This article applies the problem of civilian control over the military to the realm of private military contractors. The author argues that military outsourcing strips the principal —agent relationship of many of the structures and dynamics that states have traditionally used to control militaries. Many of the same qualities that make private military corporations successful as both economic actors and political surrogates also lead to reductions in the possibility for effective civilian control. The author supports these claims through an examination of the multilevel, fragmented, and global nature of the private military corporation market, with particular attention to divisions within the labor force. The implications of this analysis are that using private military corporations raises persistent challenges and tensions for effective state control that cannot be easily regulated away.
James Risen , "Use of Iraq Contractors Costs Billions, Report Says," New York Times, August 12, 2008.
2.
James Jay Carafano, Private Sector, Public Wars: Contractors in Combat-Afghanistan, Iraq, and Future Conflicts (Westport, CT: Praeger Security, 2008), 11.
3.
See, e.g., Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt, eds., From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007); also see Michael A. Newton, "War by Proxy: Legal and Moral Duties of ‘Other Actors’ Derived from Government Affiliation," Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 37 (2005-6): 249-66; Richard Morgan, "Professional Military Firms under International Law," Chicago Journal of International Law 9 (Summer 2008): 213-46; James Cockayne and Emily Speers Mears, Private Military and Security Companies: A Framework for Regulation (New York: International Peace Institute, 2009); also see various Center for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF) reports relating to the construction of a private military corporation (PMC) code of conduct, published throughout 2009.
4.
Deborah Avant, The Market for Force (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Anna Leander, "Regulating the Role of Private Military Companies in Shaping Security and Politics," in Chesterman and Lehnardt, From Mercenaries to Market; Peter D. Feaver, "The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control," Armed Forces & Society 23 (1996): 149-78, 149.
5.
Vladimir O. Rukacishnikov and Michael Pugh, "Civil-Military Relations," in Handbook of the Sociology of the Military, ed. Guiseppe Caforio ( New York: Springer, 2006), 131-50, 135.
6.
See S. E. Finer, Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (New York: Praeger, 1962); Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil - Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1967); Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960).
7.
Many of these ideas are also reflected in the notion of the military-industrial complex.
8.
Feaver, "Civil-Military Problematique," 149.
9.
See Finer, Man on Horseback.
10.
See, e.g., Alan Bryden and Marina Caparini, Private Actors and Security Governance (Geneva, Switzerland: DCAF, 2007).
11.
Gianfranco Poggi , The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978), 94.
12.
Leander, "Regulating the Role," 55.
13.
Rukacishnikov and Pugh, "Civil-Military Relations ," 131.
14.
Leander, "Regulating the Role," 55.
15.
See, e.g., ibid.; James Cockayne, "The Global Reorganization of Legitimate Violence: Military Entrepreneurs and the Private Face of International Humanitarian Law," International Review of the Red Cross88 (September 2006): 459-90; Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi, Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma (London: Pluto, 2000).
16.
Avant, Market for Force; see, e.g., Musah and Fayemi, Mercenaries; Gary Marx, "‘Lawless Rambos’: Private U.S. Citizens Flying in Drug War," Gazette (Montreal), November 13, 2002, A4.
17.
See, e.g., Sandline, "Private Military Companies: Independent or Regulated?" international white paper on regulation, http://www.sandline.com/white/regulation.doc; also see Doug Brooks, interview on Frontline, June 21, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/warriors/interviews/brooks.html; and Bruce Falconer, "Blackwater’s Man in Washington," Mother Jones, September 25, 2007; Carafano, Private Sector, Public Wars.
18.
See, e.g., Avant, Market for Force; Leander, "Regulating the Role."
19.
For a specific discussion of PMCs and states in the context of the principal-agent relationship, see James Cockayne, "Make or Buy? Principal-Agent Theory and the Regulation of Private Military Companies," in Chesterman and Lehnardt, From Mercenaries to Market, 196-216.
20.
See, e.g., Musah and Fayemi, Mercenaries; P.W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Private Military Industry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003); Avant, Market for Force; Chesterman and Lehnardt, From Mercenaries to Market.
21.
