009, leading to the Better Buying Power initiative of 2010.[2][3]Costs of War Project found that from 2020-2024 $2.4 trillion of the $4.4 trillion (approximately 54%) of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending went to defense contractors. During that period over twice as much money was spent with five companies as on diplomacy and international assistance.[4][5] In 2024, the industry saw record revenues.[6]
List of companies
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military or intelligence department of a government. Products typically include military or civilian aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems, while services can include intelligence information, logistics, technical support and training, communications support, and engineering support in cooperation with the government.
Following is an incomplete list of defense contractors, based only on a list of the world's largest arms manufacturers and other military service companies, along with their countries of origin, published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2024.[7] The numbers are in millions of US dollars.
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