Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate Use of Force

Centro Militare di Studi Strategici - Roma Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate Use of Force

Anna Leander (University of Minho Portugal)

Introduction p. 7 1. The context of the study: three debates about the state and the regulation of the use of force 8 2. Differentiating states: a focus on Western states 12 3. State regulation of the use of force: authority and control 14 4. State authority relations and Private Military Companies 19 5. The framework of analysis 21 6. Outline of the Study 24

I Contextualizing Private Military Companies

1. A Historical Perspective on Private Military Companies: Breaking the Privatisation and Nationalisation Trend 29 1. Private military companies more than a fashionable illusion 30 2. State authority and the trend towards centralisation and nationalization 35 2.1 Spatial control over the use of force 36 2.2 State control over production and allocation of force 39 2.3 State control over the military institution 40 3. Revisiting the importance of centralised national control for state authority 42 Conclusion 47 2. Private Military Companies Today: The Commodification of Military Services and its Limits 49 1. From the private military sector to the market for force 50 2. The firms’ activities: providers, consultants and support firms 55 3. The contracts and the clients 59 4. Official regulation 66 Conclusion 70

5 II The Impact of PMCs on State Authority

3. State Authority I: The Military and Private Military Companies p. 75 1. Contractors on the battlefield 76 2. The contract culture and public soldiers 84 3. Evaluating the past and planning for the future 90 Conclusion 94 4. State Authority II: Democratic Politics and Private Military Companies 97 1. Democratic control of privatisation 98 2. Cultivating Contacts 104 3. Prioritising private efficiency and technology 108 Conclusion 115 5. State Authority III: International Society and Private Military Companies 117 1. The direct international authority of private firms 118 2. Redefining interests in international society 123 3. The Standing of Non-State Actors 129 Conclusion 135

Conclusion 137

Annexe: A History of Regulation of Private Military Companies (PMCs) 145

References 153

6 Introduction

This study probes the question of how the rise and development of private military companies (PMCs1) is affecting the authority of Western states to define and regulate the use of force. It is an inquiry into the extent to which private military companies are merely “tools” in the hands of the state, as often assumed. It is an inquiry into the extent to which the delegation of tasks to private actors also entails a privatisation of authority. It is an attempt to think about a link whose existence is often denied. In a typical vein one observer writes:

most would argue that the power to authorise and delegate the use of military force should remain with states, preferably at the level of the UN Security Council. But once agreed, exactly what or who is deployed is less important – the issue then is to find the most effective and least costly alternative (Shearer 2001: 30).

This report asks whether cost effectiveness is really the issue at stake and whether who is deployed is of limited importance. The political intuition it departs from is that who “is deployed” matters a great deal. It is absolutely essential for governments, for armed forces and for citizens not only to ask “what is most effective and least costly” alternative. They also need to ask what consequences different alternatives have for the authority over the use of force (and more specifically the state monopoly on the legitimate use of force). The aim of this study is first and foremost to spell out the lines along which such questions have to be asked and discussed. It will rely extensive-

1 PMCs will be used in this report to include provider, consulting and logistics firms working with military matters (borrowed from Singer 2003; also International Consortium of Inves- tigative Journalists 2002a). A more detailed discussion of this definition and of the substantive activities of present days PMCs is found in chapter 2.

7 ly on examples and empirical argumentation from real existing cases in order to do this. The aim is not to provide the answer to what kind of public/private division is best, and even less is it to say that state authority over the use of force in its present form is a value in itself to be safeguarded at any cost. These are profound political issues on which no agreement can rea- sonably be expected. The point is to show that “delegation” to private firms really does raise issues of state authority and to urge that this “privatisation of authority” receive more explicit attention and be subject to more con- scious debate at the level of the armed forces, governments and international institutions. This introduction will clarify precisely how and why the question about the relationship between delegation and privatisation of authority is raised and how the study will treat it. It has the dual aim of explaining the focus and the logic of the study to follow. The introduction will therefore first point out that the question draws its general relevance and interest from its framing within an ongoing discussion about eroding/evolving sovereignty, post-modern wars, state authority, and new medievalism. It will then proceed to argue that to move forwards in this discussion, it is important to avoid a focus on states in general. This study will do this by focusing exclusively on Western states. Third, it will argue for the importance of disentangling questions surrounding authority and questions surrounding control when it comes to reflecting on the legitimate use of force, and more specifically it will explain why the focus in this study is on authority and how it will be understood. Howev- er, forth it is obviously important to underline the scope and limits of a study of the impact of private military companies on state authority. While such a study is important in and of itself because of the intense current political discussions about privatisation, it cannot explain changing state authority on its own. Keeping this general caveat in mind, it becomes possible to set up a framework of analysis and to explain the outline of the study to follow as the two last sections of the introduction do.

1. The context of the study: three debates about the state and the regulation of the use of force

This study is inscribed in the overall discussion concerning the evolving nature of the state, and more particularly in the part of that debate which deals with the use of force. Over the past two decades the future (or end) of the state has become a central, if not the most central topic of discussion in political sci-

8 ence and International Relations (IR2), and it is to this discussion that the present study addresses3. Although the role of the state in relation to the legitimate use of force has been a stepchild in this overall debate, there is and has always been some interest in the issue. It is striking how little space is devoted to the question of the relationship between the state and the use of force in the otherwise very rich and varied literature debating whether or not the state is at present retreating and – if yes – where we should look to explain and understand this retreat. The “globalisation debate”, which has fuelled much of the current interest in the future of the state, has above all been skewed towards economic and sociological issues (Le- ander 2001a and b; Guillen 2001; Scholte 2000). Consequently, whereas discussions about the future of the welfare state, the future of democracy, the future of economic and monetary policies or the future role of the state in the shaping judgements about identities and justice loom large in the literature, interest in the use of force is rather sparse. Most general surveys of the future of the state devote little or no space to the issue. Scholte’s introduction to Glob- alization spends a total of 2,5 pages on the question (pp. 208-211) as the bulk of the chapter on (In)Security is used to discuss the ecological, economic and identity related aspects of security. Those who do pay attention to the issue often deal with one part of the issue such as arms trade (Held et al.) or treat it indirectly through e.g. the impact of identity politics (Castells) (Held, McGrew et al. 1999; Castells 1996b; Scholte 2000)4. Even if there are signs that the situation might be evolving, as 9/11 and the growing emphasis on military affairs and violence are touching also the debate about the state and globalisation (e.g. Muthien and Taylor 2002; Pugh 2002). The issue of security is only emerging in a debate that is already mature in many other areas. To say that in the overall picture of the debate about the future of the state, the question about its relationship to the use of force plays a rather limited role is not to claim that nothing is written on the issue. On the contrary there are at least three partly overlapping discussions about the evolving role of the state in regulating the use of force: the debate about the implications of “post-modern warfare”, the debate about “multilayered governance and

2 The standard practice of distinguishing between International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline and international relations as a political practice will be followed in this report. 3 The literature on the topic is enormous and these are just indications of key contribu- tions to a wide and far-reaching debate covering a number of areas (Bauman 1998; Castells 1996a; Evans 1997; Crouch and Streeck 1997; Habermas 1998; Hirst and Thomson 1995; Kras- ner 1999; Ougaard and Higgot 2002; Strange 1996). 4 For a more elaborate articulation of this complaint see Clark (1999).

9 democracy” and the debate about the development of “New Medievalism”. These debates delineate the field where the evolving role of the state in regulating the use of force is discussed and will hence provide the basis for my discussion of these relations (chapters 4-6 are structured around them). The introduction returns to this below. For the time being it merely wishes to underline their existence and distinctiveness. First, in IR there is a long-standing discussion about the prospect of a “new medievalism” developing5. The discussion concerns the likelihood that the international system will change so that states will come to share the authority to control and regulate the use of force with a whole range of other actors such as firms, religious organisations, political movements, non-governmental organisations and supranational institutions (i.e. non-state based institutions at the international level). The crucial dividing line in the discussion separates those who argue that the existence or emergence or growing importance of non-state actors is producing such a new medievalism and those who claim that states remain the “primary actors” in international relations, in the sense that their role in the international system depends on states recog- nising and accepting this role. The latter position is well illustrated by Wendt. He argues that “states are the dominant form of subjectivity in contemporary world politics this means that they should be the primary unit of analysis for thinking about the global regulation of violence” (1999: 9)6 and who extends this argument to claim that they must also remain so (2003). A second line of discussion, which is present in IR as well as in political science more broadly, focuses on the extent to which governance (including of the use of force) is increasingly “multilayered” – that is taking place not only at the level of the central state but also in other supranational, regional and sub-national levels and involving not only state but also other actors7. This discussion is not primarily interested in the implications of this for the nature of the international system and for how force is regulated internationally. Instead it focuses on the implications for political governance within countries and on the what the implications are for the balance between different kinds of democratic institutions and actors. Focus is on the extent to which the inside/outside separations in political thinking are changing and possibly becoming de- funct and how this is affecting (not primarily the international system but) the

5 The term stems from Hedley Bull. For an overview of the discussion on the topic see Friedrichs (2001). 6 This is a classical argument made amongst others by Aron (1962); Bull (1977). 7 Key participants in this discussion are Habermas (1998); Lipschutz (2000); Linklater (1998); Held and McGrew (2002); Kaldor (1999b).

10 nature of democratic national politics. The dividing lines in this debate op- pose those who believe that fundamental changes have taken place (e.g. Pugh 2002) in the way that we understand the role of the inside/outside division for governing the use of force and those who believe that present changes are not significant, are argued to be important against the background of a “statist conceit” (Lacher 2003) and at the most mark the latest reformulation of sovereignty which has at any rate never been more than an “organised hypocrisy” (to borrow Krasner’s (1999) term). Finally there is a third discussion which directly tackles the question of how the role of the state in relation to violence, namely a discussion which focuses on the question of the changing nature of warfare and the development of what some would term “new wars” or “post-modern” wars8. The contentious issue here is neither the nature of the international system, nor the nature of sovereignty but the nature of war and particularly the role of states in wars. The dividing line in this discussion therefore separates observers according to their views on the nature of war. On the one hand, some indeed think that the nature of present day wars is “new” (Kaldor) or “post-modern” (Duffield) as the role of states has become far more marginal than in classical wars, wars are not waged primarily between armed forces which have become “irrelevant” (van Creveld), and the distinction between civilians and armed forces is becoming increasingly blurred. On the other hand, there are many observers who see the developments as a continuation of the situation in classical wars which have always been far less stylised than implied by the Clausewitz- ian image of the duel as the ideal type of warfare. The newness of the present trends, they would argue, is vastly exaggerated (Gray 1999; Schweller 1999). There is literature on the evolving role of the state in regulating the use of force which the current study will draw and comment on. It is particularly useful to rely on the insights gained from this literature to set up and focus the present discussion about the impact of private military companies on the role of the state in regulating and defining the legitimate use of force. The next sections will deal primarily with the restriction and justification of the focus which the study will have.

8 Key figures in this debate include Duffield (1998); Guéhenno (1998-99); Kaldor (1999a); van Creveld (1991); van Creveld (1999).

11 2. Differentiating states: a focus on Western states

The following study is focused on the impact that private military companies have on Western States. A key reason for this is that in the debates about the evolving nature of the state and its role in regulating the use of force, it is obvious that if the discussion is to move forward it is important to move beyond the commanding heights of generality implied in discussions of the State with capital S. Instead, it is necessary to accept that even if states have been considered one breed in parts of IR and political theory, they probably never were, and seem to be decreasingly so in theoretical thinking and even less so in political practice, and to say anything meaningful about the impact private military companies have on states, it is necessary to work with this differentiation (Sørensen 2001). Students of IR, politics and the military are brought up to read a number of classical texts where states are taken very much for granted and understood to be one common thing. Of course, few authors at any time or in any place have denied that states have varied considerably in practice. Their institutions and forms of rules have varied as have their actual policies, not to mention all kinds of attributes such as their economic and social structures and the nature of their interaction with the international system. However, the importance of these variations have conventionally been down played. In IR states have been considered “like units”, that is fundamentally equal from the point of view of the international system. In political theory, “the state” is discussed as if differentiations did not matter or could be introduced at a later stage. However, this kind of undifferentiated treatment of “the state” is widely contested and, as it is clear that the expression state covers an enormous variety of rather different things, it is important to recognise and study the changing meaning of “the state”. “Constructivists” have made and repeated the point that the meaning of the state has changed enormously in history. Discourse analysts of different brands have made clear that the meaning of terms has evolved enormously as has its space in political discourses (Bartel- son 2001; Weber 1995; Walker 1993). Sociologists have shown that historically states have evolved according to different paths for different reasons and that relatedly their regulation of the use of force has varied correspondingly (Badie and Birnbaum 1983; Leander, Anna (2004a); Reus-Smit 1999; Tilly 1985; Thomson 1994). In addition to this, it is increasingly accepted that the nature of “states” varies in space (Malmvig 2002). The role of states in regulating the use of force can and does vary enormously. States are not (and

12 arguably have never been) “like units” from the point of view of the international system. The most tangible expression we have of the acceptance that states are very different in just about any sense we can think of is well reflected in the increasing use of adjectives whenever the word state is invoked. States are no longer simply States, they are rogue, failed, quasi, democratic, legitimate, militarised, elite-based, post-modern, pre-modern, modern etc. depending on what aspect of statehood one is interested in. The insight that states are not of one kind but should be differentiated is of fundamental importance for any discussion of the role of the state in relation to the use of force. Also in their regulation of the use of force on their territories, states vary enormously. At one extreme of the spectrum (West- ern) states claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, armed forces are largely under national control and even if there are of course always pock- ets where private control of force enjoys a greater or lesser legitimacy (e.g. the Napolitan Camorra or the “Bandidos” of Jutland). At the other extreme of the spectrum, states have ceased to practice, and possibly even to claim, control over the use of force on their own territory. A key insight derived from the study of “warlord politics” in some present day African states, is precisely that in contexts where the private, economic interest has replaced the public political, rulers have neither the capacity to nor the interest in claiming control over the use of force on their territories (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, and Nigeria are the case studies in Reno’s (1998) work). Rather alliances with other “warlords” may be the way rulers shape political orders. In this sense “the definition of the state is the opposite to that of We- ber, it rests on external recognition not on internal capacity to monopolize violence” (Reno 1998: 6). Since the states vary so enormously in their regulation of the use of force, it is impossible to discuss the impact of PMCs in the two kinds of state (and there is a large spectrum of variation between the two extremes) at the same time. This study deals with the necessity to differentiate by focusing the discussion on Western states by which is intended states in Western Europe and North America. This focus reduces the complexity of dealing with states that regulate the use of force in widely diverging ways. It would nonetheless be a great exaggeration to claim that PMCs play a similar role in Western states. Some countries (the US, UK, France) are traditional home countries of mercenaries, and many PMCs are now established on their territories. Other countries have no particularly strong mercenary tradition and are home to few or no PMCs (Finland, Spain)9. Similarly, the trends to privatise and outsource military services (and hence rely on PMCs) also vary widely. While the US,

13 Canada and the UK have proceeded very rapidly to privatise, continental Eu- rope has been more hesitant in relying on private companies (Edmonds 1998; Lovering 1998). This implies that it cannot be assumed that PMCs have similar roles in the different contexts. The idea is therefore not to compare the effect of PMCs in different states. Rather the idea is to draw on the experience of the states that have gone furthest down the road of privatisation to discuss the impact of privatisation on state authority in states that are relatively similar in their claims to exercise authority over the use of force.

