Private Military Companies Research Articles

Technologies of functioning of the private military services market and features of Customer-Private Military Company interaction

The authors consider in detail the topic of the private military services market as a special system with a limited number of participants and extremely limited effect of market laws. Special attention is paid to the topic of the relationship between the customer and the contractor, as containing a counterintuitive problem - the desire of the contractor to maximize the customer's expenses and delay the implementation of the tasks set. Another contradiction is connected with this problem - the balance of control and efficiency, the study of which is also given in this paper. The authors consider the key features of the private military services market, the actors that operate on it, the mechanisms for regulating the activities of customers and performers, which, in essence, determine the contradictions that arise between them. A special contribution to the study of this problem by the authors is the consideration of Private military companies as an element of the private military services market. The market itself seems to the authors to be a source of key contradictions in the relationship between the principal and the agent in the implementation of military tasks. The authors reveal the system of interaction in the military services market by establishing the main influencing factors of both the external environment and the market's influence on the environment. For the first time, the interaction of the customer-PMCs within the framework of existing contracts is considered in detail, the interests of the parties and the mechanisms for their implementation are systematized. The authors consider two methods of solving already existing contradictions: the method of "strategic privatization" and the method of "deal with Faust". The authors have developed an original method of "controlled competition", which potentially solves a greater number of contractual contradictions.

PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES AND THE “PRIVATIZATION” OF MILITARY CONFLICTS IN THE CONTEX OF THE DEMONOPOLIZATION OF THE STATE VIOLEN

The prerequisites for the emergence of private military companies and private security companies, the features of their functioning in the context of the demonopolization of state violence are considered. The influence of the establishment of a monopoly on the use of violence in the process of the formation of states of the modern type (states of the Modern era) is highlighted. In a historical retrospective, the reasons for the formation of a state monopoly on the use of violence, factors that contributed to the strengthening of royal power, led to the centralization of state power and the formation of depersonalized rational-bureaucratic state institutions are presented. The role of wars in the emergence of regular armies in the context of the formation of modern-type states is analyzed. The influence of the Cold War on the emergence of private military companies and low-intensity military companies is considered, structural prerequisites for the spread of private military companies both in developed countries and in developing countries are identified. The connection between the loss of the monopoly on the use of violence by states and the emergence of low-intensity wars is shown. The main reasons for the disappearance of high-intensity wars are analyzed. It is shown that the loss of a monopoly on the use of violence by states is not a constant, but is the result of the spread of low-intensity wars that arise due to the loss of advantages in waging high-intensity wars.

Human Rights Obligations of Private Security and Military Companies: A Review of the Current Legal Framework and Practices

The rapid growth in demand for private military and security services among states,international organizations and non-state actors has turned this activity into a powerful industry withmillions of people who perform – on a contractual basis and in exchange for monetary rewards – actions,which, however, often pose risks to the rights of others, local communities and nations around theworld. The author explains the urgency of the article by high-profile cases of possible participationof private military companies in the events of the occupation of Crimea and the armed conflict inDonbas, initiation of new legislation on military consulting in Ukraine and, at the same time, by themodest attention of Ukrainian jurisprudence to human rights obligations of companies providingsecurity services as non-governmental entities. The author examines the evolution of some approaches to the international legal regulation of private military and security activities and their compliance with modern approaches to humanrights. The author analyzes the features of corporate responsibility in the field of human rights ofprivate military and security companies, the content of which is embodied in the InternationalCode of Conduct for Private Security Providers (ICoC). The analysis compares the approaches ofthe International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers and the UN Guiding Principleson Business and Human Rights.

Mercenaries in/and history: the problem of ahistoricism and contextualism in mercenary scholarship

ABSTRACT The history of the mercenary seems little less than the history of organized warfare itself. From the dawn of recorded history to the recent rise of Private Military Companies, mercenaries appear as a historical constant that allows scholars to make grand historical claims about the organisation of force within world history. This article cautions against this view, arguing instead that the analysis of this actor has been compromised by the failure to adequately historicise and contextualize the concept of the mercenary due to the uncritical acceptance that mercenaries are a trans-historical occurrence. Informed by a historicist contextual approach, I show how two foundational characteristics of the mercenary concept, a Westphalian understanding of ‘foreignness’ and a modern account of ‘self-interest’, were absent in the periods preceding the 18th century. I demonstrate this absence through an analysis of ‘mercenaries’ in Ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, exposing how the problematization of these actors within their own historical context displays a radical difference if compared to our contemporary understanding of the mercenary. In doing so this article raises awareness to the historical specificity of this seemingly universal concept and cautions against the uncritical backward projection of this concept into the past.

