JOURNAL: Primer on the Mercenary Industry

The war in Iraq has catalyzed the growth of the mercenary industry (populated with a wild array of private military/security companies), and serves as yet another sign of the return of the pre-Westphalian warfare documented here. A good way to get up to speed on the topic is to watch the documentary "Shadow Company" by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque. It is even-handed and has solid interviews with industry insiders/pundits/analysts like Robert Young Pelton, Doug Brooks, and Peter Singer. Thanks to Kerry for sending a review copy of this great film.

Comments

[georgb]

this is fairly bad. i did some research on those mercenary companies and found that their personal consists very often of soldiers who have been fired from the regular armies. they are expensive and pretty useless.
on top of that there is even less democratic control over those mercenaries than even over the regular forces.
this use of mercenaries is a danger to democracy and should therefore be prohibited.

[gmoke]

Mercenary operations can also interact with and sometimes become global guerrilla operations through the marketplace/bazaar in weapons, drugs, contraband, and clean cash.

Small groups amplified by technology to create large effects, spectacularly or subtly, ideology not always necessary.

[micman]

Trailer for the movie is on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbgtp-V5t6g

Part of Rumsfeld's philosophy when he came into the OSD was to outsource substantial parts of military ops for both support and combat, including wider use of mercs. Afghanistan and then Iraq gave him a lab to test his theories. But actually they were and are being tested elsewhere as well. Remember the shootdown two years ago of a surveillance plane in Colombia where one US contractor was killed and another taken hostage? I have no idea if the latter was ever recovered.

[FreeCyprus]

Wow very cool site, lots of damn info.
I shall return

-- FreeCyprus
Hellenic Reporter

[micman]

Follow up: In tracking the links provided by JR in the post I see that Robert Young Pelton has a fairly extensive schedule of speaking and appearance engagements, including on radio shows that are frequently streamed and archived as podcasts.
http://comebackalive.com/site3.php?page_id=8&sub_section_id=appearances

[micman]

Follow up: In tracking the links provided by JR in the post I see that Robert Young Pelton has a fairly extensive schedule of speaking and appearance engagements, including on radio shows that are frequently streamed and archived as podcasts.
http://comebackalive.com/site3.php?page_id=8&sub_section_id=appearances

[Cavolonero]

If I had it to do over again : " Cavolonero's Cash Only Cowboys " ( ' Security starts with a " C " )

[Sunguh5307]

This documentary got pretty bad reviews on some military contractor sites, like Lightfighter.net and Socnet. Partially because those who've been involved don't like it when 'cowboys' are used to represent them- even while acknowledging their presence and that it makes for a more entertaining film. Just don't expect it to be too accurate.

I just read RYP's book, and it's actually closer than Singer's was, IMHO. Singer was more referenced and academic, but RYP got a lot closer to the action- more thorough. Probably do a review of it in the next couple days.

[tin30]

Is there anything else the war hasn't affected yet? I mean I guess most of the world's activities has been affected by it except the tip of our hairs. It is really pathetic!

[Geoff]

you can watch a panel discussion here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp....

(That's me right below Singer with my hand on my chin)

[Tom Griffin]

The Royal United Services Institute published an interesting paper recently on the future of mercenaries after the 'Baghdad bubble.'

The author, an Aegis analyst, argues that the companies should try to get into the humanitarian aid business.

His reasoning is that most aid agencies are largely funded by governments, but refuse to do their bidding, instead making their own assessment of humanitarian need, whereas mercenaries can just take the money and do what they're told.

Spot on as regards Shadow Company by the way, esp. the interviews. Well worth seeing.

[Kathryn Cramer]

I quite enjoyed Shadow Company, which tries to outline the basic issues involved in the growing use of private military companies.

Also, Robert Young Pelton's book on the subject, Licensed to Kill, is just out. I have posted a detailed review at www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2006/09/robert_young_pe.html

I think it's an excellent book.

[Kathryn Cramer]

The URL of the review is cut off. It's easy to find on my site.

[empiresfall]

This is superficially off-topic.

So what the hell is going on with the announcement today that Pakistan is now cooperating with the Taliban, that they're returning Taliban weapons and prisoners and that Osama has carte blanche to travel wherever he wants within Pakistan?

What if the Taliban had control of one or more of Pakistan's nukes? Is that possible? Or has Musharraf just finally bowed to internal pressures?

[empiresfall]

Word is, the Pakistan truce is really a surrender.

I hate to say "I told you so, but..." so I won't say it.

I wonder what the full story behind this is. Has there been a bloody war going on in Waziristan?

What could induce Pakistan, a nation with a fairly modernized military, to surrender that way?

I must say this is beginning to go south. It's going much worse than I thought it was going to go, and I expected it to be pretty bad.

[g510]

Mercs are also hella' bad for morale among the regulars. On at least one of the bases in Iraq, US soldiers are allowed to carry thirty rounds of ammo on their person while on base, but mercs are issued THREE HUNDRED rounds. I'm a soft-ass civilian and even I understand what that means. And just in case someone's reading this who doesn't understand, it's basically telling the US soldiers that, in the event of an enemy attack on their base, their lives are worth 1/10 the value of the lives of the mercs.

Stuff like this is enough to make me puke.