3. State regulation of the use of force: authority and control

This study is focused on the authority of states to regulate force rather than on their control over the use of force. Again this choice is motivated by insights that are derived from existing discussions. These discussions show both the importance of distinguishing between authority and control and the significance of focusing on authority. Control and authority are two distinct, albeit partly overlapping, aspects of the role of the state in regulating the use of force. Control is about the capacity to effectively regulate the way that force is being used. It is about the capacity of rulers to make sure that force is not used by anyone who is not sanctioned by the state. It is about rulers’ capacity to prevent “terrorists”, “criminals”, other states or for that matter policemen or the soldiers from acting against their interests and order. Authority on the other hand is a matter of having a recognized right to engage in a specific activity (Kras- ner 2001: 7). In classical thinking, this recognised right to engage in a specific activity was supposed to stem not from coercion, but to “from the capacity of certain persons to evoke from others a voluntary submission to acts and opinions over and above the compelling force inherent in those acts and opinions themselves.” (Krieger 1977: 251). Following this line of thought Arendt e.g. explains that the sign of authority is that it commands adherence without per- suasion or coercion (Arendt 1958: 112). That is “to remain in authority requires respect for the person or the office” (Arendt 1969: 45). Similarly according to Hall and Bierstecker,

9 Individuals have engaged themselves from all countries concerned and – as will become clearer below – the term PMC can cover firms engaging in a rather wide range of activities.

14 What differentiates authority from power is the legitimacy of claims of authority. That is, there are both rights claimed by some superior authority and obligations recognized as legitimate on the part of subordinates or subjects to that authority. Having legitimacy implies that there is some form of normative, uncoerced consent or recognition of authority on the part of the regulated or governed (Hall and Bierstecker 2002: 5).

On this rendering, authority was “an independent idea, lying between power and freedom in the spectrum of human relations; it was a pressure upon men to conform in ways to which they could not be ordered or compelled by the possessor of power and in things to which they did not freely consent or contract for good reasons or adequate compensation” (Krieger 1977: 252). This classical idea however coexists with a specifically modern idea of authority where the uncoerced and voluntary aspect disappears (Hurd 1999; Onuf and Clinck 1989; Raz 1990a). With the early modern thinking, the development of the idea of sovereignty and of the modern state, the concept of authority also developed. Politics was elevated to the sphere of regulating conflicts between other spheres. In this process, the state was also theorised as legitimate in its exercise of power. Authority was centralised in one institution. It was no longer a matter of freedom and authority, but of freedom or authority, anarchy or authority (Onuf and Clinck 1989). In a gradual process, political thinking about authority ceased to see it as dependent on consent and instead became tied to the idea of power and state power in particular. As Krieger explains: “In its later stages the idea of authority has come predominantly to mean the acknowledged capacity of certain persons to evoke from others submission to imposed acts and opinions by any means whatsoever.” It is important to be aware that these two meanings of authority coexist (and are often confused) in contemporary political discussions and thinking. Some authors (e.g.Arendt 1958) have argued forcefully for a return to classical thinking about authority. Others have adopted it without discussing the modern alternative (e.g .Hall and Bierstecker 2002). In this paper, I will keep both meanings open in the discussion. One reason is general and related to the fact that it would seem to be very problematic to engage in a process which makes it necessary to distinguish “voluntary” and “forced” consent. A century and a half of psychological and sociological thinking has taught us about the difficulties of relying on the “free will” in abstraction of its constitution at the individual (the development of psychoanalysis) and social (the development of sociology) level (Bourdieu 1994). A second reason, is that it seems particularly problematic to assume with reference to the use of force the retainment of the idea that authority is based

15 on voluntary consent and legitimacy. It is problematic (not to say impossible) to assert that state monopolies on the legitimate force ever originated in voluntary consent. Violence, overt (Tilly 1985; Tilly 2003) and/or symbolic (Braud 1993), has been and continues to be a central part in establishing and maintaining authority over the use of force. It would appear morally and historically unacceptable not to leave room for the recognition of this. However, even if authority will hence be dealt with as something a person or an institution is bestowed with (independently of why this is so), it is still useful to retain that it is not the same as control. Even if there are close links between authority and control, they do not necessarily go together. Con- trol might eventually bestow the controller with authority. This is certainly one way of reading the classical account of state building where private rulers, who (privately) control the use of force, eventually end up with the authority to exercise a public monopoly on the use of force (Elias 1998/1939: 268.312; Tilly 1990). Inversely diminishing authority might make control more difficult. This is at the heart of Holsti’s discussion of “the state dilemma” where he argues that weak and illegitimate states have to impose their rule by force which further weakens their authority and leaves the opposition little or no choice but to protest the rule by using force. This in turn, according to Holsti, is the main explanation for the current “state of war” (1996). However, this co-variation of authority and control is by no means a necessity. An armed movement (or a state) might effectively control the use of force in one area but not have authority (that is a recognised right) to exert this control or vice versa. For example, the RUF’s relatively effective territorial control in parts of Sierra Leone in the 1990s was by all accounts not matched by its authority. Foreign and national civilians in the area, political movements and leaders in neighbouring regions and states as well as the foreign leaders did not see it as a legitimate authority. In North Timor the situation was in- versed for a long time: the Indonesian state had a control over the use of force but on most accounts authority was rather with the FRELIMO independence movement. There is also no guarantee that authority and control will co-vary over time. Authority might lead to control (as on East Timor) but the inverse might also be the case. For example, control over the use of force in Germany and Japan following the end of the second world war was fundamental for founding the democratic authority of the states to become. This is also the point Krasner makes when he claims that the four meanings of sovereignty“ are not logically coupled, nor have they co-varied in practice”: a loss of inter- dependence ofsovereignty (only about controlling cross borders flow) does not necessarily lead to a loss of Westphalian or international legal sovereignty

16 (only about the authority rule on the national territory or to act as a state internationally). Picture Jackson’s idea of Quasi states (1990). Arguably, the conflation of authority and control is at the origin of considerable degrees of discussion at cross purposes and misleading disagreement about whether the role of the state in relation to the use of force is changing or not. For example, an author interested primarily in control will consider significant non-state challenges to the state monopoly on the use of force a sufficient argument to show that fundamental changes are going on. For an author focusing mainly on authority this is the case only if these challenges entail a change in the authority of the state, define and regulate the use of force: concretely for the former the criminalization of warfare (e.g. in relation to the diamond trade) or territorial control by guerillas (e.g. the FARC) are themselves indications of fundamental changes. For the latter they might be, but only if the authority of states is also changing. It is therefore absolutely essential to be explicit about whether one is interested in state control or state authority. There are good and legitimate reasons for choosing either focus. Militat- ing in favour of control is that changes in control are of tangible and immediate importance in many situations. It is for example very important to people who live in Afghanistan, or who try to rule the country, who controls the use of force. That the government in Kabul has an internationally recognised authority to do so is not as important as is the fact that in many regions control over the use of force is not in the hands of the government but with others independently of where authority might or might not be. Moreover, a loss of control is often the first step on the road towards a loss of authority. A state that is not capable of effectively controlling the use of force easily loses also the authority to do so. A classic illustration is the mafia system in Sicily where (up until present) the mafia has been thought of as a parallel system of justice, working according to other norms and with another legitimation system than the official one, but which has a recognised authority to regulate the use of force in parallel (Gambetta 1993). Therefore both those trying to think about the reality of rule and those wishing to think about its future in any given place are well advised to pay close attention to issues of control. However, there are also good reasons to privilege a focus on authority. This is particularly true if the discussion is not instrumental (how to rule Afghanistan) but analytical or theoretical, that is focused on the long run issue of what is happening to the role of the state in regulating the use of force (asking what the Afghan case can tell us more generally about the role of the state in regulating the use of force). Indeed, challenges to state control over the use of force are no novelty. There is no time in the past where such challenges were

17 not a significant part of the political landscape. Therefore, arguments about challenges to state control over the use of force are more often than not brushed aside in the discussion as being of limited significance for the role of the state. The sovereignty was never but a “default rule”, “a speech act to establish an agent’s claim to authority” the essence of which is “theoretical”. Showing that it is not translated into effective control does not show that it no longer exists or has been fundamentally altered (Werner and de Wilde 2001: 287; Boli 2001: 59). It only shows that a specific government (e.g. the Afghan) failed to translate its claims into effective control. Even if this might be tragic for the popu- lation, neighbouring states, the international forces on the ground and the government in Kabul, it does not (in and of itself) say much about the evolving role of states in regulating the use of force. Inversely showing that the “default rule” itself is changing, that what is put into the “speech act” is undergoing some change is fundamentally relevant. Hence, if the aim is to look at long run changes in the role of states in controlling the use of force, a focus on authority is more appropriate. This is the fundamental reason for which this study will focus on authority and not on control. However, there is considerable ambiguity in what would constitute significant change. Some (Krasner e.g.) would place the stakes very high and take a rather Manichean view of what would constitute significant change: simple changes in the meaning of the default rule that states have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force would not suffice. Change, to be significant, would have to entail an abolition of the rule. The fact that Krasner believes that no such a thing as an abolition of the default rule of sovereignty is in sight (something I think most people would agree on) is a sufficient reason for him to argue that significant change is not underway (on this point agreement would be harder). One might however take a less stringent approach to what constitutes significant change and argue that also a “renegotiation” of what sovereignty means (and in this case what role the state has in regulating the use of force) might constitute significant change. In fact one might agree with Strange when she exhorts Krasner to “wake up” and discover that the “world had changed” that unless the Manichean view of change is abandoned, the most important and interesting developments in world politics will seem insignificant (Strange 1994). This is also the view adopted in this paper10. This leads onto the question of how we can conceive of, study and understand “authority” and shifts in authority. In this study, I will rely on three different “operationalisations” of authority11.

10 This argument is elaborated in detail in Leander (2004c). 11 I have developed this argument empirically in greater detail in Leander (2003). As will

18 First, PMCs might gain “direct authority” by virtue of their simple presence. It is imaginable that by providing logistics, consultancies or soldiers, PMCs gain a direct and widely agreed upon right to decide what kind of force should be used in specific conditions. Second, PMCs may gain “indirect authority” by their impact on the interests of other (state) actors. It is imaginable (and in view of the unravelling scandals in Irak exceedingly plausible) to think that e.g. by consulting or lobbying policy-makers or administrators, training soldiers or running seminars, PMCs gain a rather uncontested say over the form and shape the regulation of the use of force. Finally, one can imagine that PMCs gain a “diffuse authority” over how the use of force is regulated. Without directly influencing other actors or participating in the decisions in relation to the use of force, the increasingly central role of PMCs may alter the relative prestige and status of different views on how the use of force should be regulated. This effect cannot readily be captured by studying direct interactions, but works through the impersonal effects of structures which (dis)empower some at the expense of others and which forms part of the overall context where interests are formulated and shaped. It is a structural effect, which is not necessarily consciously articulated by those who are interacting, but which may nonetheless be the most significant part of authority relations since it is likely to bias all other interactions (Bourdieu 1997: 242).

4. State authority relations and Private Military Companies

This study focuses on the effects of the increasingly central role played by private military companies on that authority. It is not one of changes in state authority to regulate the use of force in general. This focus correspondingly restricts and focuses the kinds of claims that can be made on the basis of this study. This focus is largely guided by the political importance of the issue. Indeed, as is spelled out in chapter 2, since the end of the end of the cold war, PMCs have played an increasingly central role and there is pressure to allow concerns with efficiency to become even more central, to encourage the development of private alternatives and to take a view on the military sector as a sector that can and should be run according to the same kinds of rules as the rest of the econ-

become clear below, however, it relates to classical distinctions in the literature on power and power relations drawing in particular Guzzini (1993); Guzzini (2000); Lukes (1979).

