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NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA

The Mercenary Debate Three Views

Deborah Avant, Max Boot, and Jörg Friedrichs & Cornelius Friesendorf

Deborah Avant: Others claim that democracies, once engaged in a fight, are more likely to win since they Private security contracting more carefully calculate the benefits and costs undermines democratic control of action. Perhaps most prominently, of U.S. foreign policy. democratic peace theory is taken virtually as a "law" throughout both government and the n September 2007, armed guards assigned academy. to protect U.S. diplomats and employed These arguments all assume that states fight I by the private security company Blackwa- with made up of theit own citizenry. ter USA opened fire in crowded Nisour Square The past two decades, however, have seen the in central Baghdad. The incident wounded 24 rise of a robust market for private security and left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, including an forces, which can now provide virtually any infant. In the wake ofthe shooting, the press military or security service. Contract personnel erupted with stories about how dependent make up at least half of those deployed to the U.S. military had become on "mercenar- on behalf of the United States—about 190,000 ies", particularly in Iraq. Some of the cover- people as of an August 2008 Congressional age focused on the contractors' aggressive tac- Budget Office (CBO) report. These contrac- tics and how they threaten to undermine the tors provide everything from logistics support campaign to win "hearts and minds" in Iraq. to training for the Iraqi and police, from Other articles concentrated on the lack of ef- guarding buildings and people to conducting fective oversight and legal accountability of interrogations and providing translation, and private security forces. Still others focused on on and on—all duties formerly provided by 's political connections and practic- uniformed soldiers. The number of contractors es. But very few examined the larger question performing duties once provided by the U.S. of what hired guns might do to democratic military is greater than the number of U.S. governance in the United States. troops in Iraq. In recent years, scholars and policymakers The vast majority of these contractors (or have converged on the view that democracy private soldiers) are retired military or police is a key variable for predicting both the in- personnel. Roughly 10 percent are Americans; ternal and external behavior of states. Many the United Kingdom, , Fiji, El argue that political norms favoring non- Salvador and Nepal account for 20 percent, violent solutions and citizen participation in and Iraq itself for roughly 70 percent. They governance make it harder for leaders in de- are employed by some 632 private secu- mocracies to steer the ship of state into . rity companies (PSCs) from many different

32 THE AMERICAN INTEREST AFP/Getty Image A Fijian security contractor patrolling a Baghdad street countries that bid on contracts and hire from cy and public sensitivity to the human costs of databases or through recruiting to fill them. war. When conscription was a feature of U.S. When the contract ends, the personnel move wartime mobilization, constituents were more on to work tor different PSCs fulfilling other likely to pressure their Congressmen to justify contracts. PSCs are more like body shops than . The public demanded accountability as private . They have no standing force the human costs—lives of friends and fam- but recruit once they acquire contracts, act- ily members interrupted or lost—were more ing as matchmakers between personnel with widely distributed. particular skills and contracting governments, By contrast, PSCs recruit people to "do a corporations, non-governmental groups or job" rather than "provide ." other organizations. Those deployed this way can walk away at any time. As noted, they need not be U.S. citizens. efore European states toyed with ideas of They are not organized within congressional Bdemocracy, mercenary armies were com- constituencies and, given that they are often mon. But Enlightenment ideas about the so- not even American citizens or residents, they cial contract, so fundamental to democratic may have little connection to individual Amer- principles, fostered the idea that citizenship icans. So, in theory at least, this arrangement should be connected with military service. weakens congressional incentives to check the Even though different countries have adopted Executive Branch and masks the human costs different levels of obligation, the principle that of war. military service should be performed by citi- This conclusion applies equally to those zens has been almost universal among demo- who provide logistics, training, guard duty or cratic nations. Indeed, this principle upholds any other service that would otherwise be pro- such key features of democracy as constitu- vided by the military. When a soldier dies, we tional checks and balances, policy transparen- do not ask whether he was a supply sergeant or

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 33 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA an infantryman. Both are crucial to the war Once contractors are deployed, it is harder effort, both have died in service to the coun- for Congress to monitor what they actually do. try's goals, and both exact costs from the pub- Many reporting mechanisms to Congress pro- lic treasury. Though we might agree that an vide no data about individual contracts, indi- armed guard faces greater risks than a cook, vidual companies or even whether a particular there is no reason why privatizing one job mission involves troops alongside contractors. rather than the other matters to these demo- Without this information, it is very difficult, cratic processes in a wartime setting. Insofar sometimes impossible, for Congress to assess as privatization limits congressional input and the performance of different companies or the reduces the information available to the pub- policy ends they serve. lic, it diminishes democratic controls over for- Congress may be reluctant to assume con- eign policy. trol over contractors in any event. With little constituent knowledge about the role of PSCs hat's the theory. But how does the use of in Iraq, many in Congress have feh little need Tprivate security conttactors undermine to address the issue. Note that no one in the government checks and balances in practice? debate over bringing "our troops" home has As expected, it empowers the Executive Branch mentioned a word about what to do with the and significantly erodes the power ofthe Con- nearly equal number of private security contrac- gress. Though Congress must authorize the tors. The budgetary and policy implications of deployment of uniformed troops, it need not "gettmg our troops out of Iraq", however, will authorize—or even know about—the de- depend on whether private security forces em- ployment of private contractors, no matter ployed by the United States remain. A decrease what kind of service they provide. Congres- in military force levels might actually mean a sional involvement is important. Think of greater need for private contractors. the debate about President George W. Bush's Congress has taken some steps to gain 20,000-troop surge in early 2007. Contrast greater control over contractors in Iraq in that with the politically invisible mobilization response to the outcry over several egregious of a much larger surge of private soldiers as the events. For instance, after four Blackwater heated up in the spring of 2004. personnel were killed and mutilated in Fal- That the number of contractors deployed by lujah in March 2004, and after the contrac- the United States in Iraq rivals the number of tors CACI and Titan were implicated in the troops has come to pass without any congres- abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, Congress re- sional authorization or input. quired that the Pentagon find a way to keep If Congress puts a ceiling on the number count of the number of private personnel in of troops, the Executive Branch can use con- Iraq, plugged one obvious legal loophole that tractors to exceed it. When Congress caps the prevented the prosecution of contractors al- number of contractors, PSCs can use more leged to have committed abuses at the prison, third-party nationals—just as they did to skirt and issued several other instructions to bring congressional restrictions on the number of contractors under tighter control. Thus far, military advisers and military contractors au- however, these reforms have fallen short of thorized under Plan in 2001. PSCs their goal—as we saw in the aftermath ofthe can also facilitate "foreign policy by proxy", in Nisour Square incident. Individual members which the United States merely licenses a com- of Congress—such as then-Senator Barack mercial exchange between a foreign country Obama (D-IL), Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), and a private security company, providing for and Representatives David E. Price (D-NC), military training without official U.S. involve- Jan Schakowski (D-IL) and Henry Waxman ment. Over the past 15 years, such contracts (D-CA) —have responded with proposals have become common. Private trainers have for additional legislation aimed to increase gone to Croatia, , Nigeria, the transparency and accountability of con- Poland and Uzbekistan, among many other tractors. But even if each of these bills were countries. passed, congressional control over private