---

Re. Pakistan: Pakistan has always been a problem and will continue to be a problem. This development does not surprise me. We have been "played" by the Paki government, or whatever assemblage of interests calls itself the Paki government, for years. They have gotten nuclear weapons, they have proliferated nuclear weapons information and technology, they have been an intel headache, and they have demonstrated serious lack of competence in going after the real baddies. So now Bin Laden gets himself a cozy little nest in the mountains, from which to launch his next attack. Here's to hoping he has a telephone and uses it freely.

[empiresfall]

g510: Well, the soldiers lives ARE worth less than merc lives.

Mercs get upwards of $190 a grand a year, last time I heard. Soldiers get only what, $25k for grunts?

In this new free market military, you're worth what you charge.

Remember that patriotism and morals don't factor into this war, so the fact that the soldiers were bamboozled with appeals to their patriotism rather than their greed means nothing.

Great respect to soldiers. Spit in the dust respect to this corrupt, deceitful administration and their squandering of the lives of the true patriots.

[Tim Lynch]

I have been a contractor for three years now and believe the coverage about our industry wrong. Most contracts I work required a TS clearance for key personnel and rigid DS background checks on all other consultants including the local nationals.

I am a retired Marine infantry officer and am proud of the contributions I have been able to make in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It is my experience that the market weeds out the unfit and unsuited much faster than the military ever could. The market also uncovers those companies which operate poorly and they fade quickly. Sure you have your Custer Battles in Iraq and your WSI’s in Afghanistan but they are not the norm.

I have also been in Afghanistan for two years now - I do have my own company and am currently working more in the GO and NGO market at the moment which does not have the background checks of US Government work.

Now this is an interesting thing for 4th GW fans to contemplate; the advent of companies founded by highly trained former officers like me, with years of in-country experience, and large numbers of local tribesmen trained to western standards (I use the Panjshiers I know others who work with different tribes.) You cannot replace front specific knowledge nor can you train for it – I have twice as much as any officer currently serving over here. My partner has three years on the ground and I know others who arrived in 2001 and never left.

How much easier would it be for us to do the ground fighting? Even at the rates of pay we can make on a high risk gig we would cost pennies on the dollar compared to the expense of deploying a Marine infantry battalion - plus nobody cares when we take casualties. Cheap, effective, no political costs – could the era of real mercenary companies be that far away?

[tim302]

Tim,
Without breaking any confidences, how is the market for PMC services to protect NGOs? My understanding (from friends who do the NGO thing, albeit not in Afghanistan or Iraq) is that they don't really think about security to any extent. is it different where you are? If so, do you think that NGO use of PMC contractors will spread to other areas? What kind of attitudes do you encounter in the NGO community?

Thanks.

[T. Chan]

Has anyone read G. Schumacher's A Bloody Business?

[Tim Lynch]

Tim,
There really is no market for PMC services with NGO’s. We do rudimentary first aid, security and awareness training and also give area security briefs to arriving NGO workers. We also have an informal agreement to provide QRF teams to certain Kabul based NGO’s in the event of civil unrest or similar types of emergencies. We are not paid for these services but do get referrals from some organizations which is the point of doing NGO work in the first place. Governmental Organizations pay well for our services as they all have project deadlines to meet and the security situation here requires most companies to budget from 9 to 11% of their project dollars for security.

The price of ignoring security is steep. One of our sub contractors had the well digging market cornered and, because they became complacent, dispatched their Turkish Engineers without any security to all their current jobs. Their chief engineer was caught and beheaded last week and that has brought a bunch of new projects to a stop because his fellow country men all headed home. There is nobody in country to replace them at the moment. A week of lost construction time over something like sinking a well translates into a ton of money when you consider the number of camp building projects currently awaiting a new well digging subcontractor. That is why the market is shifting to the Governmental Organizations.

We make it a point to be discreet we don’t wear body armor in Kabul, we carry our sidearms concealed and generally try to look like NGO types. Because we are providing important information (for free) we get a positive reception from most of the NGO’s we service. But overall NGO folks and security contractors do not tend to get along or socialize at all. The only place I could see PMC’s and NGO’s cooperating would be in Sudan if PMC’s are brought in to establish a secure environment. You can say what you like about PMC’s but if look at what Executive Outcomes accomplished in Sierra Leone you can see how fast, cost effective, and reliable they can be. Plus they tend not to rape woman, establish child sex rings, or run away from a fight like African Peacekeepers have been doing for decades

[jon s]

"It was fascinating to see the evolution of their role in the theater of operations. At the beginning of my first tour the idea of civilians participating in our mission was unheard of. By the end of my second tour our mission relied so heavily on them, it seemed that we had become little more than security escorts for their convoys.

Whatever affinity I may have for the KBR drivers, I don’t wish to convey a sense of approval for the privatization of military operations. I think that the extent to which multinational conglomerates like Halliburton are benefiting from this war borders on criminal."

Corporal Alex Markey from

http://gnn.tv/articles/2463/GNN_Users_Interview_Iraq_War_Combat_Veteran_Part_I

[Duncan Kinder]

According to the Guardian:

quote:

Dramatic evidence that America is involved in illegal mercenary operations in east Africa has emerged in a string of confidential emails seen by The Observer. The leaked communications between US private military companies suggest the CIA had knowledge of the plans to run covert military operations inside Somalia - against UN rulings - and they hint at involvement of British security firms.

:close quote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Observer/world/story/0,,1868920,00.html

[kevin]

The plot thickens.....(drama!drama!)lol

http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20060910-110944-6549r.htm

http://www.selectarmor.com/

http://www.atstactical.com/