Another reason why wars are inefficient...

Alex Tabarrok at marginal revolution:

In Fiasco Thomas Ricks' says the war on Iraq and subsequent occupation was ill-conceived, incompetently planned and poorly executed. I have no quarrel with that. What dismays me is that anyone expected any different. All wars are full of incompetence, mendacity, fear, and lies. War is big government, authoritarianism, central planning, command and control, and bureaucracy in its most naked form and on the largest scale. The Pentagon is the Post Office with nuclear weapons.

The question is then...
- What if wars were fought by private contractors?
- If they were, would they be more efficient?