34 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE security would still be minimal relative to its they did at those of U.S. military personnel. If control over U.S. military forces. Americans knew more about the use of private Private security operations are much less security contractors in American wars, they transparent than the use of U.S. troops not would likely demand greater accountability only for Congress, but also for the public. The from the President and Congress regarding Nisour Square incident prompted a flood of ar- their use. ticles on Blackwater and other contractors, but absent high profile events, such coverage is rare. olicy analysts often ciaim that the obscu- Even in the immediate days after the shoot- Prity of private security forces reduces "po- ing, the intense media spotlight on Blackwater litical costs", allowing the Executive Branch paled in comparison to the more intense, ongo- to respond more efficiently to security needs. ing focus on U.S. troops. From the beginning It is true: The use of PSCs does make it easier of the war through the first quarter of 2007, to take action without public support. But re- for every one article that mentions private secu- ducing political costs for leaders can increase rity forces, a private security firm or any other the general costs to Americans. reference to contractors or mercenaries in the American leaders are more likely to respond New York Times, there are 47 that mention U.S. to calls for action from a few when they do not soldiers or troops.' need to win popular support for it. So it is not sur- This discrepancy is due in large part to the prising that, despite the absence of a strong peer dearth of information available to the public competitor, the U.S. defense budget—including and the press. There is no central source for the supplemental requests for the wars in Afghan- facts about the activities of private contractors istan and Iraq—is more than 25 percent larger in in Iraq or anywhere else. Indeed, the Pentagon real terms than it was in 1968 at the height ofthe does not even keep track of private security conflict in Vietnam. This amount is as much as deaths. It is only through insurance claims that the combined defense spending of all the rest of we even know that more than 1,200 contrac- the world combined, according to Richard Betts.^ tors have been killed in Iraq. We do not know Betts attributes this, in part, to political leaders' their names, and they are not memorialized in tendency to underestimate the costs of the inter- media coverage like the "honor roll" segments ventions they champion. PSCs both make this on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Finally, ac- possible and provide fallback options when plans cess to information on contracts between the fell shon, as they did in Iraq. U.S. government and private security firms is Relying on PSCs may also afFect U.S. for- limited. Freedom of Information Act requests eign relations. Many ofthe benefits attributed to are frequently denied on the grounds that the democratic governments—their restraint, mili- contracts are with private companies and thus tary effectiveness and peacefulness—are tied to contain proprietary information. the difficulty of taking action. Less deliberation In a recent study funded by the National means more military action. Moreover, it argu- Science Foundation this author found that ably reduces the prudence of U.S. policymakers Americans also view the motivations of sol- in picking the nation s —the attribute that diers and private security personnel differently. makes democratic polities more likely to win the Soldiers are generally believed to be motivated wars that democracies fight. And using PSCs primarily by patriotism, while private soldiers reduces transparency and constitutionalism. are seen as motivated primarily by monetary gain. This doesn't mean people think that pri- This includes the wave of coverage that followed vate soldiers are greedy; on the contrary, most the dramatic killings of Blackwater person- people assume their need must be dire to vol- nel in Fallujah in 2004 and the implication of unteer to fight an unpopular American war— CACI and Titan employees in the Abu Ghraib especially in the case of non-American private abuses. Data and archives are available from soldiers. This might be why many participants the author. in the study expressed just as much anger or ^Betts, "A Disciplined Defense", Foreign Affairs sadness at the deaths of private soldiers as (November/December 2007).

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 35 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA erodmg two factors cited as enhancing the pros- who work in conflict zones more generally? pect for trust among democracies. The United States, as the largest consumer of private military services, would surely have a he demand for private security is unlike- huge influence on the market were it to adopt a Tly to ebb. Though it grew exponentially licensing system. during the , it did not begin with the The newly established "Voluntary Princi- Bush Administration. The private military in- ples on Security and Human Rights", a unique dustry developed and matured in the 1990s, multi-stakeholder initiative supported by the when it was used to meet humanitarian and U.S. government, could aiso serve as a modei peace-enforcement goals that the Clinton for a transnational agreement on private securi- Administration worried the public would not ty. The principles are designed to guide oil and support. The security challenges posed by mining companies in maintaining the safety a globalized world have led to the articula- and security of their operations in developing tion of new goals on both sides of the U.S. countries while also fostering respect for human political spectrum—some requiring the use rights. The United States, along with other In- of military force—that do not fit easily with terested governments, should sponsor a similar the kind of national interest behind which agreement for private security companies, com- the public is easily mobilized. Pursuit of such mitting them to hire only licensed personnel goals may generate "democracy deficits", but and perhaps outlining systems by which af- ignoring them also creates problems—some- fected stakeholders could register complaints. thing the ineffectual international response Watchdog organizations could help monitor to the Rwandan made abundantly and enforce these standards, and journalists clear. If PSCs can play a role in humanitarian could report on them. intervention, many would have no qualms justifying shortcuts in democratic niceties. Finally, publics in the United States and else- where should demand greater information about Sacrificing democratic procedures, however, the work of PSCs, and the media should endeav- is a losing proposition in the end. Political lead- or to provide it. Private security personnel should ers would better serve the public interest by not be presumed evil any more than military working to bring greater democratic control forces are. But the public should demand infor- to the transnational private security industry mation about them. Who are these people? How within the United States and internationally. are they recruited? How are their lives affected Initial steps by President Obama are promising. by the wars they participate in? When are they Overcoming the inevitable challenges, how- killed or injured? When do they kill, and un- ever, will require efforts by Congress, relevant der whose orders? What are their numbers, and agencies in the Executive Branch and coopera- where are they deployed ? When do they enhance tion with other countries (something the U.S. security, and in what circumstances might they government has approached with far too much undermine it? How much do they cost? reluctance in recent years). At the very least, increased scrutiny will alert But action by states will not be enough. the public to the hidden political costs of using Interested parties should also cultivate new PSCs. At the most, it will educate the public transnational tools. Industry organizations in about a new factor in the mix as it evaluates the the United States and the United Kingdom competence of U.S. government leaders and the have proposed voluntary regulation for PSCs, true costs, human and economic, of American but much more could be done to set standards, foreign policy. 'tV not just for companies but for personnel based on the kind of service they provide. At a mini- Deborah Avant is professor of political science at mum, anyone working in a war zone should be the University of California, Irvine, a fallow at the required to have training and be familiar with Pacific Council on International Policy, and au- international humanitarian law. Why not de- thor ofT\\ç^ Market for Force: The Consequences velop international standards for the licensing of Privatizing Security (Cambridge University of individuals who perform armed jobs or those Press 2005).