19 omy. That is there is pressure to “normalise”. This pressure makes it politically very important to raise the fundamental questions about the effects of privatisation on state authority at different levels. What for example is the consequence on the authority to decide over armed operations? How does privatisation affect the operations of the armed forces? Which is the armed branch of the state usually thought to have the authority to make immediate decisions? Similarly, what is the consequence of privatisation for the way decisions and guidelines for how, when and with what objectives force is deployed? And, finally, what kinds of private companies in what kinds of situations should be allowed, encouraged and supported internationally? Should the UN conventions against the finance and use of mercenaries be signed, abandoned, or reformulated? Should private forces be used for international operations? Should countries adopt national legislation to regulate (or ban) different aspects of PMC activity? Who is liable for the activities of PMCs in different places and contexts? What kinds of obligations do governments have to the employees of PMCs (and their families) when they are arrested or killed during work abroad? These are no small issues, nor are they hypothetical. They are real and pressing and already part of politics. Privatisation is the trend and it is necessary to reflect on what position to take on the matter. This is why, as an economist (sic) points out, “the debate about the privatisation of force is neither about privatisation per se, nor merely about its control and use, but about legitimacy, authority, authorisation, and delegation of force” (Brauer 1998: 135). The aim of this study is not to make an argument condemning or lauding the current shifts in legitimacy, authority, delegation, authorisation and, one might add, accountability with regard to the use of force. This is not because such an endeavour is not important. On the contrary, at the current juncture it seems crucial. We need to think afresh about how important one state’s authority over the use of force is, what form it should take and how extensive one thinks it should be. We have ethical and political traditions on which such thinking could be based and which certainly provide no single or simple guide- line. There are strong reasons to underline both the importance of state authority over the use of force and its dangers. The spectre of the Hobbesian war of all against all is a prospect with all too many contemporary instantiations to simply be brushed aside. However, the centrality of the modern, bureaucratic state and public armed forces in the perpetuation of genocide, holocaust and extermination in the 20th Century makes it impossible to see the Leviathan as a lesser evil (Leander, Anna (2005b). As strongly argued by the military histo- rian Michael Howard, “the most important source of erosion of state authority has been the diminution of its support from below” (2001: 25). This discus-

20 sion about shifting authority should therefore not be read as imbued with statist nostalgia and anti-mercenary-prejudice. However, as important and significant as this kind of discussion is, the aim here is slightly different. It is to try to clarify the kinds of changes that are taking place and the direction we are going. The study is not contesting those who think that a shifting state authority is good nor those who think it is bad. It is directed against those who think that the topic is not there to be discussed. Those who would claim that no change of significance is underway. If the study does its job well, it should provide an understanding of what the effects of privatisation are on state authority, and hence a basis for reflection about what kind of strategy is to be pursued with respect to privatisation. The point is to indicate what shifts in authority are underway; not to argue about whether this is good or bad. Restricting the study to the issue of how the emergence and growth of PMCs affect state authority, however, has a consequence for what kinds of conclusions can be drawn and what kind of study has to be made. First and very obviously, this study is about the impact of one development on state authority, and not about the development of state authority in general. In- deed, it is very plausible and likely that other developments and events will also cause state authority to change (and not necessarily to diminish). Therefore, the ambition is clearly not to tackle the entire discussion about state authority. This restriction leads to a second important observation: it becomes extremely important not to assume that changes in state authority are explicable by the rise of PMCs. Rather it is important to make the links between PMC developments and state authority clear and explicit. In other words it is important to engage in what some would like to call process tracing, in this case the tracing of the processes by which the emergence of PMCs influence state authority. The question now is therefore, how to go about this?

5. The framework of analysis

It is time to draw on the above observations to set up a framework of analysis, that is to spell out more concretely how this study proposes to pursue its enquiry into the question about the impact of PMCs on state authority. Above the study has been limited for the reasons given to an enquiry into state authority in the West and the limitations to a study based on the rise of PMCs have been pointed out. Beyond these points, the discussion above has also given the basic building-blocks of the analysis to follow.

21 Sphere of authority relations The Military Domestic Politics International Society Form of Authority

Direct PMCs deciding Shift in the institutions PMCs recognised as interpretation of informed about and independent actors, intelligence, what deciding on security making contracts and military means to matters (incl. participating in dipl. use and how contracts) processes

Indirect PMCs, providing PMCs lobbying PMCs providing military training, policy-makers, background info., strategic plans administrators, training, lobbying organising seminars regarding dipl.affairs

Diffuse PMCs accepted as “Private solutions” PMCs as stabilisers, experts on security considered inherently de-consideration or and defense, better than public blocking of usage of possibly better than ones; systematically public international military experts sought and privileged and national forces

Box 1.1 Field of Research with hypothetical examples

The discussion has delimited the scope of the debate. First, it indicated that the impact of PMCs on state authority can be considered in three ways: by looking at the direct effect of PMCs on authority, their indirect effects (through the way they affect the interests of others) and the diffuse effect that they have (through their impact on the legitimacy of different actors in the field of security). Second, the discussion above made clear that there are three existing discussions about state authority over the use of force: the discussion about the development of post-modern warfare dealing with authority relations linking the state and the armed force, the discussion about the erosion of sovereignty covers the relations between the polity and the state, and the discussion about new medievalism covering the relationship between the state and international society. If we combine these two arguments, they give us an indication of what to look at to see changes in authority relations: We should be looking at direct, indirect and diffuse effects of PMCs on state authority. But since authority is always in relation to others, authority is something a person or an office can be bestowed with. Authority exists because it is recognised by others. The three levels of the discussion about state authority give us an indication of what the relevant others are in this context: the military, the polity and international society. The rough area of research is summarised in box 1.1. with examples of hypothetical impact.

22 The question then is how to study these evolving authority relations concretely. Clearly looking at each box in the above matrix would be a possibility but not a wise one. The forms of authority are closely linked and more often than not it will make more sense to use examples to explain all three kinds of authority relations at once. Hence a “matrix approach” would be unfruit- ful, unnecessarily long and possibly repetitive. Instead the report will opt for an organisation according to what kind of authority relation it is that is being affected. That is, it will be organised around the authority of the military, the authority of domestic states’ institutions and the authority of the state as an international actor. In order to trace the process of authority change in each of these areas the study suggests to conceive of them as “fields” where authority relations are established. In other words, this study will rely on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his followers12. The idea of a “field” is to capture the subset of rules which govern a given social activity. The idea is that although overall structural relations and in particular class relations play out differently in different fields of social activity, different fields, value different forms of capital (economic, social, cultural and symbolic) in different ways. Fields also have varying implicit rules about what kind of social behaviour will confer status on an actor. The capital and status an actor has in any given field are not necessarily transfer- able outside the field. Indeed, one of the most important ways actors have of altering their position (and power) is therefore to alter either the boundaries of the field or the rules of the game within it (Bourdieu 2001). One of the advantages of turning to Bourdieu is precisely that his work highlights power relations, not only as direct effects of the capacity of A to persuade B to do something, but also the kinds of power relations that do not demand any explicit agency but which are internalised by social actors and these are central to an analysis of changing authority relations as pointed out above (Arendt’s notion of consent without constraint). A central building block in Bourdieu’s framework of analysis is the “habitus”, which is the set of “dispo- sitions” an agent is endowed with through the logic of the field (and more broadly the variety of fields) within which the agent is constituted and acts. The “habitus” is what makes agents behave “right” that is, according to what some would term the logic of appropriateness (March and Olsen 1998; Pow-

12 There is obviously not space enough for a full-fledged discussion about Bourdieu in- spired empirical analysis. For complementary secondary work on this topic see Bourdieu’s own work such as Bourdieu (1997); Bourdieu (1979), or some of the many secondary sources re- viewed in Jenkins (1992); Brubaker (1985); Leander (2001c); Lahire (2002).

23 ell and DiMaggio 1991). It is what makes agents know what is “right” in a given situation without really having to reflect on it. This includes the notion of knowing which authority to respect when. A significant part of thinking about evolving authority relations is to bring out how these taken for granted, practical norms reflected in the “strategies” of various agents evolve. That is, in relation to the discussion about PMCs and changing authority relations this kind of approach has the virtue of looking comprehensively at the different kinds of authority relations that the study aims to look at. It has a space for thinking about what was termed diffuse authority, but not in isolation. Rather it ties it in directly with what kind of direct authority agents have and what kind of authority they try to exert indirectly.

6. Outline of the Study

It is time to spell out how a study of the effects that the growing centrality of PMCs have in different field of authority looks concretely and to antic- ipate some of the key arguments that will be presented in this study. The study starts with two introductory chapters which spell out what is meant by the re-emergence of private military companies and how private military companies operate. Chapter 2 places the contemporary emergence of PMCs in a historical perspective. It argues that the current re-emergence of PMCs is a historical novelty. It is obviously not the case that private actors have had no authority over the use of force historically, including recently. Howev- er, the present re-emergence of private actors constitutes a break with the modern trend to centralize, nationalize and extend state control over the use. This trend break stems from the reinterpretation of what kind of monopoly states need to claim over the use of force to retain their authority, rather than from a “security gap” which has to be filled. The chapters goes some way towards explaining this reinterpretation underlining the significance of the end of the cold war, but above all the general positive reevaluation of private actors and markets which clearly predates the change in the international political context. Chapter 3, gives flesh to the notion that PMCs are emerging by looking closer at what different kinds of PMCs are doing and how their activities are linked by the development of a market for force and the evolving state regulations of this market. The chapter argues that while it is important to recognise the heterogeneity of the companies and of their activities, it is equally essential to recognise that they are operating in a segmented, largely politicised

24 global “market for force” which ties them together. It is the impact of this overall market which is relevant for considering the impact of the re-emergence of PMCs of state authority over the use of force in Western states. The following three chapters tackle the core question of this study, namely what the re-emergence of private military entails for state authority in the West. They do this (following the framework just spelled out) by looking at the effects of privatisation on state authority over the use of force in the three central relationships involved: state authority in the military sphere, state authority in domestic politics, and state authority in international politics. Chap- ter 5 argues that privatisation and outsourcing are leading to profound revi- sions and reformulation of authority relations in the military. Private actors are altering the authority of commanders to decide on their activities (including on the battle field). Their involvement in education and recruitment is also shifting the internal culture and sociology of the military and hence the understanding of authority within military institutions. And finally, in pair with these shifts goes a change of the position of the armed forces in society. The military institution is “normalised” and by a the same token its special status (and privileges) are undermined. Chapter 5 looks at the impact of privatisation on the way authority over the use of force is practised in national politics. It argues that privatisation is often rightly associated with decreasing democratic (read legislative) control over how force is used. The reason for this is however, less an inevitable shift in the weight of political institutions, than an outcome of the unwillingness to develop appropriate institutions of oversight and control. In addition to this, privatisation produces a set of important redefinitions. It alters the way politicians understand the “national interest” by producing a context where firms have a vital interest in influencing policy-makers and policy-makers an equally strong reason to accept the influence. More generally, the rise of PMCs is changing which security issues are brought up for public debate as well as what kinds of responses are considered adequate. These developments alter the actors who have authority in national politics and also the self understanding of these actors. The last chapter argues that also the authority of Western states over the use of force in the international sphere is affected by the current privatisation trends. Even if the private firms are often (perhaps more often than not) tools for policy-making by proxy, their presence gives them authority. They reshape how the use of force is regulated where they intervene, but also more subtly, the way that Western states and their policies are looked upon and the understanding of who is a legitimate international actor in international politics.

25 It is fundamental to recall that even if much of the PMC activity is initiated by and takes place under the auspices of Western states, it may well have unan- ticipated effects. Firms engage in activities of their own for their own reasons and outside Western state control. Their activities may create resentment and reactions which are directed also against the states they are associated with. Finally, their practical importance means that they can (and increasingly do) claim a status as specialists and authorities in international affairs. These shifts in the authority of Western states over the use of force have two things in common. One is that they are more often than not shifts in the way that state authority is exercised, in which institutions of the state domi- nate and who is influential within these institutions. The second is that they more often than not signal a growing authority of private actors to raise authority claims either on their own or through their presence and role within state institutions. However, it is nowhere argued that states no longer have and no longer claim authority over the use of force. States are and will continue to be central actors in security matters for the foreseeable future. Rather the implication of the argument is that the nature of state authority over the use of force is evolving and its scope diminishing as private involvement and capacity to shape and contest public authority is increasing.

26 I Contextualizing Private Military Companies

1. A Historical Perspective on Private Military Companies: Breaking the Privatisation and Nationalisation Trend

According to The Economist, the war by the coalition of the willing in Iraq is the “first privatised war”1. It can fairly safely be asserted this is not the case. There are bound to be historical precedents, whatever definition and bench- mark indicators one uses to distinguish private wars from public ones. This said, The Economist does point towards a fundamental trend in the wake of the cold war: the re-emergence of private actors as an integral and central part of wars, that is a reversal of the trend to extend the control of the state over all uses of force. This trend has received considerable attention in situations, which go under the inadequate name of civil or internal or ethnic wars and are associated with the image of marauding gangs driven by a bundle of political and economic motives and epitomised by “Arkan” in Bosnia, the FARC in Co- lumbia and government troops in Mobuto’s Zaire2. It is less readily recognised that the privatisation trend is affecting not only weak (or failed or quasi) third world states, but also (albeit obviously in very different ways) the strong, sol- id, core, welfare states in the West, and hence also the classical warfare situation where states fight against other states in international wars. This chapter places the current privatisation trend in the West in a historical perspective. The chapter argues that although private actors regulating and having authority over the use of force is by no means a historical novelty, their current re-emergence in the West is in clear break with a trend towards centralisation and nationalisation which has prevailed since the invention of the modern state. The key contention is that both the past centralisation trend and the present decentralisation trend must be understood as reflections of shifting

1 The Economist, 11.06.2003. 2 The name is inadequate because more often than not these wars are in no simple way internal, civil or ethnic. Rather they are embedded in complex global, regional and local (border spanning) political economies, where civil (political) motives are inseparably linked to economic ones and the distinction between public (state) and private actors is often an impossible one to draw.

