The Pentagon deliberately obscures who receives billions in overseas contracts

Evidence

Even the data that have been recorded and made available are unreliable and opaque. This is highlighted by the fact that the top recipient of Pentagon contracts abroad is not a company at all, but “miscellaneous foreign contractors.” In other words, almost a quarter of a million contracts, totaling $47.1 billion—some 12 percent of the total—have gone to recipients that the Pentagon has not identified publicly. As the Commission on Wartime Contracting explains, “miscellaneous foreign contractors” is a catchall “often used for the purpose of obscuring the identification of the actual contractor.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 690

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the opacity themes in the diamond-trade and reputation scholarship already in the library—secrecy norms serving commercial interests. — connects to: Contract locations misrepresent where war support actually happens — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1550
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: which countries or companies are plausibly hidden behind the ‘miscellaneous foreign contractors’ catchall?