36 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE

Max Boot: today Iraq after participating in a Persian . By the end of 's stun- Mercenaries are inevitable and, ning campaign of , his army was made if employed wisely, can be up primarily of foreigners, not Macedonians. Hannibal, likewise, scored his great victories eßictive adjuncts of U.S. policy. against Rome in the Second Punic War with ercenaries get a bad rap. The very an army of hired hands. And although the Ro- word has become so anathematized man Empire by the end became ovedy reliant that it is no longer used by those on unassimilated "" for protection, it M thrived for hundreds of years by enlisting for- it describes, practitioners of one of the world's oldest professions. Nowadays they prefer to be eigners as auxiliaries to its legions. called "security contractors" and their employ- The tradition continued into the Middle ers prefer to be known as private military or Ages and the Renaissance, when Italian mer- security companies. This is an understandable cenaries, organized into "companies" and if not entirely logical consequence of the state hired through the condotta (contract) system, monopolization of warfare, which began in the pioneered the very concept ofthe corporation. late 18 century when governments became Some ofthe most feared soldiers ofthe period strong enough to conscript their own citizens were Swiss infantrymen, who were hired in to fight rather than rely on hired "free lances." 1502 to protect the Pope and are still on the The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic job today. The use of contractors reached new Wars seemed to confirm that citizen armies heights in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), were superior to the traditional mix of aristo- when the leading role on the Catholic side was crats and mercenaries employed by the ancien played by Count Albrecht von Wallenstein, a régimes, and before long almost everyone was Gzech-born military entrepreneur who re- emulating the French example. Along the way peatedly bested the forces of Protestant mon- there arose the widespread belief that the use archs. King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden fi- of citizen-soldiers was superior not only prac- nally defeated Wallenstein with a force made tically but also morally; there was something up mostly of German, English and Scottish distasteful, even unethical, about hiring a pro- fighters. fessional soldier, often a foreigner, to fight on Contractors were also important at sea. In- one's behalf. Much better, leaders assumed, to deed, some ofthe most illustrious names in na- force their own civilians to fight upon pain of val history—^Waiter Raleigh, Francis Drake and punishment. This mindset has now become so John Hawkins—were who fought in deeply entrenched that it is easy to ignore the large part for economic gain. Many ofthe ships long and distinguished history of mercenaries, that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 were and their legitimate uses down to the present hired from these independent captains, who in day. turn were given commissions in Queen Eliza- As Peter W. Singer points out in his invalu- beth's service. The United States, for its part, able book, Corporate : The Rise ofthe relied heavily on privateers to fight the Royal Privatized Military Industry (2003), "Hiring Navy during the War of Independence and the outsiders to fight your battles is as old as war it- War of 1812. Well into the 19^'' century, sol- self Nearly every past empire, from the ancient diers and sailors could supplement their meager Egyptians to the Victorian British, contracted wages with "prize money" from seized enemy foreign troops in some form or another." The vessels or looted enemy cities. Greek city-states that founded Western civili- Nor should we forget the important con- zation were heavily reliant on specialized units tribution of foreign mercenaries such as Baron of mercenaries such as Cretan slingers and von Steuben and the Marquis de Lafayette to- Thessalian to supplement their native ward the winning of American independence. hoplites. One of the great classics of literature, Granted, many of these men were concerned 's , chronicles the journey with promoting a good cause, not getting of 10,000 Creek mercenaries through what is rich. But the two need not be in conflict.

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 37 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA

Thousands of British mercenar- ies, mainly unemployed veterans ofthe , fought on behalf of the nascent Latin American republics during their wars of liberation from Spain for a combination of idealistic and avaricious motives. From 1818 to 1822, Chile's navy wa.s led by Thomas Cochrane, a cel- ebrated Scottish captain who is said to have been the model for JackAubrey in PatrickO'Brian's novels. Cochrane later fought with many other foreigners on behalf of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. The "Philheilenes" ofthe 1820i, were mainly motivated by their devotion to classical Greek civi- lization, but they also were paid for their efforts. Cochrane, for one, made a mint from his ad- ventures.

Mercenaries remained im- portant in colonial warfare even after their use declined in Eu- rope. France, Britain and the Netherlands all chartered East 's Italian mercenary, "II " (1480) India Companies that raised their own fleets oi fortune." John Paul Jones, one of our most and armies to carve out empires in Asia. The storied naval heroes, became a Russian admi- British government fmally ended the East In- ral in 1788 after his service in the Continental dia Company's independence following the Navy. Various Indian allies provided invaluable Indian Mutiny of 1857, but Britain continued help for American settlers in conflicts start- to rely on numerous mercenary regiments in its ing with the establishment of the Jamestown own army. The most famous of these were the colony in 1607 and not concluding until the Nepalese , who were first recruited in of Wounded Knee in 1890. During the the early 19 century and continue to serve to Civil War, the Pinkerton National Detective this day. (Visiting a NATO base in Kandahar, Agency provided intelligence for the Union, as , recently, I saw a table full of Gur- well as personal protection for President Lin- khas dining at the mess hall.} France famously coln. The Lafayette Escadrille, a French air won and defended much of its empire with the force squadron in I, was composed polyglot Foreign Legion, which also remains of Americans. Douglas MacArthur, after step- very much in business. ping down as Army Chief of , served in While most of these examples have been the 1930s as a field marshal in the . European, there is nothing un-American about The Flying Tigers, a group of American pilots employing mercenaries. The contributions of led by Claire Chennault, helped Chiang Kai- Lafayette and von Steuben have already been shek to battle Japanese invaders. The Eagle mentioned. But there were many other notable Squadron, a unit ofthe Royal Air Force in the mercenaries in U.S. history, few of whom fit the early days of World War 11, was composed of conventionally negative stereotypes of "soldiers American pilots. And Montagnard tribesmen

