[icarus_camp]

It's a pro and con type of thing. For example you can go out and hire a former Soviet MIG driver and get him to drive the the Hornet just like he say taught the Iranians to drive their MIGs (limiting the performance of the Hornet to match that of the older aircraft, etc).

For the military to directly hire a foreign national who served in a different military is a ton of paperwork. It's much easier to have the contractor do it.

There obviously is a security risk, but as long as you compartmentalize the risk it's okay. It's also the issue of keeping said Soviet MIG driver busy, in that maybe you have 6 months of work for him a year. Other six months of the year he can't exactly hang around the Pentagon and help with reports since as you mention, it's a security risk. The contractor can keep him working by say doing 6 months a year of training with the American military, 3 months of training with the Canadians, 2 months with the Swedish, etc.

There are proven models for minimizing risk. The intel agencies often like to hire foreign nations because they have local expertise with regard to their home country, but the CIA can't exactly just make a Chinese national a W-2 employee and let them run around Langley.