Private military companies – Russian great power politics on the cheap?

ABSTRACT In a situation where the Russian national self-image and economic realities fail to add up, this article discusses whether Russian private military companies have become low-cost tools to restore Russian great power status. Our findings suggest that whenever these companies are used in a ‘power as outcome’ way, they appear less successful at adding great power status on the cheap and less useful at elite enrichment. In contrast, PMCs seem well suited to make power contributions, and for a low cost, in a ‘power as prestige’ way. In these settings they are also more suitable instruments for informal elite earnings.

GOING AGAINST THE TIDE: SEEKING REGULATIONS FOR PRIVATE MILITARY/SECURITY COMPANIES IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

This article discusses the role of privatization of security in Africa, but its focus is on private military and security companies (PMSCs). The article proceeds on the basis that there is need for effective regulatory frameworks for PMSCs that operate in conflict zones of Africa. Thus, it begins by appraising the existing normative standards at the international, regional and domestic level that apply to these companies, and thereafter, identifies their shortcomings in light of the prevailing security conditions within the continent. The article then posits broad theoretical imperatives for designing a more effective regulatory framework for PMSCs and concludes by proposing the establishment an overarching continental regime constructed on the basis of the suggested imperatives.

States, interstitial organizations and the prospects for liberal international order

Abstract This article proposes a complementary approach to analysing destabilization of the liberal international order (LIO) and argues that such challenges are related to endogenous institutional processes within the LIO. Faced with constraints of the core norms, rules and institutions of the LIO, states use interstitial organizations (INTOs)—new organizational forms recombining resources, rules, practices and structures from multiple institutional domains—allowing for innovative ways of delivering foreign policies. Using organization theory and new institutionalist approaches, the article outlines a three-dimensional analytical framework to the study of emergence of interstitial organizational forms and interstitial institutional change of international institutions. It applies this framework to the study of two types of INTOs—the European External Action Service (EEAS) and private military companies (PMCs)—both of which are shown to have transformational impacts on two core primary institutions of the modern state order, namely diplomacy and war. The article argues that reliance on INTOs can both enhance and constrain states' ability to promote the core principles of the LIO and concludes with a discussion of two possible paths of adaptation of this order.

4 - The Quagmire of US Militarism in Africa

In the period of the so-called War on Terror, US militarism in Africa has intensified to include the weaponisation of finance, the weaponisation of trade, psychological warfare, information warfare and the deployment of private military contractors in the so-called ‘security sector reform’. In the face of African resistance, the deployment of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has unleashed disaster after disaster, from the catastrophic failures in Libya to the sequences of failure in the Sahel region. The death of four US service personnel in Niger in 2017 along with the killing of non-white soldiers in Africa by white supremacists in the US military have similarly exposed the deficiencies and racism inherent in the US security establishment. In the context of US military involvement in the Middle East, currency wars and capital flight from Africa, the US travel ban on Muslims exposed the contradictions of African allies and sharpened their clear alliance with the empire despite the overt racism of Making America Great Again. The quagmire of US militarism is now exposing the current manifestations of white supremacy. In addition to contextualising and accounting for these developments across the continent, this article argues that progressive scholars cannot be bystanders in the struggles against militarised global apartheid. Africans must grasp the lessons of global racism to re-ignite the progressive pan-African traditions that were able to roll back apartheid in its crude form. Horace G. Campbell, International Peace and Justice Scholar and Professor of African American Studies and Political Science, Syracuse University, New York, USA. Email: hcmombara@gmail.com

Contractors or robots? Future warfare between privatization and automation

ABSTRACT Contemporary warfare is increasingly shaped by the complex relationship between the privatization of security and technologically driven automation. On the one hand, there is a growing tendency to employ private military and security companies for a range of military support tasks. On the other hand, the growing automation of security technologies is bound to make war less manpower intensive. Combat systems will have much more autonomy and humans will be working more closely with machines than they do today. The article provides an original analysis on the interplay between the privatization of security tasks and technologically driven automation and investigates their impact on the defence industry and the armed forces. These two sets of actors are arguably among the most impacted by the multi-faceted relations between privatization and automation. Technological progress creates the need for contractors to maintain and operate platforms that militaries do not have expertise to run. However, technologically driven automation - often developed in value chains far removed from the military-industrial pipeline - might also replace private contractors in non-core security tasks. The possibility to employ automated and autonomous systems will hence impact on the already delicate balance between private contractors and publicly-funded armed forces.

Russian Private Military and Security Companies and Special Operations Forces: Birds of a Feather?