38 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE were recruited and organized by the CIA and Somehow these interventions seem illegiti- Army to fight communists dur- mate to some people because they are undertak- ing the Vietnam War. All were mercenaries, en for profit, not patriotism. But what's wrong yet all performed invaluable service. with that? After all, regular soldiers receive sal- ary and benefits; few would serve otherwise. his very brief historical review is not in- This was a point made in a famous 1969 ex- Ttended as a whitewash. It goes without change between Milton Friedman, who favored saying that freelance fighters have committed an all-, and General William numerous abuses. They have often deserted Westmoreland, who wanted to maintain a and sometimes rebelled against their own em- draft. Westmoreland said he did not want to ployers. But the same can be said of native-born command an "army of mercenaries." Friedman soldiers. There is no real reason to assume that interjected, "General, would you rather com- the former have behaved any worse than the lat- mand an army of slaves?" The general drew ter. On the whole, mercenaries provided good himself up and said, "I don't like to hear our service in keeping with the outlook pithily ex- patriotic draftees referred to as slaves." Fried- pressed by the l/^'^-century Scottish soldier of man replied, "I don't like to hear our patriotic fortune Sir James Turner: "We serve our master volunteers referred to as mercenaries." He went honestly, it is no matter what master we serve." on to say, "If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, If they didn't provide good service, after all, they am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a would not have long remained in business. mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we While the use of mercenaries has been in a get our meat from a mercenary butcher."' If, as centuries-long decline, it has experienced a re- Friedman noted, we expect the profit motive to surgence since the end ofthe —a time deliver virtually everything else we need, why when armed forces have declined in size even as should military services be any different? many areas ofthe globe have become more un- stable. Most private military companies today offer logistical, training and other non-combat hinking along those lines in fact led to services, but some do provide armed security Tour present reliance—some might say personnel as well. An even smaller number en- over-reliance—on security contractors. In the gage in offensive military operations. The most 1990s, the George H.W. Bush and Clinton famous of these were the closely linked South Administrations cut the size of U.S. active- African firms Executive Otitcomes and Sand- duty armed forces by a third. To perform line. They are now out ofbusiness, but in their many of the functions once undertaken by heyday in the 1990s they helped the govern- soldiers, they hired private companies such as ments of Papua New Guinea, Liberia, KBR, which won its first Logistics Civil Aug- and , among others, to put down mentation Program (LOGCAP) contract in savage at a time when the rest of 1992. This shift was supposed to bring cost- the world stood idly by. In 1995-96, for in- savings and greater efficiencies, and it proved stance, made short work largely uncontroversial until the war in Iraq. of a rebel movement in Sierra Leone known as No one then anticipated that we would em- the Revolutionary United Front, which was no- ploy 160,000 contractors in Iraq, of whom rorious for chopping off the limbs of its victims. 20,000 to 50,000 would carry guns.^ This As a result. Sierra Leone was able to hold its first massive use of contractors came about not, free election in decades. Another private firm, MPRl, helped to bring peace to the former 'Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People Yugoslavia in 1995 by organizing the Croatian (University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 380. offensive that stopped Serbian aggression. To- 'See my "Accept the Blackv^'ater Mercenaries", day MPRI provides trainers who operate side Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2007, and Peter by side with local poppy-eradication forces in W. Singer, "Sure, He's Got Guns for Hire, but Afghanistan—^a mission that NATO refuses to They're Just Not Worth It", Washington Post, take on. October 7, 2007.

(MAY/JUNK) 2009 39 NATtON-BUtLDING IN AMERICA as some conspiracy-mongers have it, because of tbeir presence. Their subsequent murder George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sought to triggered an ill-fated offensive that upset undermine the Constitution or pay off their carefully laid Marine plans to reduce resis- big business buddies, but because the forces tance in the city. they sent into Iraq were too small for all the In addition, there have been numerous re- tasks thrown their way. The U.S. government ports of contractors overcharging for work or had no choice but to rely on private firms to not delivering what was promised. The Vinnell perform functions, such as safeguarding con- Corporation, for instance, was hired to train voys and dignitaries, that in the past would the Iraqi army in 2003 and did such a poor have been undertaken by soldiers. ¡ob (admittedly for reasons not entirely under This has caused numerous problems that its control) that it set back the entire American have received plenty of attention from the war effort. press and antiwar partisans. These include al- Even when contractors do an admirable legations that hired interrogators were impli- job, there have often been hidden drawbacks. cated in the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in An example is the work of KBR and its affili- Iraq and at the Bagram detention facility in ates in running a string of American military Afghanistan. The most high-profile case cited bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. Encour- by critics was the September 16, 2007 dead- aged by a "cost plus" billing system that has ly shooting in Baghdad's Nisour Square. In imposed little incentive for austerity, they January 2009 the government of Iraq revoked have performed amazing feats of logistics, Blackwater's license to operate in that coun- creating miniature Americas in the middle of try. U.S. prosecutors have also filed charges of a war zone complete with well-stocked gyms, manslaughter against five Blackwater employ- PXs selling large-screen TVs, and dining fa- ees; one Blackwater employee has already pled cilities offering multiple flavors of ice cream. guilty and agreed to testify against his former But the very opulence of these facilities has colleagues. In a bid to escape its notoriety, isolated American troops from the popula- Blackwater Worldwide has now changed its tion and made it harder for them to pacify name to Xe. the country. Whatever happened in Nisour Square (a All these problems are undeniable, but what court must still sort out the facts), there have is the alternative? It is rare to hear the voices been plenty of other instances of contractors in that castigate Blackwater, KBR, DynCorp and Iraq shooting wildly, careening through traffic, their ilk call for a massive increase in the size and causing unnecessary mayhem. This has of the active-duty military. Yet that is what it been the consequence in part of questionable would take to decrease our reliance on con- hiring practices tbat, in the rush to fill burgeon- tractors while maintaining existing military ing requirements, resulted in poorly trained, commitments. As it happens, I favor a large undisciplined gunslingers being set loose in a increase in the size ofthe armed forces. I think war zone. But an even bigger issue has been the the Army needs to grow from its current ac- fact that contractors are paid only to achieve tive-duty strength of around 540,000 soldiers narrow objectives—typically getting a convoy to at least 700,000 soldiers—its size at the end or VIP from point A to point B. Broader coun- of the Cold War. But such a large and costly terinsurgency concerns such as maintaining the increase could not be accomplished overnight, support of the local populace are not on their and even when complete, years from now, it agenda. Thus they are often too heavy-handed would not allow us to banish contractors alto- in protecting their charges, not caring that they gether. As long as we continue to rely on volun- leave hatred in their wake. teers rather than conscripts, we will never have There also have been major coordination enough soldiers to meet every possible need, problems between contractors and military and it will never make sense to assign many personnel. For instance, in March 2004 mundane chores to scarce soldiers when they four Blackwater contractors entered Fallujah could be performed by hired civilians. Ideally, without Marine commanders being aware contractors operating alongside U.S. troops