See, e.g., Frank Camm and Victoria A. Greenfield, "How Should the Army Use Contractors on the Battlefield? Assessing Comparative Risk in Sourcing Decisions" (prepared for the U.S. Army by RAND Corporation and the Arroyo Center, 2005).
22.
See, e.g., Singer, Corporate Warriors, 14; Anders Somme Hammer, "The Control of Private Military Companies: A Study of the Relationship between the United States and Private Actors in Plan Colombia" (master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 2006), 70.
23.
Of course, in many cases PMC employees are military veterans whose initial training was in fact provided by the state.
24.
See, e.g., Risen, " Use of Iraq Contractors"
25.
See Camm and Greenfield, "How Should the Army Use Contractors?" for a complete rundown of the potential strategic benefits of using PMCs.
26.
Jennifer K. Elsea and Nina M. Serafino, "Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues," CRS report for Congress (July 11, 2007); also see J. J. Messner and Ylana Glacielli, "State of the Peace and Stability Operations Industry: Second Annual Survey, 2007" (Washington, DC: Peace Operations Institute, 2007), 46, http:// peaceops.org/poi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27.
27.
Ariana Eunjung Cha , "Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq," Washington Post, July 1, 2004, A01, www.washingtonpost.com.
28.
For a list of these companies, please contact the author.
29.
Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, "Private Military and Security Companies and Challenges to the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries" (paper, conference on Privatization of Security and Human Rights in the Americas, Madison, WI, February 1, 2008); Grace Matsiko, "Guards in Iraq Swell to 6,000," Monitor (Uganda), March 13, 2008.
30.
David Phinney , "Blood, Sweat and Tears: Asia’s Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq," Corp-Watch, October 3, 2005.
31.
Cha, "Underclass of Workers"
32.
Program on Government Oversight (POGO), letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton, September 1, 2009, 8.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Author interview with former PMC human resources employee, September 23, 2006.
35.
As summarized in Camm and Greenfield, "How Should the Army Use Contractors?" 136.
36.
Erving Goffman , Asylums: Essays on the Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (New York: Doubleday, 1961).
37.
See, e.g., POGO, letter; Cockayne and Mears, Private Military and Security Companies.
38.
One could, of course, imagine a scenario in which a weak state contracts a strong, professional, well-organized PMC. This could be a net gain in control if local civilian leaders lack the basic abilities to command their own national military.
39.
For example, in 2009 an ArmorGroup employee with a criminal record "shot and killed two fellow guards and wounded at least one Iraqi" while on duty in Iraq (POGO, letter, 8).
40.
William Solis, "Rebuilding Iraq: Actions Still Needed to Improve the Use of Private Security Providers" (U.S. Government Accountability Office, testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee on Government Reform, June 13, 2006).
41.
Ibid., 13.
42.
See, e.g., Cha, "Underclass of Workers"; David Phinney, "U.S. Firms in Iraq Still Using Indentured Workers Despite Crackdown," AlterNet, July 25, 2007, http://www.alternet.org/ story/57974/; POGO, letter; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, "New Information about the Guard Force Contract at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul" (June 2009).
43.
POGO, letter.
44.
See, e.g., Singer, Corporate Warriors; Avant, Market for Force; Brooks, interview on Frontline. Some contracts do involve intensive, weeks-long "refresher courses" that build on prior military training. See, e.g., Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2007). In other cases, training is more cursory. See, e.g., "Me fascinó trabajar con ellos," BBC Mundo.com, September 18, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/specials/2006/mercenarios/newsid_5300000/5300140.stm.
45.
Elsea and Serafino, "Private Security Contractors"; POGO, letter; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, "New Information."
46.
POGO, letter, 5
47.
Ibid.
48.
For instance, "ex-pat" PMC employees have taken legal action against their former employers for intentionally underbidding government contracts and compensating by demanding extraordinary concessions from their labor force (Sauer v. ArmorGroup North America, Incorporated, complaint for declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief and jury demand, case 1:08-cv-00698-RCL, April 24, 2008).
49.
Interview with Doug Brooks, January 5, 2009. Also see Cha, "Underclass of Workers"; Phinney, "Blood, Sweat and Tears."