ABSTRACT This article explores the degree to which Russian Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) are similar to Special Operations Forces (SOF) in terms of their characteristics, their capabilities, and their efforts. First, it recognizes that like the US example and experiences in other Western countries, Russian PMSCs often rest on a SOF pedigree too. This is due to the SOF cachet and the desired skill sets of personnel. Second, the article contends that Russian PMSCs are indeed more SOF-like in some of the tasks they perform. This is especially because of their proclivity, compared to PMSCs from other countries, to employ offensive violence. Nevertheless, and finally, Russian PMSCs do deviate from expectations in terms of their varying strategic impact regarding deniability and their documented usage of crewed weapons systems.

Missing from the record: historians, archival research and underwater munitions

ABSTRACT Archival research is an important starting point for scientific studies on underwater munitions, but marine scientists have voiced concerns and criticism over the completeness, validity, and reliability of historical records. However, labelling primary sources as ‘incomplete’ demonstrates that scientists have largely misunderstood how and why archives accumulate information. This article seeks to familiarize readers with the benefits and challenges of archival research on underwater munitions. It explores the role of the archives in preserving historical sources and offers explanations as to why ‘gaps’ in information develop over time. In doing so, it elucidates how the archival grain was shaped by a variety of factors and actors over time, and shows how ‘gaps’ emerged from more than just national security, military secrecy, information laws, and archival science. The agency of past scientists, historians, bureaucrats, and private military contractors all played a role in shaping the nature of documentation about this concerning legacy of war and military pollution.

Les Affreux en Irak. Die Teilprivatisierung des professionellen Blutvergießens in der heutigen Kriegsführung anhand des Beispiels des Irakkriegs

Les Affreux en Irak. The partial privatisation of professional bloodshed in modern warfare exemplified by the Iraq WarAfter the launch of "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the United States of America were engaged in war for the next eight years, in which they heavily relied on the assistance of private companies, known as Private Military Companies (PMC). The following paper uses the Iraq War respectively the following occupation of Iraq as a case study to examine the role of PMCs in modern warfare. It analyses the military branches in which PMCs provided support to the USA, including logistics, training, security, and even intelligence services. It also discusses the advantages as well as disadvantages of PMCs in current combat operations.

Historical Narratives and the Defense of Stigmatized Industries

This study examines how managers and entrepreneurs in stigmatized industries use historical narratives to combat stigma. We examine two industries, the private military contractors (PMC) industry in the United States and the cannabis industry in Canada. In recent decades, the representatives of these industries have worked to reduce the level of stigmatization faced by the industries. We show that historical narratives were used rhetorically by the representatives of both industries. In both cases, these historical narratives were targeted at just one subset of the population. Our research contributes to debates about stigmatization in ideologically diverse societies, an important issue that have been overlooked by the existing literature on stigmatized industries, which tends to assume the existence of homogeneous audiences when researching the efforts of industry representatives to destigmatize their industries.

LEGAL REGULATION OF THE STATUS OF PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES

In our time, private military and security companies, known as private military companies (PVK), are becoming increasingly important. Their growing number, increasing financial and armed strength, the fact that they employ an increasing number of people, and especially the very nature of their business in terms of providing services in the field of security, intelligence, weapons, logistics, etc., up to direct participation in armed operations, even those outside the borders of the state in which they are based, lead to the fact that these entities have an increasing role not only in events within individual states but also in international relations. After a brief review of the concept of PVK and some of the legal issues related to them, the author deals with the problem of international regulation of the position of PVK at the universal and regional level and considers the Montreux Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers and some other documents. The author concludes that everything indicates that it is necessary to create new international legal frameworks at the universal level as soon as possible, which would regulate the most important issues such as defining the most important terms; unification of conditions and ways for the establishment, licensing, and registration of PVK; rights and obligations of PVK and their staff; international supervision of PVK and their staff; the responsibility of all actors involved; the difference between a PVK staff member and a mercenary; rules related to the crossing of PVK weapons and equipment across state borders, etc. For now, much remains controversial - what and how should be regulated by a universal international treaty, who should be its members, what mechanisms of international supervision should be provided for, etc., and even on whether it is at all necessary at this time.