40 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE would be limited to support functions. Realis- legislation to specify that contractors fall tically, however, we will need to employ private within the Uniform Code of Military Jus- guards too, whether protecting installations in tice as well as civilian law (the Military Ex- the United States or abroad. traterritorial Jurisdiction Act), but there are In a perfect world. Congress would bring questions about whether these provisions will the size of our armed forces into closer align- withstand legal scrutiny. In addition, thete ment with our massive defense commitments. are obvious difficulties in conducting inves- But our legislature, like most democratic leg- tigations and prosecutions in the middle of a islatures, is loath to spend what's needed zone. defense, and it is even more reluctant to con- If we can impose justice on soldiers, how- script its citizens. Yet it also has no desire to ever, there is no reason we cannot impose it on curtail sprawling global commitments that contractors as well. Congress and the Execu- most agree do enhance our security and pros- tive Branch need to devote greater resources to perity. Just as Victorian parliaments stinted on this task—and not only in high-profile cases the size ofthe , forcing reliance on such as the Baghdad shootings by Blackwater. regiments raised in India, so too our Congress One way to do this would be to pass legisla- will never provide enough uniformed person- tion that was approved by the House in 2007 nel to address every perceived need. Indeed, but never voted on in the Senate. This bill, au- demands on the United States are so numerous thored by Congressman David Price (D-NC), and elastic that even if we did have far more re- would have made it easier to prosecute contrac- sources, calls for intervention would still grow tors in Federal courts and would have created faster than we could handle them. Thus, in all an in-theater team of FBI agents to investigate likelihood, we will continue to muddle along possible abuses. Among its co-sponsors was with a mixture of private and public providers then-Senator Barack Obama, who could now of security services. mount a renewed push for such legislation as President. iven that reality, the imperative is not Beyond punishing private personnel for G to vilify contractors, as so many have misconduct, we need to do a better job of in- done, but to figure out how to get better tegrating them with military units. Coordina- value out of them. It is scandalous that only tion has improved in the past few years, but in 2008, after five years of war in Iraq, was more still needs to be done. Malcolm Nance, a the first contractor convicted of a crime—an veteran intelligence operative who has worked Iraqi-Canadian translatot who stabbed a col- as a contractor in Iraq, made an intriguing sug- league. By contrast, hundreds of soldiers have gestion in Small Wars Journal: Create a "force been court-martialed, and there is no reason protection command" within the U.S. mili- to think that contractors are better behaved tary that would be responsible for overseeing than their uniformed counterparts—quite contractor operations. The details need to be the opposite. worked out, but this could be a way to make The problem is that contractors operate in contractors more responsive to the military a gray area ofthe law. Until the conclusion of chain of command. the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement in Another way to enhance accountability late 2008, they enjoyed immunity from pros- would be simply to put contractors into U.S. ecution under Iraqi law. That was just as well, military uniforms. Most American contractors given the corruption and limited capacity of are aiready veterans, but a change in Depart- Iraqi courts in the immediate post-Saddam ment of Defense regulations wouid be neces- period. But it is not clear to what extent they sary to enroll their foreign counterparts. The can be held liable under U.S. law, especially Pentagon has already launched a trial program when they often operate under Byzantine to enlist a thousand foreigners who have vital subcontracting arrangements that obscure linguistic or medical skills that are in short their relationship with the U.S. government, supply in the force today. It would make sense the ultimate paymaster. Congress has passed to expand this effort to sign up more foreign

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 41 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA

recruits (even those with no prior military ex- soldiers of fortune in the post-colonial era gave perience) who would be willing to serve for a their trade a bad name in Africa. More recently set period in return for one ofthe world s most a group of mercenaries led by , a precious commodities: American citizenship. former British SAS officer and co-founder of We could even create a "Freedom Legion", Sandline, has been imprisoned on charges of made up of foreign-born recruits led by Amer- plotting a coup in the oil-rich nation of Fqua- ican officers and NCOs, on the model ofthe torial Guinea. But while mercenaries have a . Such an organization checkered record in Africa, so do United Na- might raise some hackles, but it would be less tions peacekeepers. The blue helmets have been "mercenary" and more accountable than the accused of sex crimes against children, corrup- legions of contractors currently hired on an ad tion and other abuses for which they have re- hoc basis. ceived little if any punishment. A private com- If we manage to increase their accountabil- pany could actually be held to a higher standard ity, we can think about employing contractors simply by inserting language into the contract creatively in some areas where we may not want that would give the International Criminal to send our own troops. Think of Darfur, a hu- Court or a national criminal court jurisdiction manitarian tragedy that has consumed an esti- over its actions. mated 200,000 lives. An African Union peace- Preferably such a force would be dis- keeping force proved ineffective, and its United patched by the United Nations; failing that, Nations successor has not done any better. Yet by NATO, the African Union or some other there is scant chance that the United States international organization; and if that doesn't or our NATO allies will send troops or even work out, by an individual country or group warplanes to provide air cover. There simply of countries. In theory, if the legal issues could doesn't seem to be enough ofa national inter- be resolved, even a private citizen such as Bill est to justify a potentially costly commitment, Cates or George Soros could hire a force to especially at a time when we are fighting major protect Darfur. (A possible precedent is Ross wars elsewhere. So does that mean we should Perots hiring of mercenaries in 1979 to smug- stand by and let the genocide proceed unabat- gle his employees out of revolutionary .) ed? Should we limit our response to passing in- That might, in fact, be one ofthe most use- effectual United Nations resolutions? Not nec- ful acts of chariry that anyone could perform. essarily. Blackwater has publicly offered to stop Would sending mercenaries to Darfur be the the killing for a relatively modest price. There ideal outcome? Of course not. Would it be is little doubt that private security firms that "democratic"? Again, no. But it would be bet- employ veterans from the top Western militar- ter than nothing. ies could accomplish this task mote effectively than any force of blue helmets drawn primarily However uncomfortable mercenaries may from ragtag Third World militaries. So why not make us feel, we need to accept that they have hire them? That idea, which IVe been pushing always been with us and always will be. We for a few years, has been endorsed by no less an can't eliminate them, and stigmatizing them eminence than the liberal political philosopher serves no purpose. So we need to focus on how Michael Walzer.-' to make better use of them. If history is any guide, they can perform exemplary service un- This proposal is stymied in part by its own der the right circumstances. <5^ novelty and in part by the prevalence of anti- mercenary prejudices. Some of these concerns, Max Boot is the jeane j. Kirkpatrick Senior Fel- admittedly, are justified. Even if their exploits low in Ncitionûl Security Studies at the Council were romanticized in such movies as The Wild on Foreign Relations. He is author o/The Savage Geese (1978) and The Dogs o/U^^r (1980), "Mad Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of Mike" Hoare, and other Western American Power (Basic Books, 2002) and War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the -^Walzer, "Mercenary Impulse", New Republic, Course of History, 1500 to Today (Gotham March 12,2008. Books, 2006).