50.
See, e.g., Matsiko, "Guards in Iraq."
51.
"Atrapados en Bagdad,"Semana1/268 (August 2006): 32-39.
52.
Ibid.
53.
In 2009 Blackwater USA changed its name to Xe; Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "Additional Information about Blackwater USA" (memorandum, October 1, 2007).
54.
Elsea and Serafino, "Private Security Contractors"
55.
See, e.g., reports of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries as a Means of Violating Human Rights and regular postings by Business & Human Rights.
56.
Morris J. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965, Defense Studies Series (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1985); see, e.g., Sean P. Walsh, "The Roar of the Lion City: Ethnicity, Gender, and Culture in the Singapore Armed Forces,"Armed Forces & Society33 (2007): 265-85.
57.
Cha, "Underclass of Workers."
58.
Matsiko, "Guards in Iraq "
59.
Adam Ashton, "Military Contractor in Iraq Holds Foreign Workers in Warehouses," McClatchy Newspapers, December 2, 2008, www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/56910.html.
60.
Business & Human Rights, "Human Trafficking Victims File Lawsuit Against U.S. Military Contractors in Iraq" (August 27, 2008), http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/362441
61.
Phinney, "U.S. Firms in Iraq"
62.
Grace Matsiko , "Citizen Kills South African Boss, Commits Suicide ," Monitor (Uganda), March 4, 2008.
63.
See, e.g., Business & Human Rights, " Human Trafficking Victims"; Adam Ashton, "Warehoused Asians in Iraq to Go Home," McClatchy Washington Bureau, December 12, 2008.
64.
Interview with Ricardo Calderon, journalist and security editor of the Colombian weekly news magazine Semana, July 2006.
65.
Interview with Calderon, June 26, 2007.
66.
POGO, letter.
67.
Sabrina Tavernise , "12 Hostages from Nepal Are Executed in Iraq, a Militant Group Claims," New York Times, September 1, 2004.
68.
Phinney, "U.S. Firms in Iraq"
69.
Janowitz, Professional Soldier, 148.
70.
Avant, Market for Force, sees a two-tiered distinction within the market: between law-abiding "starched shirts" and law-thwarting "cowboys."
71.
Leander, "Regulating the Role," 61
72.
See, e.g., ibid.; Scahill, Blackwater.
73.
See, e.g., Scahill, Blackwater; or Suzanne Simmons, Master of War: Blackwater USA’s Erik Prince and the Business of War (New York : HarperCollins, 2009).
74.
See Cockayne, "Global Reorganization ," 467.
75.
See Katherine McCoy , "Uncle Sam Wants Them," Contexts8 (Winter 2009): 14-19.
76.
Interview with a former Colombian defense ministry official, June 15, 2007. This analysis is seconded by a RAND report, which notes that "contract support allows the United States to maintain a lower military profile" which "can support American diplomatic and political goals in sensitive theatres." Camm and Greenfield, "How Should the Army Use Contractors?" 178.
77.
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era ( Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001); Herbert Wulf, Internationalizing and Privatizing War and Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
78.
Kaldor, New and Old Wars.
79.
Wulf, Internationalizing and Privatizing, uses a distinction between "privatization from above" (i.e., the use of PMCs) and "privatization from below" (i.e., the rise of warlords, terrorists, and other illegitimate, private purveyors of violence).
80.
Leander makes a similar point but argues that the main problem with regulating PMCs is that regulation does not account for their ability to influence the political process through lobbying. See Leander, "Regulating the Role," 57.
81.
For instance, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) does make foreign contractors legally liable for crimes committed while serving the U.S. government. To date, however, this law has been largely ineffective because of the qualities of the PMC labor force discussed here. For a discussion of the legal framework of MEJA as applied to third-country nationals, see Newton, "War by Proxy"; and Elizabeth K. Waits, "Note: Avoiding the ‘Legal Bermuda Triangle’: The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act’s Unprecedented Expansion of U.S. Criminal Jurisdiction over Foreign Nationals," Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 23 (Spring 2006): 493.