Assembling a Force to Defeat Boko Haram: How Nigeria Integrated the Market into its Counterinsurgency Strategy

ABSTRACT In the context of an increased use of commercial soldiers in high-end conflict, this article investigates how the Nigerian government's reliance on the global market for force has helped its efforts to counter Boko Haram. The article shows, through a case study of Nigeria's counterinsurgency campaign against jihadist insurgents, that states in the developing world can augment their ability to provide effective public security by creating security assemblages. Moving beyond the normative debate about Private Military Companies (PMCs), this article highlights that public-private security arrangements can support the state in the developing world to live up to its role as a communal security provider. Nigeria's employment of the South African PMC Special Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection Ltd. (STTEP), helped it build an effective public-commercial partnership, thus providing the Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) with capacity, capability and norms that were essential in their counterinsurgency struggle.

The Dynamics of Security Sector Reform in Liberia

Abstract Security Sector Reform (ssr) is one of the key mechanisms of the UN norms of liberal peacebuilding. After the end of a 14-year-long civil war, ssr in Liberia has faced enormous challenges but opened a new space for peace and democracy for the people. Under the comprehensive supervision of the USA, two private military companies, DynCorp International and Pacific Architects and Engineers (pae), have played a pivotal role in army reform. Alternatively, unmil has been involved in police reform, which has not been considered successful enough. Furthermore, this study has observed that before ssr, disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (ddr) was not properly managed, which has had a pessimistic impact on ssr. The study has also found that the reformed army and police have been strongly criticised due to a lack of local ownership and citizen oversight, gender inequality, and poor democratic control. Nevertheless, beyond its limitations, the study shows that ssr has achieved a mixture of success in the current security, stability and peace in Liberia.

The history and role of private military firms in the modern global politics

The article considers a topical modern phenomenon of international relations - the role of private military firms and their connection with the national interests of states, which is the object of this research. The author attempts to trace back the process of establishment of the modern form of private military firms and extend the periodization of this process. The author considers and generalizes the works of outstanding Russian researchers and military experts. This interdisciplinary research is at the nexus of political science, law, history and economics. The author gives special attention to specific publicly available information about the largest and the most influential private military firms and their incomes and the most controversial operations. The author believes that most modern private military firms are state-originated, have emerged as a result of privatization of state functions, and serve as an example of government outsourcing. Based on the analysis of the works of leading military experts, the author develops a specific classification of the phenomenon of private military firms, the pros and cons of their use by states and trans-national corporations, and specifies the main services private military firms offer. Special attention is given to the issue of “sovereign interests” in the use of private military firms. The author supposes that the research also explains the problem of underdevelopment of international legal basis regulating the activities of private military firms.   

Military advising and assistance in Somalia: fragmented interveners, fragmented Somali military forces

ABSTRACT Southern Somalia has attracted substantial military aid and assistance for decades. As the state disintegrated in the late 1980s, clan dynamics became more critical, warlords emerged, and power bases shifted. Since 2008, the number of foreign military forces and advisors (including private military contractors) has substantially increased, as has the creation of numerous Somali security units. Such actions are symptomatic of broader trends concerning multilateral attempts to rebuild security forces in fractious states, where security assistance activities lack unity or common national interests. This has resulted in various Somali military forces with different loyalties (domestic and international), capabilities, and priorities in each Federal Member State (FMS). Uneven foreign military training programs in the context of survival politics fuels the fragmentation of various security forces. Locally appropriate military forces in each FMS potentially appear to be more effective at resisting Al-Shabaab. However, locally appropriate military forces contribute to further fragmentation, as security donors bypass the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to directly assist these localized forces. This accelerates devolution of military forces outside of FGS control. These assessments are based on fieldwork and interviews with security officials in East Africa.

Russian Surrogate Warfare in Ukraine and Syria: Understanding the Utility of Militias and Private Military Companies

ABSTRACT Russia has traditionally maintained a large army to defend its borders. Now there is evidence that the Kremlin has utilized proxy militias and private military companies to launch operations abroad. The article will focus on the Russian interventions in Ukraine and Syria. It will claim that there are three reasons for the use of surrogate forces. Domestic developments, including new social attitudes, can explain why the Kremlin has been keen to hide casualties from the public. Concerns over legal and reputation repercussions mean that Moscow wants to minimize the Russian footprint in both countries. Finally, the use of militias and private contractors has certain military advantages for the Russian side.

Onset of new business? Private military and security companies and conflict onset in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia from 1990 to 2011

ABSTRACT The aim of this investigation is to answer the crucial question of whether private military and security companies (PMSCs) affect conflict onset. It draws on the recently released Private Security Events Database, containing data on PMSC-related events across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Employing a Cox Proportional Hazard model, the article explores whether the presence of PMSCs, the duration of PMSC presence, the type of service provided, and the number and type of clients affect conflict onset. Overall, the presence of PMSCs increases the likelihood of conflict onset, although its substantial effect was slight.