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Jörg Friedrichs n Iraq, the United States has done both too Ilittle and too much. It did too little when it & Cornelius Friesendorf: failed early on to employ soldiers for law enforce- Privatized security cripples state- ment tasks that smacked of policing. It did too much when it disbanded the existing Iraqi army building; Iraq is a case in point. and police. Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo and Af- ghanistan offer clear lessons on the need to close espite the soaring rhetoric of state- o building during the presidency of public security gaps immediately after war. Se- DGeorge W. Bush, state-wrecking is a curity forces familiar with the local terrain are better description of what the Administration needed to protect minorities from attack and actually did. State-wrecking followed differ- shopkeepers from looting. They ate needed to ent trajectories in different countries. The only arrest war criminals and representatives of the common thread among them over the past old regime looking for revenge and self-interested eight years was their sheer inadvertence. Under restitution. They are needed to fight organized the Taliban in the late 1990s, Afghanistan had crime newly emboldened by the chaotic environ- something resembling a state for the first time ment in which they suddenly find themselves. If since the Soviet in 1979. Since the oust- domestic forces are not available or reliable, in- er of the Taliban, the emergence of an effective ternational forces must substitute for them, lest Afghan state has proved frustratingly elusive. the spoilers of peace become entrenched and in- In , after 15 years of failed statehood, cipient state institutions fail to gain legitimacy. there were signs in 2006 that the Islamic Courts This failure to establish order and authority Union might establish control over significant in Iraq was compounded by the delegation of parts of the country. But this was thwarted by public tasks to private actors, including a deliber- a U.S.-backed Ethiopian intervention force. Al- ate U.S. occupation policy of military outsourc- though there arguably were good political rea- ing. Although the exact number of contractors sons for military intervention in both cases, the in Iraq is unknown, in March 2006 the Private rhetoric of state-building is nonetheless belied Security Company Association of Iraq estimated by the unwitting reality of state-wrecking. the number of private security contractors to be But the most daunting case of Bush Admin- more than 48,000. Whatever the precise figure, istration state-wrecking is Iraq. The country it is clear that military outsourcing in Iraq has used to be an autocratic state, and a nasty one dwarfed all previous cases. Private contractors at that. Now, however, despite the hopefulness have constituted the largest deployment except engendered by a reasonably successful election for the U.S. military itself, outnumbering the this past January, it is a state most likely headed troops provided by all non-U.S. partners in the toward systemic failure. allied Coalition combined. There are several reasons for pessimism The main reaction of Iraqis to the destruc- about Iraqs future. The Iraqi state encompasses tion and privatization of public security has a deeply divided society that has historically been to retreat behind the ramparts of com- been held together only by a combination of munal life, with tribal and local pro- ruthless leadership and, during its Hashemite tection rackets providing what Coalition forces era, a trans-sectarian religious authority. But and Iraqi state institutions have been unable then the U.S.-led military intervention decapi- to deliver. With the occupation regime un- tated the Ba'ath regime, and an overambitious derstaffed, previous security forces disbanded but understaffed occupation regime that strove and many core military functions outsourced, officially to transform Iraq into a functioning ordinary Iraqis have been forced into the tu- democracy has instead created a power vacu- telage of local sheikhs. As a result, U.S. policy um that is still unfilled. A key reason for this has unwittingly strengthened armed tribalism vacuum is that the effort to restore the Webe- and private armies based mote often than not rian public monopoly over the legitimate use of force has been obstructed by various forms of 'See David Isenberg, Shadow Force: Private Secu- security privatization.' rity Contractors in Iraq (Praeger, 2008).

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 43 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERia

on sectarian affiliation. To have done this in a country as hetero- geneous as Iraq is to have kicked the struts out from any hope of reassembling a unitary state on the basis of anything other than brute force. Rather than see the strength- ening of tribalism and armed re- ligion as a problem, U.S. policy- makers and pundits have instead touted the virtues of the "Sons of Iraq", the tribal-based "Sunni Awakening" and other forces that have recently created a rela- tive sense of order. These local militias, armed and, until early 2009, financed by the United States, have stemmed the tide of al-Qaeda and checked sectarian violence, true enough. Unfor- tunately, the positive effects of these policies may be short-lived ftetrter A security contractor in Iraq stands in front of a monument and the blowback from them at a mass grave of Saddam Hussein's victims. massive. Iraq's tribal and religious forces may become the raw materials for an all-out civil capacity. Had it not been for contractors, the war once U.S. forces are drawn down beyond Bush Administration would have been forced a capacity to exert political control. Some of to further increase the number of regular forces them could wel! become the or terror- or National Guard and Reserve troops, to con- ists of tomorrow. vince Coalition members to provide more sol- diers, or to reinstate the military draft. Without If we see the situation in Iraq from the wider private contractors, the U.S. military presence perspective of state-wrecking, private security in Iraq would not have been sustainable. The companies (PSCs) such as Blackwater—which Pentagon has therefore welcomed private con- has recently changed its name to Xe in an appar- tractors as force multipliers. ent effort at image spinning—are an important Outsourcing also offers the U.S. military the part ofthe problem. But their presence is ephem- advantage of plausible deniability when things eral; most of their employees will withdraw in go wrong. While soldiers operate under a clear parallel with U.S. troops. The real problem is chain of command, contractors operate under that they will leave a country packed with local murky subconrracting schemes. According to protection rackets organized hy tribal or religious Blackwater President Gary Jackson, some con- strongmen. Communal force inspired by a mix tracts are so secret that the company can't tell of tribalism and rent-seeking behavior may well one Federal agency about the business it is do- turn out to be the most enduring legacy of Oper- ing with another agency.^ Outsourcing has also ation Iraqi Freedom, and it is likely to shape the made it possible to hide the true costs of war. future oí the country for many years to come. Even the total cost to the U.S. government of private security services in Iraq is unknown. Yet ecurity outsourcing is a Faustian bargain for another advantage is that private contractors S the United States as a global power. With tend to make headlines only when they kill or multiple international engagements, the United States is overstretched. In such a situation, the , Blackwater (Nation Books, availability of contractors enhances deployment 2007), pp. 47,261.

