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Contrary to popular belief, Mercenaries are the “Silent Majority” in Obama’s Military, and the president\u2019s “light footprint” approach to war has relied on thousands of Americans paid to fight \u2014 and die \u2014 in the shadows.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n Last weekend, the New York Times<\/i> published<\/a> one of what will be many takes on President Barack Obama\u2019s legacy as commander in chief. Retroactively shoehorning seven-plus years of varied military operations into one coherent \u201cdoctrine\u201d is impossible, but dozens of articles will soon attempt to do so.<\/p>\n There is one significant aspect of this doctrine, however, that is rarely mentioned by the media and never by Obama: the unprecedented use of private contractors to support foreign military operations.<\/p>\n Obama has authorized the continuation or re-emergence of two of the most contractor-dependent wars (or \u201coverseas contingency operations\u201d in Pentagon-speak) in U.S. history. As noted<\/a> previously, there are roughly three contractors (28,626<\/a>) for every U.S. troop (9,800) in Afghanistan, far above the contractor per uniformed military personnel average of America\u2019s previous wars<\/a>. In Iraq today, 7,773<\/a> contractors support U.S. government operations \u2014 and 4,087<\/a> U.S. troops. These numbers do not include contractors supporting CIA or other intelligence community activities, either abroad or in the United States. On April 5, Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, declared<\/a> during a Senate hearing that contractors made up 25 percent of his workforce.<\/p>\n Under Obama, more private military contractors have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than all the U.S. troops deployed to those countries.<\/span> Between Jan. 1, 2009, and\u00a0March 31, 2016, 1,540 contractors<\/a> were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (176 in Iraq and 1,364 in Afghanistan). During that period, 1,301 U.S. troops<\/a> were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq (289 in Iraq and 1,012 in Afghanistan). Last year was even more skewed toward contractors than the preceding six years; 58 contractors<\/a>died in Afghanistan or Iraq, while less than half as many U.S. troops did (27<\/a>) fighting in either country, includingSyria<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first thing you learn when studying the role contractors play in U.S. military operations is there\u2019s no easy way to do so. The U.S. government offers no practical overview, especially for the decade after 9\/11. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) began to release data<\/a> on contractors only in the second half of 2007 \u2014 no other geographic combatant command provides such data for their area of operations. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found<\/a>, \u201cAlthough all [State Department, USAID, and DOD] are required to track the number of personnel killed or wounded while working on contracts and assistance instruments in Iraq or Afghanistan, DOD still does not have a system that reliably\u00a0tracks killed and wounded contractor personnel.\u201d Just last month, an especially exasperated John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told<\/a>\u00a0acting Secretary of the Army Patrick Murphy, \u201cWe look forward to the day you can tell us how many contractors are employed by [the Department of Defense].\u201d<\/p>\n