29 understandings of what kinds of state control is necessary for the state to retain its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Before making this argument, the chapter underlines that there is indeed a privatisation trend worth talking about.

1. Private military companies more than a fashionable illusion

Reference to the privatisation of security and the emergence of private military companies tends to have a sensationalist ring and is often accused of being a mere academic and political fashion. However, while there is as always a good reason to be wary of sensationalism, it should not lead to a neglect of what is in fact a significant change. Until roughly the mid-1990s there was scant discussion about the private military industry and/or of private security. The big topics in the immediate wake of the cold war were conversion (from military to civilian) industries in the former Eastern bloc and the fate of military forces across the world in the face of sharp budgetary cuts. But mercenaries were still called mercenaries with all the negative connotations attached to that expression and were still largely looked upon as illegitimate anomalies in the international system. From the mid-1990s the situation changes radically. The expression “PMC” is invented, it seems at the instigation of Sandline International. The firm needed an alternative to mercenary for both legal and marketing purposes in the wake of the Papua New Guinea flop and hired professional PR staff for the purpose. The expression made its way into the vocabulary of NGOs and academia after 1995-6 (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002b: 7). From 1996 onwards a flurry of books and academic articles on the topic begin to appear and flood the market. Tim Spicer, former head of Sandline International, publishes his memoirs which constructs an image of the modern and contemporary mercenary (1999). The firms go on the offensive to an- chor the idea that contemporary PMCs are different from the mercenaries of old. Academia and policy-makers are quick to go along. A look at the list of sources for this report is a persuasive indicator of the sudden appearance and strength of the trend. Writing the history of the launching of this topic would be a fascinating task and certainly one which would yield interesting insights into the sociology of knowledge in the field of security/IR. But it is also a task which remains to be tackled. Looking at the developments, it certainly seems as if a mixture of economic interests and intellectual fashions played a prominent role.

30 It is therefore more than comprehensible that the whole discussion has been dismissed as a much ado about nothing by many observers who have seen it as their duty to strip it of its sensationalist proportions. These observers fall into two rough groups that usually have little in common, but are unani- mous in their conclusion that the rise of PMCs does not signal a “privatisation” of war and security, but at most a delegation under state control3. The first of these are liberal economists and firm representatives. They have been pressing that private military companies are but an efficient means in the hands of the state, in continuity with practices that have always existed. They emphasize public sector mismanagement and private sector efficiency. They underline that soldiers are expensive and should be used to do things others cannot do better and cheaper. Finally they put weight on the growing importance of civilian (and off the shelf) technology, which makes outsourcing a matter of necessity as well as of keeping the costs of maintenance and training down. The industry lobby groups argue that far from enough has been privatised (Isenberg and Eland 2002). In the US, BENS (Business Executives for National Security) recommends the Department of Defence to have the armed forces focus on their “core business”, outsource administration and logistics and BENS believes it could save more in a year ($15-30bn.) than it plans to do in five ($2 bn) if it went further in its outsourcing efforts4. Resistance to these changes in the military – and elsewhere – is swept aside as the expected reaction of groups with vested interests, deeply rooted traditions and jobs to defend5. The second group which has attempted to put the discussion back into proportion is IR scholars who have insisted that the rise of PMCs is not particularly significant since it alters nothing fundamental to state power. This is so because, on this account, PMCs merely reflect the increasing importance of “foreign policy by proxy.” PMCs are the “covert wing” of Western government policies6. They do not go against the grain of “their home state” because they “like stable not fragile states”. In that respect, their interests and those of the state are usually the same. They have never sought to challenge states” (Coker 1998: 111).

3 For a detailed discussion see Leander, Anna (2005a). 4 BENS’ web pages contains both overviews of its activities and the reports and studies. These figures are taken from the general presentation of BENS’ “Tail to Tooth Commission” for reforming (read outsourcing and privatizing) defence strategies and policies. 5 For example, Michaels (1999), “Moving with the times”, Jane’s Defence Weekly 15 Nov. 2000; “A short term windfall...but at what price”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 17 Oct 2001; “Ad- juncts or accountants” The Economist 1 June 2003. 6 For a discussion and rejection of these positions see O’Brien (2000a).

31 If PMCs matter and act on their own, it is only in weak or failed states in the developing world – as illustrated by the spectacular operations of companies such as EO and Sandline in Sierra Leone, Angola, Papa New Guinea, Bosnia, Eritrea/Ethiopia or Columbia7 – where the real issue is (the lack of) state power and not the development of private markets. To recognise that PMCs matter in these contexts is logical: their presence directly breaks (or seems to break8) with the way the border between legitimate private and public uses of force has been drawn in past thinking, practice and legislation. However, the consequence is an unduly confined discussion about the role of PMCs as security actors. Even if these reactions against sensationalism and academic fads and fashions are understandable, and to some extent justified, they should not be allowed to trivialise the changes underway which are of considerably greater magnitude than they would allow for. There is a risk of throwing the baby in the discussion out with the bathwater (the sensationalism that surrounds it). The trend to re-privatise is more than a hype and this is true almost independently of the indicators used. First, private individuals and firms are increasingly selling the direct provision of military services, that is directly partaking in combat. Estimates of the number of conflicts involving “mercenaries” confirm the trend9. 15 entries for the forty-year-period between 1950 and 1989, became and 80 for the ten- year-period between 1990 and 2000 (Musah and Fayemi 2000: Annexe; For- eign and Commonwealth Office 2002a). This is however not really a sufficient indicator of the role private actors play in wars. The increased visibility might simply reflect the fact that operations which under the cold war would have been buried in layers secrecy are now taking place in the open. The would be private soldiers themselves express themselves in terms such as “fewer free- lance offers come up now that the cold war is over, but opportunities still arise [...] This stuff never ends”. (Silverstein 2000: 159). Similarly, some well sea-

7 There are many accounts of these cases but see for example Arnold (1999); O’Brien (2000b); Reno (1998); Zarate (1998); Mandel (2001). 8 Some argue that it does nothing of the sort and that PMCs are in fact not mercenaries as understood in international law and political practice when they intervene (Zarate 1998). 9 The concept of mercenary – and whether or not the activities of PMCs can be termed as such – is itself a major source of dispute. Some of these issues will be dealt with at greater length below. For the time being it is merely important to underline that mercenary here is used in accordance with the standard definition of Art. 47 in the Geneva convention (an individual serving in armed forces other than those of his own country for pecuniary reasons).

32 soned observers in academia also think that mercenary activity is on the wane (such as Michael Brzoska editor of the International Journal of Peace Re- search10). However, indicators of “mercenary participation” might not be a very good indicator of the role private actors play. Because, second, an interest in the “privatisation of wars” and the role of private actors requires looking beyond “mercenaries” to the development and expansion of “A Market for Force” (Avant 2005) where a “Private Mil- itary Industry ” (Singer 2003) is offering services. The reason for this is that a variety of developments have made the lines between intelligence, technical services, and logistics on one side and direct combat activities even more difficult to draw than they have always been. Moreover, because mercenarism continues to be an illegitimate activity, it will often be placed under another heading and, hence, invisible if one focuses only on registered mercenary participation11. However, if one takes (as one should for the sake of understanding current trends) a less restrictive view and looks at the private military sector, the privatisation trend is amply confirmed by all available indicators. - Military budgets overall have fallen sharply in the wake of the cold war (Schméder 1998) and with few exceptions (in particular the US) they continue to decline. Yet, the annual revenue of the private military industry has increased from $55.6 bn in 1990 to $100 bn in 2000 and it was expected to dou- ble again and reach $202 bn by 2010 (International Consortium of Investiga- tive Journalists 2002c: 4). - A growing proportion of arms and the related technology and services are transiting through the market. Cuts in public defence spending and pres- sures from governments have pushed firms onto the market. The result is that the percentage of trade that does not involve a government as a contracting party is steadily increasing (Laurence 1992: 147; Rotfeld 2001). The number of countries supplying arms has more than doubled since the 1970s (Held, McGrew et al. 1999: 113). This in turn is changing the structure of an industry which is increasingly dependent on strategic alliances, research collaboration, as other sectors (Kaldor, Albrecht et al. 1998; Sköns 2003). - Contractors are also increasingly present. In the second Gulf war of 1992 the ratio of private contractors to publically deployed soldiers was estimated at 1-to-60, it had grown to 1-to-10 in Bosnia, 1-to-2 in Kosovo and it is estimated

10 Personal communication. 11 Both these changes are discussed in greater detail below. 12 Singer quoted in Miami Herald, 7 March 2003.

33 to have been even higher during the latest Iraqi war12. Looking at any one conflict confirms the general trend. In Iraq e.g. private contractors have a central place. According to The Guardian they outnumber the UK contingent (10,000 vs. 9,900) and according to the New York Times they are twice as strong (20,000 vs. 10.000)13. The enormous discrepance in numbers is a reflection of the fact that no one knows exactly how many contractors there are. But what is relevant in this context is that even if one takes the lower estimate, private contractors make up the second largest (after the US) contingent in Iraq. Third, the picture is confirmed if one looks at the demand side of the market. States, corporations, NGOs, and a variety of political movements are increasingly demanding and publicly telling anyone who wants to listen that they rely on the services of private firms. Corporations hire private firms to protect installations, activities and staff in insecure areas. The same is true of aid organisations who have increasingly become targets and subjects to various forms of extortion in emergency situations. Hence, DSL (Defence Systems Limited), lists among its clients: the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Caritas, USAID, GOAL and World Vision. In the UN system the UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, WFP amongst others declare to have used private security services (Spearin 2001). The form of this demand is usually for “security” (as opposed to military services). However, in situations of internal wars, the line between the two is blurred when not indistinguishable. Also states in the West are major demanders of the services sold by private military and security firms. “Outsourcing”, “private-public partnerships” and “privatisations” are shaping not only economic activities, but are also the “un- stoppable trend” in the military (Cardinali 2001; Kaldor, Albrecht et al. 1998). The extent and form of outsourcing policies have varied by context. The UK was a forerunner. Thatcherism touched also the Ministry of Defence which not only privatised, but actually commercialized, its defence services starting already in 1979 (Edmonds 1998). Similarly, the US has undergone profound changes. There has been a declared preference for “private solutions” in both the US and the UK14. But most other Western countries have followed similar paths to a greater or lesser extent. Canada and Australia have outsourced logistics functions in ways similar to the UK (Singer 2003: 17). Germany had a restructuring plan for its armed forces, including increased outsourcing running between 2000-

13 “The privatization of war”, The Guardian, 10.12.2003; “Iraq Outsourced”, The New York Times, 14.12.2003. 14 It is possible to cite e.g. Federal Acquisition Circular 90-29 or Bureau of the Budget Bul- letin 55-4. (Michaels 1999: 14). 15 “Germany looks to the Future”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 8 Aug. 2001.

34 200415. In France, the socialists and the right have disagreed on most things, but not on the importance of continued defence privatisation16. Even Finland has outsourced parts of its military services and is planning to go further17. This is what leads Andersen Consulting to conclude that “outsourcing is the way of the future as we are living through a privatisation of the inner workings of military forces something overseas contract are merely a spinoff from”18. It is also what makes Lovering conclude that “the 1990s will stand out as the decade in which arms production was returned to the market, after three-quarters of a century in which it was largely conducted at the behest of the nation-state” (Lovering 2000: 163). In sum, the discussion about private military companies and privatisation is not mere hype. It may turn out to be of limited importance and indeed to merely mask new ways of doing the same old things. However, this is not a forgone conclusion.

2. State authority and the trend towards centralisation and nationalization

That private actors play a role in war situations is no historical novelty. Mer- cenaries are a long standing professional category even if its name, status and working conditions have undergone very considerable transformations (Møller 2001; Singer 2003: chap. 2). Similarly, there certainly is nothing spectacular about private firms selling arms, providing logistics and playing an important role in organising the trade. They always have. However, it is important to re- alise that there has been important historical variation in what kind of roles private actors have played and correspondingly in how extensive state control has been and what kind of form it has taken. The past two centuries have been marked by a trend to steadily increase state control spatially, politically and militarily. From covering the national territory, state authority has been extended to covering also international space. From focusing on the allocation of the means of coercion, state control has been extended to cover also their production. From contenting itself with controlling the outward activities of the military, the state has increasingly claimed control over its internal organisation.

16 “Fitter leaner forces for multipolar world”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 11 June 1997; “More privatization due”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 26 April 2000; “France’s Thatcherite Socialists”, For- eign Report, 29 July 1999. 17 “Finnish defence ministry considers leasing, outsourcing, and privatizing”, Jane’s De- fence Weekly 23 Jan. 2002. 18 Quoted in The Economist 11 June 2003.

35 This section reflects on this expanding understanding of state authority because this is the backdrop against which current privatisation has to be seen.

2.1 Spatial control over the use of force First, states have increasingly centralised the spatial control over the use of force. In the course of the 19th century, a profound transformation of “sovereignty” took place as states extended the claims of monopoly control to cover also the international sphere and not only their own jurisdiction19. Prior to that, states did not take responsibility for private violence in the international sphere. They used and benefited from private violence when it suited them, but would also claim that initiatives were private when it was in their interest do so. Pirates, mercenaries and mercantile companies were hired, supported and established with the explicit intention to gain economic and political advantages for states. However, states would (sometimes justifiably) argue that the activities of private actors were indeed private and refuse responsibility for them. The practice of “plausible denial” (of state responsibility for private violence) had a number of “unintended consequences”. In fact, “the result was probably the closest the modern state system has come to experiencing real anarchy” (Thomson 1994: 43)20. Plausible denial made it impossible to know when an act was backed by a state and when it was not. Correspondingly it made it impossible for states to control which conflicts they got engaged in, with whom when and on what terms. Private wielders of force grew strong and did not necessarily act in accordance with the interests of the states of which they were citizens. Sometimes they even turned against them. The result was that even if for each state taken separately, there were considerable benefits by allowing, encouraging and benefiting from private uses of force, the system level pressure eventually prompted states to claim control over the use of force internationally, as I will briefly discuss with references to the three main categories of private wielders of force internationally: privateers, mercenaries and the merchant companies (colonial companies). Privateering21 was encouraged during times of war as state rulers enlisted the privateers in their service to affirm their maritime power. However, when peace came privateering was outlawed. The seamen however would continue

19 This is Thomson’s central argument. The account below draws on her (Thomson 1994). 20 The following account is drawn entirely from (Thomson 1994). 21 A privateer is an armed vessel (or its commander) owned and officered by private individuals holding a government commission and authorized to use it against a hostile nation, especially in the capture of merchant shipping.