44 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE are killed under exceptional circumstances. compassionate power. On the contrary, it levies These "advantages" notwithstanding, secu- a heavy soft-power cost. rity outsourcing carries many problems. Aside from obvious questions about constitutional utsourcing also has significant conse- checks and balances and legal transparency, Oquences for the U.S. military. In theory, outsourcing does not necessarily save money. it allows soldiers to focus on core military tasks. The theory is that outsourcing is economical Indeed, contractors in Iraq have served meals, because contractors can be hired and fired at washed clothes, cleaned cars and performed convenience, without long-term payments for many other tasks that require no military train- social security plans and professional develop- ing. Again: sounds good in theory, but in prac- ment. The reality is that their rates are high tice it is different. Coalition forces have also re- when compared with public sector employees. lied on private contractors for activities close to Indeed, in many cases contractors are former the core of military tasks. During the invasion in public employees, repackaged by private em- 2003, private contractors maintained and loaded ployers and offered at a higher price. systems as critical as the B-2 stealth bomber and Apache helicopters and helped op- Besides, "value for money" has not been the erate the Navy's Aegis missile defense system and main criterion for awarding contracts in Iraq, other sophisticated combat technology. Since with Halliburton providing the most infamous then, they have gathered intelligence, handled example. Its employees were allowed, among de-mining, secured key locations and headquar- other privileges, to stay at the luxurious Kuwait ters, protected critical infrastructure, escorted Hilton Hotel at a rate of about $300,000 per convoys, worked as bodyguards, and continued month.^ As Peter Singer puts it: to maintain and operate weapons systems. Success is likely only if a contract is com- In 2005, an estimated 6,000 foreign con- peted for on the open market, if the winning tractors were involved in armed operations. firm can specialize on the job and build in Escorting convoys, which has been particularly redundancies, if the client is able to provide dangerous, became a core business for private oversight and management to guard its own contractors. Even Paul Bremer, the head ofthe interests, and if the contractor is properly mo- Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), relied tivated by the fear of being fired. Forget these on personal protection from Blackwater. Al- simple rules, as the U.S. government often though contractors are officially barred from does, and the result is not the best of privati- launching offensive operations and other core zation but the worst of monopolization. military tasks, in many cases contractor forces have taken part in combat. Outsourcing has also had a detrimental im- The contractors themselves do not relish pact on the perceived legitimacy of the United this fact, for it threatens to pin the dreaded label States as a global power. On several occasions, "mercenary" on them. They strive to distance private contractors have violated human rights themselves from the "dogs of war" of times past, with impunity—at Abu Ghraib prison, for ex- but the Iraq experience has more often than not ample. Neither U.S. civilian nor military au- closed that distance. It certainly doesn't help thorities have charged any contractors for abus- when British contractors return from their du- es in the prison (while more than a dozen U.S. ties in Iraq to write adventure books with lurid soldiers have been punished). In September titles such as Making a Killing (2007) or The 2007, Blackwater employees protecting State Boys Jrom Bagdad: From the Foreign Le^on to Department staff killed 17 civilians at Nisour the Killing Fields of Iraq (2009). Square, but only in December 2008, after public outrage, did the U.S. government bring Robert Borosage, Eric Lotke and Robert charges against five ofthe contractors. Not just Gerson, War Profiteers (Campaign for Amer- Iraqis but non-U.S. nationals all over the world ica's Future, 2006). know this. This certainly does no good to the •^Singer, "Outsourcing War", Foreign Affairs reputation of the United States as a just and (March/April 2005).

SUMMER (MAY/JUNE) 2009 45 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA

Security outsourcing has not always made companies, while smaller companies have had the life of military commanders in Iraq easier, to compete for the scraps of less lucrative con- either. They have at times gotten bogged down tracts. Rank-and-file salaries are aiso unevenly in complex contractual and costing issues. A distributed. The best salaries are paid to former lack of clarity about the roles and obligations U.S. and British special forces operators, while of contractors has increased their planning bur- otherwise comparable contractors from Third dens and often complicated the implementa- World countries get less. The lowest rates go to tion of operations. In July 2007, retired Cen- locally hired Iraqis. (About a quarter of security eral Barry McCaffrey testified before Congress contractors in Iraq have come from the devel- that military outsourcing had turned the U.S. oped world, another quarter from developing logistics system into a "house of cards." Troop countries, and about half have been Iraqis.) morale in Iraq, too, has reportedly been under- Military outsourcing also leads to a re- mined by the fact that contractors are often paid allocation of personal risks from employers to more than soldiers performing similar rasks. employees. Profit logic dictates "cutting cor- Furthermore, outsourcing drains the military's ners" to lower costs. This leaves contractors in a personnel resources, particularly for elite forces. vulnerable position when in harms way. By the Many have left the Army to work for PSCs. As fall of 2008, almost 1,300 contractors {armed one former marine put it, "the was an all- and unarmed) had lost their lives in Iraq since expenses-paid training ground to graduate me the invasion, while almost 10,000 had been into the private sector."^ The outsourcing phe- wounded.^ Risks are high not least because nomenon thus generates a bidding contest of military personnel do not feel as obliged to res- sorts. To improve retention rates, military plan- cue contractors as they do their fellow soldiers. ners must offer better financial and educational incentives. The taxpayer pays the tab. ut the biggest losers already, and into the The unpopularity of private contractors B future, are bound to be Iraqis. Due to the among Iraqis is yet another serious problem, failure of the occupying powers to establish although it is hardly surprising given the inad- public order, Iraqi society has experienced a cat- equacies in their vetting and selection processes. astrophic trifurcation. Those who are wealthy Contractors operating in Iraq have included in enough can purchase a modicum of security in their ranks, among others, veterans from repres- the emerging private market; those with access sive regimes and special forces dropouts or ex- to social networks have become clients of local pellees. Since the success of sheikhs and their milirias; those excluded from hinges on winning "hearts and minds", it doesnt both wealth and social networks either live in help when private contractors that give the ap- permanent danger or have become refugees in pearance of having been "made in the USA" be- Jordan, Syria or internally in Iraq. have like obnoxious bullies. Iraqis learned quick- The Iraqi elite have had the largest number ly that private contractors are virtually immune of choices. Until recently, many found refuge in from prosecution and so are far more likely than the heavily fortified Creen Zone. The inhabit- U.S. soldiers to shoot at you if you run away or ants of this huge gated community, also called display any suspicious movement. "The Bubble", were emotionally and physically separated from the rest ofthe population. Oth- t first glance, private contractors seem to be ers bought private protection, living in heavily Athe biggest winners of military outsourcing, guarded fortresses that they only leave when ac- but that depends on how you look at it. Thanks companied by a convoy of armed bodyguards. to cronyism, the owners and top managers of some PSCs have gained enormous power and ^Quoted in Orviile Schell, "Baghdad: The Be- wealth, making it tempting to speak of their sieged Press", New York Review of Books, April role in Iraq as the "Coalition of the Billing", as 6, 2006. Singer puts it. But fmancial gains have been un- ^"Iraq: Key Figures since the War Began", Associat- evenly distributed. U.S. agencies have pumped ed Press, March 3, 2009; Peter W. Singer, "Out- billions of dollars into the coffers of a few large sourcing the Fight", Forbes, May 6, 2008.

