The Role of the Pentagon and the CIA, Essay Example

The war on terror officially started on 7 October 2001 and is currently ongoing (Shah, 2013). When the “Global War on Terror” is discussed or written about, the United States military forces are the first images that come to mind. While the efforts of the US military are critical and are the primary driving force for the efforts there are also other players in the game. These additional efforts come in the forms of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon and private contractors. These efforts focus on areas of responsibility including building strategy to ensure relationships are built or renewed; information is gathered, understood and utilized as a well as taking on tasks that are necessary may not fall into the realm of the military’s objectives.

These efforts are used to not only facilitate the U.S.’s interests regarding the global war on terror but also to advance the military’s strategic intent by taking some of the tactical and operational burden’s off of the service members. By utilizing other government agencies as well as private contractors there is a sense of increased targeting opportunities by the opposing forces. Those that do not agree with the utilization of covert civilian operations or outsourced military activities to U.S. contractors may cross lines for other countries and could potentially provide the provocation for terrorists or other militants to take action against those that are taking action in these untraditional ways. While utilizing the CIA and the Pentagon to ensure missions have the information readily available and the planning conducted so that the service members have the tools necessary to take on their assigned missions, the increased usage of civilian contractors blur the lines between U.S. sanctioned military actions and actions by individual groups of militia type contractors working in a war zone. This could increase the target size on the U.S.

Works Cited

Shah, Anup. War on terror. 2013. Web. http://www.globalissues.org/issue/245/war-on-terror