36 the exact same activity which now became piracy and was considered illegal. The consequences of this practice was on the one hand that maritime control partially escaped states. Some privateer/pirate communities became strong quasi states as those in Madagascar, Malta, Hispaniola, or Jamaica which largely escaped state control and where solidarity with the home state was very weak. The costs were considerable both for states who had to devote maritime power to suppress them in peace time, for merchants, obviously, but also for their insurers. In addition to this, it created tension between states and between states and their colonial administrations. The colonies (and corrupt colonial administration) were home to many of the privateers/pirates who made waters unsafe for merchant ships of all nationalities including that of the home colonial power. Morever, privateers/pirates who seized ships were often identified with their home government. Spain and Britain were in more or less constant tension in the West Indies during the 17th and 18th centuries as Spain complained of British pirates and Britain claimed lawful privateering. Fred- erick of Prussia seized a loan raised in England after a British privateer attack on a Prussian vessel. Weak and moderate naval powers thought themselves mainly victims of the practice. Eventually, the result of the international uncertainty created by the privateering/pirate communities was a British lead in pushing through the 1856 Declaration of Paris which banned privateering and to which most countries, except the US22, rapidly adhered. Similarly, mercenarism became a problem in relation to change at the level of the international state system and, more specifically, in connection to the development of a more precise understanding of neutrality. Indeed, with the development of neutrality it became important to know whether or not the mercenary was acting on behalf of his home state or as an individual actor. The home-state of the mercenaries would usually protest their independence and those whom the mercenaries were fighting would usually say that it was an indirect form of intervention. Obviously it would not be easy for the home-state to persuasively make its case and defend its position as a neutral, particularly when its citizens engaged massively on one side (as did Americans with the French during the Napoleonic wars). Hence, it increasingly became understood that a neutral state had the responsibility to prevent its citizens from engaging massively on one side. In the 1814 treaty between Britain and Spain, this principle was explicitly articulated for the first time as there was a provi-

22 As the upcoming (but still weaker) naval power, the home of many privateers and with a tradition allowing for considerably greater private control over the use of force, it opposed the law (Deudney 1995).

37 sion whereby Britain agreed to prevent its subjects from serving Latin Amer- icans seeking independence. The fact that it was a matter of states controlling their own citizens in order to have the option of remaining neutral is reflected in the fact that mercenarism became outlawed, not by an international treaty as privateering, but by national legislation. States “began to hold one another accountable for the international actions of individuals under their sovereign jurisdiction” (Thomson 1994: 59) and to respond to this pressure, rulers imposed national legislation banning mercenarism. Finally, the rise and demise of the mercantile companies is perhaps the strongest case for illustrating the dilemmas of plausible denial. These companies played an essential role in developing the empires, in establishing the colonies and in organising their trade. In the process they were not only granted monopoly trading concessions but also the right to use force. The result was on the one hand greatly increased wealth and political control of the European powers. But it was also a loss of control. The companies engaged in armed conflict with each other for reasons that were quite independent of state politics, but with considerable costs for state subjects and sometimes even escaping the control of the companies themselves. This is well illustrated by the protracted conflicts between the Dutch and the English East India Companies over Jakarta in 1600s or by the conflict between the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company in Canada. But more than this, for their very own reasons the companies ignored and sometimes acted against the more general interests of their European home states. The French, Dutch and English East India Companies remained at peace during the Spanish war of succession (1701-13). Hormuz was taken in 1621 from the Portugese by a joint Persian English East India Compa- ny attack while England and Portugal were at peace. The East India Company was at war with France in India while Britain and France were at peace. There are even cases of companies turning on their own states: the Hudson Bay Com- pany fired at a Royal Navy expedition in 1741. The result was that eventually the independence of the companies was railed in as concessions were altered, states took over administrations and privileges were curtailed. The result was that by the late 19th century private uses of force had become illegitimate. From the mid 19th century onwards the authority claims of the state were extended to cover also international space. The use of force by mercantile companies became increasingly restricted and repressed. State after state passed legislation which banned its citizens from enlisting in foreign armed forces, banning the recruitment of mercenaries on their territory or banning mercenaries generally. Privateering was outlawed by the 1856 Paris Treaty. This marked

38 a redrawing of authority claims such that authority over the use of violence was moved from the non-state, economic, and international domains and placed in the state, political, and domestic realms of authority .... Traditional states were transformed into a system of national states that held one another accountable for any individual violence emanating from their respective territories. Sover- eignty was redefined such that the state not only claimed ultimate authority within its jurisdiction, defined in geographic terms, but accepted responsibility for transborder violence emanating from its territory (Thomson 1994: 11 and 19).

2.2 State control over production and allocation of force Second, from the late 19th century there was also a trend towards the establishment of centralised control over the allocation and production of the means of coercion. It is of course not the case that rulers and governments were ever uninterested in controlling the trade of arms or that they were unaware of the strategic importance of doing so. It is an illusion that arms have ever been traded as all other goods. Attempts by rulers to manipulate and control the trade in arms to their economic and political advantage have a history as long as arms production itself (Krause 1995, first ed. 1992: 1). As Krause persuasively argues, the form any one state’s intervention takes as well as its effectiveness is intimately linked to the structure of the arms transfer and production system (which Krause – less persuasively – thinks of as largely deter- mined by the exogenous impact of technological innovation). And it is indeed the case that this structure and its role in the economy evolved in a way that prompted (Western) states to become increasingly more involved in controlling the allocation and productions of arms. The general background of this interventionism is the increasing centrality of statist and mercantilist understandings of the economy which affected also the structure of the arms production and trading system. Fichte’s 19th century German brand of structuralism and the development of what later became Key- nesian economics in the 20th century substantially undermined the faith in free and unfettered markets while creating a corresponding awareness of the importance and centrality of state intervention as well as the administrative and political means for that intervention. This general development of practical and theoretical interventionism also influenced the way that the military industry was conceived of and dealt with as states became increasingly concerned in developing it, planning it, and using it for developing other industries (Sen 1984). In addition to this, developments more specifically related to the military sector reinforced the expansion of state drives to control trade and production. First, a public debate emerged in the wake of the first world war and it

39 held private markets and actors responsible for the horrors of war. In this literature, “the central argument was that ‘governments driven by economic crisis work hand in hand with armament manufacturers in preparing for the next war’ and the main prescription was for arms industries to be nationalised” (Krause 1995, first ed. 1992: 6). National and centralised control – preferably under the scrutiny of the legislative – was an important element both of democratic politics aimed at reducing the squandering of public resources and up- holding peace. Moreover, the rapid pace of technological innovation from the first world war onwards, made trade and services a far more central part of military strategy. Dependencies through trade had to be created, manipulat- ed, exploited and avoided. This made the state increasingly prone to strategi- cally control the market for force.

2.3 State control over the military institution Third, during the great wars of the 20th century, war came to involve the entire society and economic structure of the warring states. This in fact also meant a profound change in the role of governments in the arms industry and trade. During the two world wars, the production and trade of arms ceased to be a specialised activity of a few industries. Rather, “if war was to be waged at all on the modern scale, not only its costs had to be counted but its production – and in the end the entire economy – had to be managed and planned.” (Hobsbawm 1994: 46). All states directly involved in the war as it were became central planners of their war industry, which rapidly came to mean of the entire economy. This is what has earned the Twentieth Century the epitaph “the age of total war” (this is the title of chapter 1 in Hobsbawm 1994; for usage and development also van Creveld 1991; Shaw 1999). Finally, the concern with controlling allocation and production did not disappear at the end of the second world war. On the contrary, it was heightened by the development of nuclear weapons and the consequent concern with “proliferation” (of nuclear weapons as well as of other “weapons of mass destruction” and military related technologies). This made controls on trade and production absolutely essential: “It is clear that even if it was possible to treat deterrence according to an autonomous interstate logic, the proliferation issue demands dealing with a great number of political, economic and strategic dimensions. It is in- separable from the problem of internal anarchy, economic crisis, terrorism and the trade in arms” (Hassner 1995: 339). It was no longer sufficient to control trade and technology exchanges between states, but also the activities of private firms and non-state political actors required close attention. The trend clearly translates as one towards deepening state enmeshment in arms production.

40 Third, and finally, there has been an extension of the kind of control and insight states claim the right to exercise over the military institution directly. After the Napoleonic wars, standing armies came to replace professional ones where mercenaries played an important role. This development is deeply anchored in an enlightenment reinterpretation of what kind of soldier was militarily most effective (Avant 2000). The turn to standing armies also brought new modes of looking at the armed forces and legitimating the costs and sacrifices imposed by them. Par- ticularly central was the need to legitimate conscription. It was decreasingly the case that the armed forces were “merely” armed forces, filling a military function. Instead, the armed forces have increasingly been treated as central to the construction of and cementing of national identities (Leander 1994). The armed forces became an institution for solidifying the attachment to the nation and the state, for promoting social mobility, for education. Inversely, the armed forces also worked to empower citizens: “precisely because they were conscripted, citizens confidently insisted on certain rights from their states, rights that were more easily articulated and defended because of increased (state provided) education and growing self-identification as members of a national community” (Mjøset and van Holde 2002: 10). The armed forces played a central part of the shaping of the modern state not only militarily but also socially and politically. In these conditions, it is not surprising that governments (by varying means and in different forms) took an increasingly strong interest in controlling the military. It was no longer merely a matter of controlling the military threat to power although this clearly should not be trivialised. The risk that the military could develop into a “state-within-the-states” and might be a source of anti-democratic politics and ideas has been more than a hypothetical possibility in many Western countries – including France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Spain – over the 20th century. Of course, this is not to say that all civilian control over the military is necessarily democratic. Military institution have often been misused and abused by civilian policy- makers for their own purposes time and again (Luckham 2003). More broadly, the issue at stake was what kinds of citizens were being formed in the military “school of the nation”. The military were seen as shaping the values of the nation in very direct ways. Passage through the military was no longer merely an individual rite of passage from boyhood to manhood, it was increasingly constructed as a social rite of affirmation of belonging to the national realm and of loyalty to a broader community. This fundamental change made it increasingly important to control not only what the military did towards

41 the outside, but how it did this and even more how the military institution was organised inside, how soldiers were trained, what they were taught to think and how, who was to be accepted as a soldier (minorities? women? homosexuals?) and on what terms. The result has been that civilian rulers have increased interventionism and expanded attempts to control and direct the military as an institution. They have not always succeeded, of course. Time and again the discrepance between the demands civilian authorities place on military institutions and the actual practice in the institutions shatters the illusion that control actually works and that there is actually effective control (Avant 1998: 380-382). The point however is that the states claim authority to shape the structure within the military institution and that this claim is accepted as justified. This account of the development of state authority over the use of force, has pointed to its expansion in terms of space (national to international), in terms of the economy (from interstate trade and all aspects of trade and production) and in terms of its relation to the military institution (control over activities to control of the institution from within). The account has not claimed that these authorities in all cases reflected an actual reality of effective state control. Believing this to be true amounts to falling prey to the “statist conceit” (Lacher 2003). Moreover, although the account has glossed over differences and details which make the history and explain the exact paths in various Western states, it has tried to hint at their existence and certainly has at no point aspired to deny them. However, it has insisted on neither of these aspects of the developments. At times it is important to focus on the forest rather than on the trees. The point here has been to give a synthetic image of a general trend towards centralisation and nationalisation which exists beyond the differences in exact forms and shapes. This overall broad trend is important for this account since its reversal is the central topic of this report.

