AVANT, Deborah. Privatizing Military Training. Foreign Policy in Focus. vol. 7, no. 6, May 2002: TEXT

KEY POINTS: 1) Private military companies (PMCs), performing an array of security services for a variety of clients, have proliferated. 2) With the downsizing of the U.S. military and an expansion of overseas training programs, the Pentagon has increasingly hired the services of private military firms. 3) Although private military companies have long performed covert and unsavory tasks, today’s PMCs are seeking a legitimate public role. .

 

CAMPBELL, Gordon L (United States Army Combined Arms Support Command). Contractors on the Battlefield: The Ethics of Paying Civilians To Enter Harm's Way and Requiring Soldiers To Depend upon Them. A paper prepared for presentation to the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics 2000, Springfield, Virginia, January 27-28, 2000: TEXT

BACKGROUND: The United States Military has always used contractors in times of war. Washington used civilian wagon drivers to haul supplies. Sutlers were famous, or infamous, for their support of Union Troops during the Civil War. By WW II, civilian workers, hired either individually or through firms, provided support services in all the theaters of war. In the Korean War, contractors provided services ranging from stevedoring, road and rail maintenance to transportation. By Vietnam, contractors were becoming a major part of logistical capabilities within zones of operation providing construction, base operations, water and ground transportation, petroleum supply and maintenance/technical support for high-technology systems. During the Gulf War, the GAO estimates, in addition to 5,000 U.S. government civilians, there were 9,200 contractor employees deployed in support of U. S. Forces providing maintenance for high-tech equipment in addition to water, food, construction and other services. (1) The growth of contingency operations has seen an exponential growth in required contractor support: at one point in Bosnia, our Army uniform presence was 6,000--supported by 5,900 civilian contractors.

 

Center for Public Integrity (various authors). Making a Killing: the Business of War. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ Project, Washington D.C., October 6- November 20, 2002: TEXT

KEY FINDINGS: Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. (...)

 

Cultures & Conflits Journal. Les entreprises para-privées de coercition: de nouveaux mercenaires? Saint-Ouen, France. Winter 2003, no 52: TEXT

BIGO, Didier. Editorial: Les entreprises de coercition para-privées : de nouveaux mercenaires ? OLSOON, Christian. Vrai procès et faux débats: perspectives critiques sur les argumentaires de légitimation des entreprises de coercition para-privées CHAPLEAU, Philippe. De Bob Denard aux sociétés militaires privées à la française LEVERCHY, Christian. Définir le mercenaire puis lutter contre le mercenariat « entrepreneurial » : un projet de gouvernement KINSEY, Christopher. Le droit international et le contrôle des mercenaires et des compagnies militaires privées PEROUSE DE MONTCLOS, Marc-Antoine. Pétrole et sécurité privée au Nigeria : un complexe multiforme à l'épreuve du «syndrome de Monaco» RIGAUD, Elodie and Janice E. THOMPSON. le mercenariat comme forme socio-historique de coercition privée

 

• DIETRICH, Chris. The comercialisation of military deployment in Africa. African Security Review. 2000, vol. 9, no. 1. [The article is no longer available as a free download; no abstract provided by the journal; thus only listed for reference purposes]: Journal page

GODDARD, Scott C. (Major, RA INF, Australia). The Private Military Company: A Legitimate International Entity Within Modern Conflict. A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree OF Master of Military Art and Science. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2001: PDF

ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the post-Cold War evolution of private military companies. Specifically this study will focus on the measure of international legitimacy that is afforded to private military companies that conduct active military assistance operations that have a strategic impact on the political and security environments in which they are contracted to operate. The thesis has focussed the contract operations conducted by Executive Outcomes (Republic of South Africa), Sandline International (United Kingdom), and Military Professional Resources Incorporated (United States of America) within the time frame of 1988 to the present. The study concludes that at the international level, active military assistance operations conducted by private military companies are indeed legitimate, but that measurement of legitimacy can only be assessed as being de-facto and amoral. Moreover these missions are being conducted within a vacuum of effective regulation and accountability at the international and national levels that is decidedly inappropriate for the international realm in the twenty first century.

 

MANDEL, Robert. The Privatization Of Security. Paper prepared for the International Studies Association 41th Annual Convention, Los Angeles, March 14-18, 2000: TEXT

CLOSING REMARKS: We need to have more discussion and build more agreement about the acceptable types of private coercion, the occasions for its use, and the choice of who implements it. Without this awareness and discussion, there is a distinct possibility that efforts to reduce the spiraling anarchic violence within and across societies will actually be thwarted by the spread of privatized security, with protected groups becoming more ostrich-like in their unconcern for what goes on outside the sphere of their privatized safety. (...)

