Private military companies are not a transient phenomenon, but probably they present the future providers of military activities. Although security and defense have always been tasks that were exclusively performed by government institutions, the state monopoly on the instruments of force was weakened in the last decades as a result of the privatization trend. This change in the supplier of public services was triggered by worldwide occurring austerity measures which had a severe impact on defense budgets that were already heavily charged with enormous costs for more and more important logistic functions and the development of high-tech weapon systems within most armies. This gap of lacking financial resources and the coeval need in state-of-the-art equipment and service was soon filled by private providers, namely PMCs, being able to work more efficient as public institutions yet still cost-effective. Nevertheless, the defense array cannot be treated like any other industry that is privatized as whenever the exercise of force and weapons is concerned outmost precaution has to exhibit. Bearing in mind recent problems of irregularities at defense contracts tendering procedures and criminal convictions of private military company's employees in the Iraq War it is indispensable to keep a tab on and possibly restrain the suppliers of privatized defense tasks. The options for inclusion of private companies for defense functions are manifold and show many peculiarities. As the United States have commonly taken a stake in international armed conflicts for decades and also have made full use of PMCs, this paper focuses on several aspects of outsourcing within the area of the U.S. Army. (author's abstract) / Series: Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Transportwirtschaft und Logistik - Logistik