Abstract
One out of every five combatants carrying a machine gun in Iraq is not a soldier, but an employee. Many, particular those in military service, may consider the men and women working for private military firms to be performing a radically different function than their military counterparts, but, ‘Iraqi citizens do not distinguish between employees of Blackwater and the U.S. military. All they see is Americans with guns.’ In this article, I will investigate the normative and economic implications of using these private security personnel in contingency operations such as the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In order to accomplish this task, I will investigate the frequently mentioned economic justifications in favor of outsourcing as well as the less frequently investigated normative considerations against particular acts of outsourcing. This analysis will be used to defend a normative principle that can help determine if a particular act of outsourcing is morally problematic. Finally, I will argue that the continued use of mercenaries harms the professional soldiers fighting along side them by undermining the profession of arms. The continued use of private military contractors will turn all those who fight, even professional soldiers, into mercenaries.
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