 

McBRIDE, Michael T (United States Army, LTC (P) ). The Proliferation of Contractors on the Battlefield: A Changing Dynamic That Necessitates a Strategic Review. USAWC Strategy Research Project, Project Adviser: Dr Clay CHUN. U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, October 2003: PDF

ABSTRACT: The central thesis of this paper is centered on the ever-increasing use of contractors on the battlefield. The basic premise focuses on the notion that our weapons and equipment are becoming increasingly more complex and as a result more challenging to operate and maintain. This premise in conjunction with the implementation of proposals such as the Third Wave initiative will continue to expand the privatization of basic core competencies that are vital to success in forward regional defense options. Contractors undeniably will be called upon to help sustain the fighting forces in forward theaters of operation. There are numerous challenges DOD faces with respect to the introduction of progressively more contractors in our battle spaces. Deployment, force protection and legal ramifications are just three of many issues that our strategic leaders will have to address in order to properly preserve our lethal strength. As Donald Rumsfeld recently stated, the defense of the United States is in a new, dangerous period...an era of new vulnerabilities. Current and future enemies will seek to strike the United States and U.S. Forces in novel and surprising ways...wars will be notably different from those of the past century and even from our current conflict. America will inevitably be surprised again by new adversaries striking in unexpected ways." Contractors will be part of the solution for us. Our national security policies and national security strategy must account for this fact. Contractors will represent an expansion of our "Means" to achieve our "Ends."

 

O'BRIEN, Kevin A. PMCs, Myths and Mercenaries: the debate on private militaries companies. Royal United Service Institute Journal, February 2000: TEXT

CONCLUSION: (...) PMCs will continue to operate, albeit not on the same scale as EO did throughout the middle of this decade. The US government often pushes for its national companies to obtain contracts; Britain does the same, albeit much more quietly. France uses its intelligence services to facilitate such operations by French firms. In Israel and South Africa, parliamentary and popular international pressure and condemnation has forced the governments to place controls on the provision of such services. There is, however, no fixed lifetime for these companies; as long as conflict persists, so will the PMCs. The international community, as has been witnessed once again in Kosovo, has demonstrated time and again its unwillingness to become involved in regional conflicts where Western foreign policy concerns are not threatened directly; this gap will continue to be filled by the private military company.

 

PERLAK, Joseph R (United States Marine Corps, Major, Judge Advocate). The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000: Implications for Contractor Personnel. Military Law Review, no. 169, September 2001, 91-140: PDF

INTRODUCTION: (...) Now nearly five centuries later, warfare has been institutionalized so that a professional military is a significant part of any important nation on the world stage. Indeed, military prowess largely defines a nation’s inter- national status and credibility. Another large component of international military significance is the scope and capabilities of a nation’s defense industry. Today we are no longer burdened as Machiavelli was with con- cepts of good versus evil in formulating military policy. We have accepted it as a necessary and integral part of modern nationhood. We have learned to live with the social structures of warfare, including a standing military and a sophisticated defense industry. (...)

 

Reason Public Policy Institute (various authors). Privatization Watch-The War and Reconstruction Issue. Monthly Analizing of Privatization Developments. no. 318, June/July 2003: PDF [No abstract or project summary available]

• SMITH, Eugene B. The New Condottieri and US Policy: The Privatization of Conflict and Its Implications. Parameters, vol. 32, no. 4, Winter 2002-03. [The article is no longer available for free download; no abstract provided by the journal; thus only listed for reference purposes]: Journal page

TAULBEE, James Larry. The privatization of security: Modern conflict, globalization and weak states. Civil Wars, vol 5, no 2, 2002. [The article is no longer available for free download; thus only listed for reference purposes]: Journal page

ABSTRACT: Privatized Defense Service Providers (PDSPs) have emerged as a firmly entrenched feature of contemporary international politics. Placing blame on PDSPs for the woes associated with state disintegration in Africa mistakes symptoms for causes. Failure to establish strong institutional foundations and professional armies when foreign aid resources were more plentiful has undermined the ability of states to respond to the challenges posed by guerrilla insurgencies that proliferated in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Caught between the old anti‐intervention norm, the new permeability of their borders, demands for reform and disinterest on the part of former sponsors, regimes under stress have limited options. PDSPs do not necessarily provide the answer to the problems generated. Assertions of possibilities tend to outpace capabilities and ignore political limitations. In terms of regulation, national legislation,not a new international convention is the appropriate response.