3. Revisiting the importance of centralised national control for state authority

In the wake of the cold war, states continue to hold an extensive interpretation of their own authority over the use of force. States still claim authority over international uses of force as well as domestic ones. The military structure of trade and production is still profoundly marked by state intervention. And, insight and control over the military institutions continue to be an important consideration. However, this authority is considered compatible with a reliance on private alternatives. The privatisation trend depicted in the

42 first section of this chapter, is driven by state policies. Western governments officially aim to develop private alternatives and favour them over public ones. Whether or not it is really the case that private alternatives are compatible with public authority is the object of the analysis in the chapters to come and is put off until later. Here the question raised is restricted to where this shift in conviction has its origins. The answer suggested is that the end of the cold war in conjunction with the neo-liberal revolution reduced the importance attached to (and faith in) centralised and national state control while simultaneously increasing the faith in (and importance attached to) private, decentralised control over the use of force. The significance of the end of the cold war for the revisiting and rethinking the role of private actors, as well as what kind of private involvement is compatible with state authority to decide on the use of force, can hardly be overes- timated. We might not know (or rather disagree about) what has replaced bipolarity but we do know that the end of the cold war signed its end. By the same token it also signed the end of a world-view where conflicts anywhere could be read in terms of the great power competition and intervention by consequence was important and warranted. The consequence is the now often told story of reduced engagement in “peripheral” conflicts, reduced willingness to support and finance allies and to stabilise them politically by avoiding that economic reforms and liberal governance undermine their political support (Clapham 1996; Duffield 2001; Rufin 1993). The nature and impact of these changes were very diverse depending on context. Military and political disengagement has been as unequal as has conditionality. This does not alter the point made here though, namely that the West has shown declining interest in (many) conflicts as well as in how (at least some) former allies handled their own problems. The flip side of this development was an increasing openness to private involvement. On the receiving end, as external support (direct and indirect) dried up, the private sector became an attractive alternative. Pressure on military and defence budgets increased. This pushed rulers to adopt what Reno (1998: 8) calls “innovative strategies” by establishing what Duffield (2001: 13) terms “strategic privatised networks” for protection. This involved extending further the right of public armed forces to finance themselves in various ways (including by looting and extortion) and it included trying to transfer the costs of “security” to others including local or foreign firms, foreign aid workers, and politicians who demanded it and could pay for it (Howe 2001). This reduced central control on who provided that security and paved the way for an increased role for (local and foreign) private provision. The innovative strategies also included a willingness of rulers themselves to resort to private alter-

43 natives to cut costs. Private firms only need to be paid when they are on contract, can be compensated with extractive rights or natural resources (the “Ex- ecutive Outcomes Model” O’Brien 2000b) and – at least in some contexts – are more reliable than local, ill paid and discontented armed forces. It is small wonder that the demand for private firm services has been on the increase. On the part of Western countries these development have not been consciously sought or encouraged, however, systematic considering them or the development of strategies to deal with them has been sparse. In fact, most Western governments continue to be exceedingly ambiguous in their reaction to the development of a market for force internationally. While on the one hand they maintain the line that private uses of force internationally are illegitimate and should be banned little is done to actually enforce this opinion. Not only do they fail to take the lead in developing the international rules that would be necessary for states to effectively control the use of force internationally, they also do not enforce existing norms (for example by discouraging mercenarism). At the national level, some countries (the UK, France, and Belgium) have recently discussed the development of more adequate national legislation and regulation. But the results are not exactly spectacular. The laws in France and Belgium amount to clear bans of mercenarism and seem rather out of touch with actual international practice. In the UK the process ended with the secretary of state arguing for a regulation acknowledging the importance and positive contribution of Private Military Firms:

We conclude that the employment of professional, responsible and well regulated PMCs could, in some circumstances, contribute to the establishment of maintenance of relative stability, under which lasting solutions to such problems might be worked out. We further conclude that PMCs may have a legitimate role to play in helping weak governments to secure revenue streams, for example by protecting border points and highways (recommendation f; p. 3). (Foreign and Com- monwealth Office 2002b).

As for norms at the international level, in spite of a widespread condemnation of mercenarism by policy-makers, the UN convention against the finance and use of mercenaries has not been signed by very many Western countries (Italy being an exception) (UN 2003). Most Western countries accept (and sometimes encourage and provide contracts for) companies to operate from their territories. They also do little to prevent or discourage firms, NGOs or their own diplomatic services from relying on the services of private companies in crisis areas. There are clearly arguments for all of this: the interna-

44 tional and national legislation is inadequate; the firms are not military firms and do not engage in combat; the firms of other countries would take the contracts if ours did not; the reliance on private companies is a necessity in conditions where the state has broken down and in many cases private companies are better than public ones. All of these arguments of course have formalistic validity. But in the meantime, the consequence is that internationally the privatisation of the use of force is allowed to develop amidst indifference, self- serving excuses for not doing anything and declarations of an attachment to a state-based order visibly in the re-making. This ambiguous attitude towards the development of private military firms, is however linked to more than a decreased willingness to engage in the world following the end of the cold war. It has taken place in the shadow of the ascent of neo-liberalism. Indeed, the end of the cold-war coincided with the consolidation of what some have called “market civilisation” (Gill 1995; Strange 1990). One significant consequence of this development was that international (or global) markets grew rapidly, including in arms (Held, Mc- Grew et al. 1999: 95-103). The general quick development of communications, of techniques for trading and of mechanisms for organising (and obscuring) financial transfers greatly facilitated this development indirectly. But even more significant is the general re-evaluation of private and public alternatives in the military industry (Mandel 2002). An essential aspect of the neo-liberal revolution, was the celebration of the virtues of privatisation, private firms and free markets which were combined with a decrying of im- perfect states, the burden of bureaucratic red tape, the spectre of cronyism, corruption and political incompetence (Evans 1997; Feigenbaum, Henig et al. 1999; Hall 1986). From this vantage point, it is logical to ask whether or not private solution are not actually more effective than public ones. It is also easier to move away from the statist bias inherent in much thinking about the use of force. This is precisely what has been taking place. It has been the justification for privatising and outsourcing as well as for the willingness to accept the idea that in some situations (national and international) public forces may be less effective and no more morally defensible than private ones. The same re-evaluation is also taking place in the domestic contexts of most Western countries. Indeed, with the end of the cold war an immediate question that arose was whether defence budgets could not be radically cut. Nuclear weapons had made a third world war between the major international powers illegitimate. With the end of the cold war it was also becoming im- probable. The old enemy had vanished. The new ones, which rapidly ap- peared in the guise rogue states, re-emerging Russia, civilizational (read Mus-

45 lim) threats, were less immediate and less impressive. 9.11 might have changed this for the US, but it is still not clear that it has elsewhere. Moreover, overseas operations (peace stabilizing operations) soon came to be considered the most likely real task the armed forces would have to confront (Pugh 2002). In this situation, high expenditure on “baroque” public arms arsenals (Kaldor 1981) and large standing public forces made little sense. Rather, as efficiency and cost cutting became primary concerns, the idea that outsourcing everything except actual combat operations might be a good idea took root. Arguably, there is also a profound de-legitimation of the public way of dealing with security because of the development of a risk society. In a “risk society” there is a rampant sense of insecurity with triple roots: in the (1) uncertainty about the distinctions which guide everyday life, (2) insecurity about the future (linked to the economic system of flexploitation), and (3) physi- cal/bodily safety (Bauman 1997). However, there is a tendency to slide into a focus exclusive on the safety part of insecurity and in particular on the safety of the body, protection from crime and military matters. Partly because this is an insecurity which one has the illusion of knowing how to deal with. How- ever, obviously this slide cannot solve underlying problem: “There is a story of a drunken man who searched for a lost banknote under a lamp-post – not because he lost it there but because the part of the pavement underneath was better lit. Transferring anxiety from global insecurity and uncertainty, its genuine causes, into the field of private safety follows roughly the same logic” (Bauman 1999: 49). The effect of the looking under lamp strategy is that public solutions seem incapable of seeing (let alone dealing with) the real issues. They look increasingly irrelevant to people’s daily concerns. Hence people turn to private solutions, get a sense of security and this makes for considerable popular support of the development of private military and security (Un- gar, Bermanzohn et al. 2002). The consequence is that the military industry has been “normalised” to become more similar to other industries. Its form, the nature of operations and of particular relevance to the argument the kind of state involvement changes. As part of the overall cuts ownership was privatised. This dovetailed nicely with the needs of the revolution in military affairs where the significance of “off-the-shelf technology” (bought in from the private sector) and of technology with multiple uses was increasingly emphasised. The consequence was that research grants and contracts went to private firms. Thus, “the end of world bipolarity opened the flood gates to processes which had already begun in the civil sector and in certain parts of the world, processes which one might label globalization and informalization.” (Kaldor 2000: 2). Firms “increasing-

46 ly behave as ‘normal’ corporations with ‘normal’ business professionals [...] They cannot wait until groups of politicians and military committees have de- liberated over a ‘Grand Plan’.” (Lovering 1998: 227). Finally, the end of the cold war and liberal economic policies were also altering the view on privatisation in the military. One of the things that is always emphasised in discussions about the privatisation of the use of force is indeed the importance of the post-cold war situation for military establishments. In parts of the former Eastern bloc, the armed forces were turned into financial ventures by the civilian governments (Koptke and Wilke 1998). In others the same was done by the armed forces themselves in reaction to the virtual arrest of salary payments (Kaldor 2003). In others yet individuals began to market their own special skills and knowledge (such as those of the South Africa Special Forces that were dismantled with the transition from apartheid. Isenberg 1997). In the West the situation is of course less dramatic. However, there are considerable drops in the staff (Stanley 1998). Since this coincides with the expansion of private firms it is only logical that there is a tendency to move from the public to the private sector (and in some situations back again).The firms themselves make a point out of this proximity to the armed forces. They market the grade of their employees as a sign of reliability and competence. Every- one is an ex-something is the image that they would like to purport (Singer 2003). Where possible, firms underline their extensive and intense work for the public armed forces.

Conclusion

This account of the origins of the privatisation trend is at variance with the most common version of what has been driving events. The story usually told is one of a “security gap” which is created by the insufficiency and/or withdrawal of public forces. Budget cuts, lack of adequately trained public forces, the unwillingness of public forces to engage in no-go areas where people nonetheless have to work and live, and the hesitance of rulers to engage these public forces create a situation where alternatives have to be found. Firms need to protect their installations, governments their power, NGOs their staff, etc. This creates a demand for alternatives to uphold security. The alternative which develops is private security, provided by private firms or individuals (Mandel 2002). The problem with this account is that it does not go far enough. It does not ask why there is a (perceived) gap. Why there are budget cuts and with-

47 drawals and insufficient training? This section has gone some way to answer these questions. It has underlined that the “security gap” came from somewhere just as did the idea that private actors should be allowed and/or encouraged to fill it. In particular, it insisted on the centrality of the end of the cold war and the related unwillingness to uphold the kind of military engagement that marked the cold war. This dovetailed nicely with the neo-liberal revolution and the related positive a priori approach to private alternatives and free markets. More generally this chapter has insisted that these developments do mark a break with the past trend towards an ever more restrictive understanding of what role private actors and markets should play in regulating the use of force. At least since the second world war this role has been highly restricted as states have taken a central role owning the production of military related good and services, in regulating trade and in organising the sector. It has also insisted that even if much of the discussion surrounding these developments is sensationalist and focused on the more spectacular instances of mercenary involvement and its most spectacular form, it would be profoundly misleading to assume that this is all there is to the present development. The aggregate indicators presented in this chapter suggest otherwise. The next chapter elabo- rates this suggestion by giving an indication of the private military industry at present.

48 2. Private Military Companies Today: The Commodification of Military Services and its Limits

The present privatisation and outsourcing of military affairs breaks with the historical trend to expand state control as argued in chapter 2. However aggregate trends and figures give a very imprecise impression of how the resulting private military sector operates. Yet, this how is of more than marginal importance. It is important to this report, because saying anything specific about how privatisation affects state authority requires a better understanding of how the private sector operates. But more generally, for many observers the most striking development is not that private actors are reclaiming control over the use of force, but the way they are doing this. The modern military firm is frequently depicted as an efficient business corporation, operating out of the same kind of headquarters as would any other firm and abiding by the same market logic as would any other firm. It is a corporation with accountants, with PR-officials, traded on stock markets, with global reach and operating out of multiple locations and perhaps out of tax heavens. An “era of corporate warriors” is in the making according to one of the key observers of this field (Singer 2001/2). This picture captures something very important, namely that the military sphere is undergoing rapid commodification. Military services and the goods related to them are priced and sold on markets as commodities. Moreover, it tells the story of a genuine change in the role private firms play in the sector and many of these firms would fit the picture of the “new dogs of war” (Zarate 1998). Since the key novelty of the present developments lies here and since commodification of the military sector is often underestimated and de-drama- tised it is both important and justified to insist on these aspects. However, this chapter has to push beyond the rough picture. Its goal is to provide an understanding of the sector more broadly. Doing this, requires pointing out ways in which commodification in the military field creates markets, rules and regulations which defy any simplistic rendering. It is doubtful whether any sector could be adequately understood by a focus on any one type of cor-

49 poration, market or regulation. It is certain that the firms in the military sector cannot. Therefore, the chapter will build up a richer picture of the firms in the sector. It does this, first, by delineating the (a) outer contours of the private military market. It then proceeds to (b) discuss the types of firms that are active in the market according to what they actually sell and then it makes a further differentiation according (c) to how they sell their commodities and to whom. This paves the way for a brief discussion of the different kinds of private military companies that exist today. The chapter ends (d) with a short discussion of the formal regulatory framework by which governments direct and control these.