46 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE MERCENARY DEBATE

Both choices have played into the hands of in- lizers have all been caught in the same dilemma: surgents and terrorists, whose goal has been to Since they cannot rely on Iraqi police or military prevent the forging of bonds between "collabo- forces to protect thetn, they must play the same rators" and the rest ofthe Iraqi population. game as the Iraqi elite. That means they have to These choices have also significantly re- spend scarce resources on security, tough it out, tarded the building of Iraqi national security or pull out. Hiring private protection can devour institutions. Due to the increased demand for more than half an NGO's budget, and it places high-end security services, it is not surprising a barrier between NGOs and their clients. It also that Iraqis trained for military service prefer sends a signal that somebody in the oi^nization employment in commercial security to join- is important enough to be kidnapped or killed. ing the Iraqi military or police. This is likely The Iraqi "collaborators" protecting expatriate to get worse, not better. To fill the void after staff become additional targets. Yet renouncing the of the international military private protection is not a viable option. Various and contractor presence, the indigenous private charitable workers have paid with their lives for security industry is likely to grow. International trying to do so. Many NGOs have left Iraq, while oil companies, fiercely competing to tap the others have never entered the country. Whatever world's third-largest oil reserve, will be among they choose, NGOs are damned if they do and the main customers. damned if they don't. The situation is similar for tribal militias. The situation is likely to remain even more Since 2007, when Sunni militias were put on difficult for journalists. The dismal security sit- the payroll of the U.S. government under the uation and cost of private security have driven label of "Concerned Local Citizens" (later re- many journalists out of Iraq or prevented them named "Sons of Iraq"), these deputized local from entering the country in the first place. As protection rackets ran their own prisons and a result, the public has had to rely on fewer and armies inside neighborhoods surrounded by fewer information sources. High levels of vio- high concrete walls. Now the Iraqi government lence have put large media outlets at an advan- is taking control ofthe "Sons of Iraq" from Co- tage. One journalist, describing the situation alition forces. A fifth is to join the Iraqi mili- in 2006, wrote that news bureaus in Baghdad tary and police, while the othet four-fifths have were been promised other government jobs. Howev- er, when Coalition forces leave, many "Sons of fortified installations with their own mini- Iraq" will stick to their guns and vie for money armies of private guards on duty twcnry-four and power. They will compete for the control hours a day at the gates, in watch towers, and of streets and neighborhoods, and they will be around perimeters. To reach these bureaus, ready to turn against central authorities if that one has to tun through a maze of checkpoints, proves more advantageous than working with armed guards, blast-wall fortifications, and them.' Coalition policy will have set the stage concertina-wired no-man s lands where all vis- for gang warfare on a national scale. itors and their cars are repeatedly searched.^ In the meantime, Iraqis who have neither the means to purchase commercial security nor Although the situation has improved, dramatic protection ftom local strongmen suffer more and serious journalistic work is still very dan- from bombings, sniper attacks and raids. In- gerous in Iraq. According to the Committee sofar as security depends on access to financial to Protect Journalists, 11 ofthe 41 journalists resources or social networks, the poor and mar- killed on duty during 2008 died in Iraq (down ginalized will remain trapped in a desperate sit- from 32 out of56 in 2006). uation. Outside fortified areas of privilege, life Small investors are also having a hard time. in Iraq will be very cheap. Those unable or unwilling to afford protection

he privatization of security in Iraq also ham- ''See Steven Simon, "The Price ofthe Surge", For- Tpers the operations of NGOs, independent eign Affairs (May/June 2008). media and small investors. These non-state stabi- »Schell, "Baghdad."

SUMMER (MAY/JUNK) 2009 47 NATION-BUILDING IN AMERICA by private firms or local militias have been mar- On balance, therefore, the consequences of ginalized. An entrepreneur in Baghdad com- private and communal force in Iraq have been plained in May 2007 that, in order to start a proj- negative. There are more losers than winners in ect in a neighborhood controlled by the Mahdi the short term, the advantages ate highly debat- Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, he first had to pay able, and, except for a few interested individuals, the Sadrists.** The reconstruction of Iraq has thus there are no long-term winners. Short-term win- been dominated by a few large firms. Iraq's main ners have included the Bush Administration, infrastructure provider, Bechtel, has received the bigger PSCs, lai^e companies in the extrac- protection from DLS and its parent company tive and construction sectors, tribal leaders and ArmorGroup. General Electric has used the ser- other strongmen, and insurgents thriving on vices of Olive Security and Custer Battles. Eri- social disintegration. Losers include U.S. and nys provided most ofthe 14,000 armed guards allied military commanders, who are bogged who protected oil wells in 2004. Although this down by the need to interpret contorted sub- increases costs, large companies (typically in the contracting schemes and are deprived of quali- extractive and construction sectors) can live and fied personnel; common people living in Iraq; even thrive under such conditions. For smaller humanitarian workers; independent journalists; firms, however, security costs, and thus produc- small investors unable or unwilling to pay for tion costs, have become prohibitively expensive. private security; and Iraqi institutions grappling to establish a public monopoly of force. Competition is thereby limited. This is problem- atic not only because it affects consumer prices Advocates of military outsourcing like to and the competitiveness of the Iraqi economy, point to recent changes In Iraq that allegedly but also because the displacement of small- and correct past errors. In June 2008, a private con- medium-sized enterprises has endangered social tractor was convicted by a U.S. military court development and economic growth. under the Uniform Code of for offenses committed in Iraq. This is the first time or the aspirant Iraqi state, private and com- since Vietnam that a non-member ofthe armed Fmunal security is thus a double-edged sword. forces has been prosecuted under military law. It alleviates short-term pressure, but it forestalls And last year's revisions to the Status of Forces the emergence of an effective public monopoly of Agreement mean that employees of companies force. Many of the most capable personnel join such as Xe, née Blackwater, may lose their im- militias or the private sector, sending the wrong munity from prosecution by Iraqi courts. signal to Iraqis: namely, that loyalty is owed not None of this will solve the basic problems to the country but to whomever can pay a de- inherent in outsourcing security, however. The cent salary. It thus foils efforts to establish a le- best solution is the determination not to rely on gitimate public monopoly of force in Iraq. The private force in a war zone. If that requires a emergence of viable national political institutions larger military, so be it. If that requires instead is extremely unlikely under such circumstances. the United States to scale back its commitments While states are supposed to protect citizens no and aspirations, so be it. But one way or an- matter their financial and political clout, private other, matters need to be brought into balance, security companies and local sheikhs protect se- for private security contracting simply does not lectively. Communal force is particularly prob- suffice as a way to avoid the hard choices. Its lematic in that sooner or later the empowerment benefits are either specious or fleeting, and its of local strongmen is bound to ignite further sec- costs are massive and manifest. Of all the les- tarian and internecine violence. Supporting com- sons ofthe Iraq war, this is perhaps the clearest mercial security and local sheikhs encourages the one of all. iv illusion ofthe quick fix at the expense of sustain- able state- and nation-building. Jörg Friedrichs is assistant professor at the Depart- ment of International Development at the Univer- "See International Crisis Group, "Iraq's Civil War, sity of Oxford. Cornelius Friesendorf is fellow at The Sadrists and the Surge", Middle East Re- the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of port. February 7, 2008. Armed Forces (DCAF).

48 THE AMERICAN INTEREST