Contrary to democratic values and norms, governments of Western democracies frequently engage in foreign policy actions that citizens disapprove of. In this paper, we examine whether governments can avoid public blame by delegating such foreign policy actions to private actors. On the one hand, we argue that governments may avoid blame by not engaging directly in the policy. On the other hand, citizens may penalize the attempt to escape democratic accountability. We test our arguments in survey experiments in the United States and Germany. In each country, we present participants with two cases of unpopular foreign policy decisions—an arms export deal with a repressive regime and a military strike with civilian casualties—and randomize whether their government engaged directly in the respective policy or engaged a private company to do so. We then assess through several variables how this affects respondents’ approval of the policy and their government. The results of our study provide valuable insights into the foreign policy behavior of democratic governments and their accountability to citizens.