Well, there is some substantial outsourcing of the army and intelligence services via private (military) contractors [0]. In a world of increasing PPP (Public-Private Partnerships) the line gets very blurry indeed.

One interesting line of thought (I don't share personally (yet) but find compelling as a dystopian possibility) is that the dirty business of censoring/filtering is outsourced by private companies (i.e. Big Tech with their unparalleled outreach: Twitter, Alphabet, Meta ... ) so that governments can wash their hands of it.

[0]https://medium.com/smartaim-tech/war-for-money-leading-priva...