1. From the private military sector to the market for force

An immediate and understandable reaction to the now bourgeoning literature on private military companies is that it throws a bunch of rather loose- ly related things into a bag, shakes it, and hey presto out comes novelty. “Wild Mike Hoare”, who headed a mercenary group called the Fifth Command and dubbed “les affreux” in the Congo during the early 1960s, and Bob Denard, who fought with Hoare and later went on to Biafra, Chad, Morroco and Rhodesia among other places until he eventually took over the Comores in 1967 and for a second time in 1995, appear (without much distinction being made) together with Brown&Roots which belongs to Halliburton and provides logistics for the US armed forces, or AirScan which sells satellite intelligence. While it is indeed the case that this literature links up things usually thought of as unrelated (and is prone to exaggerate novelty), there are good reasons for this bundling of seemingly diverse things. In fact, as this section shows, the bundling is necessary to get a grasp of the “rules of the game” and increasing commodification in the military sector. The private military sector is defined by the fact that it involves the exchange of military services by private actors. The most common way to begin discussions is from the most obvious, namely private individuals selling their military know-how, or the traditional “mercenary”. However, more often than not, this is done merely to mention some of the more familiar examples of contemporary mercenaries and then to say that even if the traditional mercenary is still there, he is no longer likely to sell his services as an individual but through a company of one form or another. This then opens for a discussion of these “new” companies, what they look like, what kind of activities they engage in and how they differ (for good or for bad depending on the persuasions of the author) from the traditional mercenaries, what role they play in con-

50 temporary warfare, how they influence issues, authority, and responsibility for developments. This is where the discussion starts to seem as if it was ill focused and defined. It is not always evident what the rationale is for including and ex- cluding firms from the “military industry”. There is considerable awareness of this definitional problem, and there have been efforts to deal with it in the literature. Not surprisingly the key attempts to delimit the field follow the lines of thinking about distinguishing military activity more generally. Hence, the inside/outside distinction plays a central role. Conventionally it delimits the military and the police. It is also part of the definition of mercenaries who are traditionally understood as individuals engaging for pecuniary reasons in the armed forces of a country other than their own. It is logical to find that an important way of distinguishing among firms who operate with a “national” focus, and those who focus mainly on “international” markets (Mandel 2001). Similarly, as could be expected, a key line of distinction has been between “security firms” who engage mainly in policing activities, and “military firms” who are important for military operations. Second, military activity is usually associated with combat and wars. Hence, as could be expected, many authors try to use the criteria of whether or not firms engage in combat as a decisive line of distinction. Some draw a separation between “passive” and “active” firms and others between “armed” and “unarmed” firms. The former distinction is based on the extent to which firms actually engage in “offensive” combat or limit themselves to defending a specific territory (Brooks 2000; O’Brien 2000a; Spicer 1999). The latter distinction refers to whether or not firms engage in combat or remain content with providing supplies, training and advice. Finally, the military is understood to represent the public, the state and hence legality. The military, as opposed to terrorists or criminals, are usually wielders of “legitimate” (publicly sanctioned) uses of force. This is of course not always the case. There are plenty of illustrations where public armed forces, committing crimes which violate the general understanding of legality, may overstep their mandates on their own initiative and act against the state (military coups). However, the point here is that the military is associated with legal and legitimate uses of forces. This association is also reflected in the literature on private military companies where firms have been separated according to the legality of their operations. “Rogue firms” operating illegally are a variant on contemporary organised crime (which is arguably also increasingly corporate in nature1) and there is a strong sense that it is important to

1 This is the argument made by Arlacchi (1983).

51 separate these “firms” from the large established firms claiming to operate within the bounds of legality. Zarate provides one of the best cases for the possibility of doing this by separating “rogue mercenaries” from “security companies” (Zarate 1998) . These distinctions fit prevailing thinking patterns about security and military affairs and therefore make intuitive sense. They keep recurring in various combinations in the literature on private military companies. Shearer for example mixes them in arguing for a distinction among five different kind of “privatised entities”: the independent military company, proxy companies, security companies, ad hoc groups, and privatised states (Shearer 1998b). How- ever, for the analysis of the contemporary private military sector they are highly problematic and this is acknowledged by most observers. Fundamentally the reason for this is that the distinctions on which they are based are blurred to the point of being impossible to draw for most practical purposes. As will now be argued, in order to look at what is actually happening to military operations and the use of force, it is necessary to leave them aside, or at least to recognise that there is a considerable grey zone surrounding any one of these lines and that even if some firms are clearly operating on one side of the line, this grey zone links them to the rest of the market. The inside/outside distinction continues to be profoundly pertinent to the organisation of the military sector in the formalistic way that states have borders which constitute important de jure and de facto limits. Moreover, it is pertinent in the rather generic way that it is important that there be an element of crossing boundaries. However, it is difficult beyond this, to use this criteria for delimiting the private military sector. To begin with, many (most?) firms have both national and international clients. But more fundamentally, it is difficult to determine what is national and what is international. Determining the nationality of a firm in the military sector is often as difficult as it is elsewhere in the economy. The strong state grip on the sector is of course still visible. Some large firms are “national” in the sense of having headquarters, activities, staff and government support in one place (viz. MPRI, Bofors, or Matra-Dassault). This said many firms may have their headquarters in one place, their staff mainly from another, and their activities in a third. Similarly, it is often close nay impossible to say what is a national and what is an international focus. The military services/goods may be sold nationally, but they are used internationally in which category do they then fall? What about sales to nationals abroad? What about civil/ethnic/internal war situations where the issue at stake is precisely whether the conflict is national or international.

52 The distinction between combat and non-combat is also highly problematic and this is mainly because of the triple transformation of the nature of warfare: (1) The “revolution in military” affairs (Latham 2002), or more precisely the increasing reliance on technologically sophisticated weapon systems and intelligence has transformed the role of contractors from the private sector. Contractor personnel are increasingly indispensable and present on the front lines to support their weapon systems and perform the same functions as soldiers, at times even replacing soldiers (Zamparelli 1999). For example, during Desert Storm, civilian contractors provideed surveillance data during operational missions, maintenance of the TOW missile, the M1A1, the Bradley and the Patriot. One consequence is that the worry that civilian contractors might be treated as mercenaries is growing in the armed forces (Michaels 1999). Cooks may not be combatants, but for many logistics and consultancy firms the case is less clear cut. (2) The merging of policing and military operations is making the distinction between combatants and contractors very shaky (Andreas and Price 2001). Most real wars are not fought and won with the highly sophisticated – and arguably baroque – arms of the RMA (Kaldor 1981; Kaldor 2000). In- stead, most wars actually taking place and killing the by far largest number of people are fought with unsophisticated, small arms. Moreover, the irregular nature of the forces in guerilla and terrorist warfare make these arms difficult to use. In “peace stablizing operations” of various types, the armed forces are increasingly acting as police forces. This development has led some observers to conclude that conventional armed forces have become “irrelevant” (van Creveld 1991). It certainly has triggered a wave of self-scrutiny and reform in and about Western armed forces (Moskos, Williams et al. 2000). For the purpose of discussion here though, the relevance of this point is that when private contractors take on security, intelligence or logistics tasks they are often likely to find themselves in combat situations. For example guarding a diamond mine in Angola or protecting Lundin Oil extraction facilities in Soudan are armed activities and a central part of the “war” in either place. The same is true of selling information about the movement of Taliban groups in Afghanistan or Chechen rebels. In these real, existing cases the firms are in fact undertaking a central part of the military activity although formally they are not “combatant”. (3) The merging of war and peace is putting a final nail in the coffin of the combatant/contractor separation. Whereas our image of wars like to think of them in terms of what Kaldor would term “old wars”. Central to this image is

53 that a war has a clear beginning (a declaration of war) and ending (an armistice or a peace treaty). Before and after this there is peace. That is people are not being killed on large scales by military forces. Whether this image was ever an adequate description of what happens in war is not the issue here. What is clear is that superimposing this image on contemporary conflicts is rather obscuring. In many conflicts, it is a matter of dispute whether there is a war or not. There is no clear correlation between formal declaration and ending of wars, the occurrence of armed clashes, skirmishes or casualties. Instead, “levels of violence, death and displacement during peacetime can be worryingly similar to those of wartime” (Duffield 2001: 188-9). This makes it correspondingly hard to decide whether a firm taking on a contract somewhere is in fact engaging in combat or merely selling a security services. Lastly, the distinction between legal and illegal is wrought with problems. Ho-hums aside, it is notoriously difficult to get adequate information about anything in the military sector, including in the most “open” and democratic contexts. It is therefore virtually impossible to sort out the “long continuum that runs from (1) duly licensed governmental actions whose propriety almost everyone accepts through (2) derelictions by governmental agents to (3) dam- age wrought with secret support or encouragement from some segment of some government” (Tilly 2003: 26). Moreover, what is legal and what is not is a matter of intense political dispute anywhere. It is, for obvious reasons, even more so in military matters which usually involve multiple, contradictory, and overlapping jurisdictions and sometimes no clear jurisdiction at all. Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, in many contexts the private public distinction has lost much of its relevance. Public wielders of coercion (military and police) act in their own private interest on market terms. Arguably in many places this is not only a matter of “occult power networks” and the “shadow state” taking its toll on civilian life. It has proceeded beyond this and led to an outright criminalization and privatisation of the public sphere, including when it comes to the use of force (Bayart, Ellis et al. 1997). The jarring of the continued reliance on these obviously problematic distinctions with all their related connotations and the description of developments which defy them is certainly a key reason for the confused impression that much of the literature on the private military sector gives. But what is the alternative? A more adequate reaction is to face the blurring of the distinctions head on, that is more concretely to stop relying so heavily on them. The implications of this are quite far reaching. It entails accepting that the inside/outside; soldier/civilian; legal/illegal are more closely linked than we are accustomed to think. It indeed leads towards a more generic and Tillean

54 (Tilly 2003: 21-9) understanding of what is involved. To think about the “private” “military” sector, it is necessary to be open to the idea that what is being studied is the sale of means and services of coercion internationally, independently of the form that these take, the place where they are sold and/or used, the type of actor involved and the legality or illegality of the exchange. This is not a particularly elegant or parsimonious definition. However, to analyse developments and raise issues which go beyond the desirability of any given operation or the efficiency of any one firm it is important to allow for this openness. The remainder of this chapter will be used to reintroduce some order, by suggesting ways of thinking about the actors, the markets and regulations in force.

2. The firms’ activities: providers, consultants and support firms

Indirectly quite a bit has already been said about what is sold in the private military sector or more appropriately, as just argued, in the market for force. This section will try to systematise the characterisation. It will do so by discussing the kind of activities that firms in the sector engage in, now imply- ing that all the firms discussed are part of the private military. It is possible to distinguish the firms in the sector according to their main activity. Even if it is difficult to use the combatant/civilian distinction as a criteria for delimiting the private military sector, it is not impossible to recognise that firms specialise in different kinds of military activities. As suggested by Singer (2003: 139), the most logical way of classifying private military firms is to follow the literature on industrial organisation to look at what services/goods they offer and the place they occupy in their client’s organisation. Doing this, one can follow the approach taken in industrial organisations to think of outsourcing in terms of core providers, consultants and non-core outsourcing. Translated to the military field this makes a for a distinction between firms that provide military services, firms acting as military consultants and firms providing support for military operations (see box 3.1 for examples)2.

2 This kind of functional distinction seems more adequate than for distinctions which are more detailed but then also presumes the possibility of separating firms from other sellers, internal/external, crime/war and security/military. David Shearer e.g. suggests distinguishing companies that sell military operational support, military advice, military logistical support, security services, and crime-prevention services (Shearer 1998a: 25-6).

55 In the first category of military providers, one finds the firms who have no doubt attracted the most attention because they engage directly in and overtly in combat such as the South African firm Executive Outcomes, British Sandline, the Nepalese Gurkha Security Group, SCI or NFD. These firms offer either full packages where they take on entire operations or contracts where the firms work as “force multipliers” teaming up with local armed forces and providing specific expertise these forces are seen to be lacking in. An example of the first type of contract is the role of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone in 1995-6 where the firm came in on the Strasser government side with a full battalion, artillery, a full logistics organisation and ancillary specialists to defeat the Revolutionary United Front of Sankoh and to organise the presidential elections of 1996 (Zarate 1998: 95-7). An example of the second kind of contract is the role of the firm in Angola where it obtained a contract in 1993 to train the state army and direct front line operations initiating the process which eventually lead UNITA to accept engaging the talks which lead to the 1994 Lusaka peace accord. The firm relied on the expertise and experience of its South African staff many of whom had previously worked on the UNITA side in the war (Reno 2000). The military consultancy firms, do not offer this kind of direct combat services but to offer strategic, operational, and/or organizational advice and analysis. That is they work as consultancy firms in the private sector, with the aim of providing their client with the knowledge to become more effective. They suggest how the armed forces should be organised, what kind of tactics and strategy should be used, what equipment is needed and from where, and how logistics should be organised. The nature of their engagement varies enormously depending on what exactly they are hired to consult on. Prime examples of these firms include, MPRI (military and professional resources in- corporated), Levdan, and Vinnell. Some of the most well known examples is the involvement of MPRI in Croatia, where it consulted the armed forces on how to re-organise during the war and most importantly in the planning of the Operation Storm by which the Krajina was retaken and the war turned3. More recently the role of Vinnell in training the Saudi Arabian armed forces has attracted attention because of the opposition it has caused among militant mus- lim groups and the attacks on its installations.

3 The exact extent of the involvement is open to discussion. But it is very reasonable to assume that the firm was definitely involved in planning the operations and possibly even in carrying it out. (Singer 2003: 186-193).

56 Type of firm Examples of Companies

Military Provider Firms: Executive Outcomes, Sandline, SCI, NFD, Aims concentrate their activities on the battle field, ie. Ltd., Secrets, Atlantic Intelligence, engaging in actual fighting by supplying personnel and/or equipment as well as possibly commanding the field units.

Military Consultant Firms: Levdan, Vinnell, MPRI, Dyncorp, DSL, M PRI, concentrate their activities in the area of strategic, Silver Shadow, BDM, IDAS, International Business operational and/or organizational analysis, offering Company, Compagnie Internationle d’Assistance, advisory and training services integral to the Global Contingency Projects, Northbridge operation.

Military Support Firms: Ronco, Boeing Services, Ho lmes, Narver, Tibbett & concentrates their activities in supplementary or Britten, Space Imaging, D igital Globe, Business Risk noncore services, nonlethal aid and assistance such as Services, Brown & Root, Pacific Architects and logistics, intelligence, technical support, supply, and Engineers (PAE), Control Risk Group, Kroll, Salad in transportation. Security,COFRAS

Sources:Sources: Singer [Singer, (2003); 2003 International #2693; International Consortium Consortium of Investigati ofve Inves Journaliststigative (2002), Journali Foreignsts, 2002 and #2890; Commonwealth Foreign andOffice (2002) and France (2002). Commonwealth Office, 2002 #2488; France, 2002 #2792]. Box 3.1 The Activities of Private Military Companies

Finally, the military support firms who provide logisitics, intelligence, technical support, supply and transportation are the largest, most diverse and most rapidly growing group of firms. They also have most of the contracts. “Non-essential” functions typically make up more than half of the defence budget4. Not all of this goes to private firms and it is hard to find exact figures on how much does. Most countries provide no figures and they often do not know or do not want to tell5. However, it is a lucrative business.“It is the guys in the kitchens who are making the real money”6. Ex- amples of firms in this group include Brown&Roots, Ronco, Boening Ser- vices, Holmes, Narver, Wal-Mart etc. The kind of contracts that these firms have with the military are extremely diverse ranging from weapons maintenance and intelligence which are directly central to military operations down to cooking and transportation of building materials which are far less so. These are not meant to participate directly in the planning or carrying out

4 In the US for example it makes up around 70% of spending by the Department of De- fence. “Moving with the times”, Jane’s Defence Weekly 15 Nov. 2000. 5 (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002c: 8); “Outsourcing the dirty work”, The American Prospect May 1 2003. 6 “Military Industrial Complexities”, The Economist, June 11 2003.

