The Private Military Company: An Entity at the Center of Overlapping Spheres of Commercial Activity and Responsibility

Abstract

Despite growing awareness of the private military company (PMC) as a distinctive commercial entity due to the involvement of numerous such enterprises in Iraq and the wider war on terror, confusion is still palpable in determining what precisely constitutes a PMC. Whilst the various angles from which the PMC is approached in the literature have not yet converged to a conclusive view on the constitution of the PMC in its contemporary form, it is also necessary to acknowledge that the delineation of this form of commercial activity within wider and shifting corporate structures is in its infancy. Various firms labeled PMCs are not PMCs entirely, but corporations possessing PMC capabilities and offering private military services only as part of diversified portfolios of services. As a result, the PMC category is on occasions inaccurately stretched to encompass all the services on offer by these corporations. In turn, PMCs expand beyond their core business and offer services that cannot be categorized as private military services. Defining the PMC and delineating its articulation within wider, adjacent, and overlapping corporate structures are the aims of this chapter.