57 of military operations. However, the rationale for including (some of) them is that they often end up playing a central role in these and de facto are replacing military personnel. For example, in the intelligence sector private firms play an increasingly central role in providing and analysing information. Former CIA director James Woolsey, estimates that about 95% of all intelligence comes from open source and much of this is from private firms (Singer 2003: 241). This might pull them into military operations. Hence, AirScan got entangled in a legal dispute over its responsibility when the Columbian air force dropped a cluster bomb on a village, killing 18 civilians. Two of the firm’s American employees had informed them that the site was a FARC position and directed them in the operation7. These categories are meant to show what firms in the private military actually sell and they provide a useful first grid for differentiating among firms and market segments. A firm selling a package involving a combat aircraft, its maintenance and pilot training is in no simple way competing with firms offering to organise a deal for conventional small arms, an intelligence analysis, a package for restructuring and training the armed forces, the guarding of an oil installation, the logistics for a humanitarian operation or a UN peacekeeping mission. However, the usage of these categories also warrants caution. First, not all firms – particularly support and consultancy and training – can be termed military firms. Firms sewing uniforms or consulting on the organisation of catering are not likely to become involved in military operations even if the lines between combatants and non-combatants are blurred. Even if it is true that firms selling direct consultancy or logistics may become involved in military operations, it is not the case that they necessarily will. Hence, the private market for force and the military sector proper is the space where they overlap and where firms potentially are pulled into military operations (figure 3.1).

7 “US pair’s role in bombing shown”, Los Angeles Times 16 March 2003.

58 Figure 3.1 Overlapping activities in the private military industry

Second, the categories are to some extent overlapping. As argued above, technological changes, the lack of clarity about the actual services provided by firms and the more generally blurred distinction between combatants and civilians make it hard to draw the line where support and/or consultancy ends and provision begins. Third, the categories are not exclusive in any way as many firms engage in more than one kind of category of activities. For example, Ukrainians leasing or selling a plane (including its maintenance) to the Eritrean air force are support firms. However, they also “advised” on this choice, trained the pilots to fly the planes (engaged in training and consultancy) and found themselves flying (officially only for training purposes) in military operations against Ethiopia (Singer 2003: 233-4).

3. The contracts and the clients

Contemporary military firms are, however, not only differentiated in terms of the goods and services they sell. They also differ greatly in how they

59 sell and to whom they sell. A firm like Sakina Securities offering “Jihad Chal- lenge Packages” to would be militants in Chechnya differs fundamentally from MPRI which is the major US firm in consultancy and training with a broad range of contracts for training and consulting the US armed forces at home and their allies abroad. Although both are in the business of offering consultancy and training, they are not really competing in the same market. We therefore need to go further in thinking about how the market for force is segmented in order to make sense of this difference. It is possible to do this by differentiating between firms not only according to what they sell (the activities they engage in) but also in terms of how they sell and to whom. In the military sector, the way firms sell their goods, that is the kinds of contracts they take on, vary greatly. It is true of most industries that there will be situations where neither the seller nor the buyer is interested in publicizing the conditions of a deal and/or the details of contract. Similarly, the attachment of secret clauses to contracts is a practice which affects not only the military industry. However, even if part of the military business is relatively open and transparent, it certainly also is true that much of it is notoriously secretive and hidden. Part of the reason for this is that contracts may break (or potentially break) legal norms. Because of the strategic importance of the sector, many countries regulate the export/import of arms, military training, recruitment, and the carrying of arms. Moreover, deals might touch on regulation also of other parts of the economy. In the context of African resource wars for example, firms have (allegedly) been paid with mining concessions and extractive rights. The example par excellence of this is the “EO model”: the firm provides the ruler with security, revenues (tax or direct) from an economic activity which is made possible as a consequence. In return the firm is paid and obtains an extractive right which is then exploited by a firm related to the corporation (Howe 2001). In the case of EO, this kind of deal was allegedly (the firm has denied this) made in Angola for oil and in Sierra Leone for diamonds. The concessions were then exploited by firms related to “Heritage Oil and Gas Inc” (Diamondworks and “Branch Energy” in particular) which were part of the same financial group as EO8. The EO model is probably used with frequency in contexts where hard currency is scarce and payments problematic, albeit not necessarily at the scale and involving the kind of corporate link-

8 An impressive attempt to trace the corporate linkages of EO can be found in (Musah and Fayemi 2000: 9).

60 ages the EO model did. This is why private firms have become central to the political settlements in Africa. This is illustrated both by sectoral negotiations such as the Kimberly process establishing a diamond certification system to stop the flow of “blood diamonds” (Cooper 2002) and regional settlements that in the great lakes region (Dunn and Shaw 2001). However, the most important consideration is certainly not formal legal norms but the political sensitivity of the business. Firms, their home governments, the clients or third parties often do not want publicity about the deals because they signal an involvement in an ongoing conflict. One of the motivations for using private firms is precisely that it becomes a way of intervening indirectly and obscuring that involvement. Moreover, outsourcing gives intelligence organisations the flexibility to hire whom they want for the time they are actually needed with out real scrutiny. As budgets fluctuate greatly this is a great asset. Hence according to an intelligence expert (of the Federation of American Scientists) “the current heavy use of contractors is probably a product of the large, one-time cash infusion the agency is receiving from Congress to fight the war on terrorism”9. Covert operations that would formerly have been under- taken by secret services and special forces are now “outsourced” to private companies. For example, the training and restructuring of public armed forces as well as non-state movements, the protection or inversely assassination of political personalities, are operations typically associated with secret services and special forces. Now we often find private firms involved. By way of example: Dyn- Corp Inc is protecting president Karzai in Afghanistan10; Vinnell has been training the future Iraqi armed forces11; DynCorp has a contract in Columbia which also includes the training of special forces and intelligence12; Aims Ltd. drafted a plan for the Turkish services to kidnap Abdullah Öcalan and the eventual kidnapping by the services themselves was assisted by another private company (Silverstein 2000: 161); Northbridge Services Group caused an outrage by offering to kidnap Charles Taylor from his Nigerian safe haven13. To capture how firms in the military sector do their business it is therefore useful to introduce a distinction in terms of how firms operate. However

19 Quoted in “CIA seeks guns-for-hire in the terror fight” American Press, 27.11.2003. 10 “Can Mercenaries protect Hamid Karzai?” The New Republic, 25.11.2004. 11 Rosenfeld, Steven (2005) Forget Halliburton. http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040117 Rosenfeld.shtml 12 “We’re already at war in Colombia” Houston Chronicle, 19.02.2003. 13 “Firm seeks Charles Taylor bounty” , 11.12.2003; “US mercenaries float plan to snatch Taylor from Nigeria”, Financial Times, 10.12.2003.

61 as just underlined, the key concern is not legality or illegality which is mostly exceedingly contested. More adequate is a distinction between open and hidden ways of doing business. One can regard this distinction as a continuum running from the fully open sale of a business or goods with a contract that can be scrutinised, to the contract used partly because it diminishes public attention and debate, to contracts with hidden clauses, to the outright non-public and hidden contract. Where on this continuum a firm engages in business and how far it is ready to go in either direction will place it in different markets. It is not only how firms engage in business which matters but also with whom. To return to the contrast between Sakina Security and MPRI, the difference between the firms is not only that Sakina engages in hidden business. So does the MPRI. For example the exact nature of MPRI’s engagement in Croatia is still controversial. Officially the firm was not involved in the planning and carrying out of the offensive to retake the Krajina, although it seems more than reasonable to believe it was, Croatian officials sustain as much and the firm credits itself with the success of the operation. To capture the difference between the firms, we need to look at the difference of their clients. Sak- ina worked for non-state clients. MPRI along with most of the firms in the sector who claim respectability claims to work only for “legitimate governments” or with their approval. To capture the segmentation of the market, we therefore need to introduce a differentiation between public and private clients. Also the public/private distinction is more a matter of a continuum than two clear cut categories. Indeed, while some clients will be clearly private such as some private corporations, some armed opposition movements, private firms, humanitarian organisations and other formally “private” actors are in fact closely tied to the public. They operate with the support of a state or government and perhaps even for public authorities. This is be the case for example of corporations who for some reason have a strong backing from their home government and/or who are partly publically owned. For example Elf has traditionally had strong backing from the state of France for its operations in Africa, including for its operations in conflict areas14. It might also be true of NGOs, who are semipublic creations and who might even do part of the diplomacy of their home state by for example gathering and analysing information, being present on the terrain and sitting at the negotiating table. In- versely some seemingly “public” clients may approach the private end of the

14 www.globalwitness.org/press_releases/display2.php?id=227

62 spectrum if they act for themselves in their own private interest rather than as public officials representing a state (Global Witness 2003b). Finally there will be the clearly public clients, that is states for whom the firms might work. There is no simple one-to-one relationship between how business is done (hidden/open) and with whom it is done (private/public). As has already been indirectly emphasized, it is neither uncommon for governments to use private firms for covert operations, nor for private clients to have open contracts. Fig- ure 3.2 illustrates this and examples have been plotted in to illustrate what kind of business concretely would fit where. What we have arrived at then is an understanding of the market for force as segmented according to the goods and services exchanged, but also according to how they are exchanged and with whom. The point of this exercise is not classification for classifications sake. Rather, it is important for the discussion here because in which market segment a firm is competing will matter considerably for what is a competitive advantage and what is not. At the open end of the market, it should be logically expected that firms market themselves as working within the boundaries of legality and morality. Indeed, firms in this end of the market place attach importance to their “screening” of employees, on their strong links to governments and military establishments which give a stamp of respectability and on the fact that they do not violate human rights in their operations. They also spend considerable energy on showing that cases of illegal/immoral behaviour – when they occur and cannot be denied – are exceptions to a rule of respectability. This is the background against which efforts to hush down discussions around the case of a DynCorp official’s role in organising a sex ring involving teenagers in Bosnia, and the firm’s firing of the DynCorp colleague who had brought attention to the case should be read15. It is also the background of the strategic alternative to hushing down: namely relativising blunders either by showing that they are exceptions to a rule of respectability or by arguing that the alternatives are even worse. Hence, the professionals interested in Western Africa have energetically contributed to the spread of information about the (undeniable) blunders of the public, mainly Nigerian ECOWAS armed monitoring group – ECOMOG – (which has been deployed in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Senegal). “Everything Carriable Or Mov- able: Gone” is the mock abbreviation fit to construct a reputation of looting. The ECOMOG is an easy target. However, the criticism reaches more broadly and focuses on the costs and inefficiency of public forces broadly speaking.

15 For a discussion of the case see among many others Singer (2003: 335-6).

63 Figure 3.2 Clients and Contracts in the Private Military Sector

At the hidden end of the market, concerns of legality and morality should be expected to be of second order. The key marketing strategy is more likely to be one which emphasises the effectiveness of the firms and their capacity to fulfill the engagement they have taken on. In this processes a reputation of forceful acting capacity might be very important, even if this does not square well with human rights considerations. Just as for organised crime it serves the dual purpose of intimidating opponents, hence reducing the risk that the ve- racity of the reputation is actually tried, and of attracting clients who need a guarantee that if show comes to show the protector can protect (Gambetta

64 1993). Hence, it is not surprising that EO made their reliance on the SADF part of their brand marketing in Africa where clients had experienced facing these forces. Nor is it surprising that some firms – like Levdan (run by a retired Israeli general) – seem to construct themselves (advertise is probably not the right term here) as firms working mainly in the world of shady contracts. Things which would be clear liabilities in the official end of the market – such as contacts with networks, clients and employees clearly operating outside the frame of laws – are not disadvantageous on this end of the market. They might even be turned into something positive. A Soldiers of Fortune journalist points out that MPRI is just “a glorified transportation corps, as opposed to a military outfit. They’re almost like the FedEx of government service”16. Presum- ably some are more interested in hiring the military outfit. Similarly, whether or not clients are public or private will shift what kinds of relations to the public sphere are advantageous. If the clients are mainly public, contacts to the public sphere are important in a variety of ways. Em- ploying staff from the public (civilian or military) institutions is likely to be advantageous. It provides a direct link to the clients which might be crucial in obtaining contracts, as is well illustrated by the role of Dick Cheney in getting Halliburton, for which he was previously the CEO, a number of important defence contracts17. But in a more diffuse way, it will also ensure familiarity with the practices of the client and hence make interaction smoother and easier to handle. Hence not surprisingly, in a firm such as MPRI which does the bulk of its dealings with or through various public institutions “everyone is an ex- something”. Correspondingly, one of the worries expressed by members of the armed forces in the US is that the growing number of their staff retiring to the private sector and the publicity surrounding the more lucrative contracts might jeopardize the institution’s claim to a well funded pension scheme (Singer 2003: 308). For firms working for mainly non-state clients, ties to the state institutions might be an advantage. However other things such as the recommendations of organisations (corporations, aid organisations, or armed movements) are likely to weigh far more heavily. There is in other words not one form of market discipline at work in the private military business. The “market” is always disciplining, but in what way depends on what kind of market it is that is doing the disciplining. An imme-

16 “Corporate Soldiers: The US government privatises the use of force” Multinational Monitor, March 1999. 17 One of the more complete of the innumerable accounts of the links is provided in “Con- tract Sport: What did the Vice President do for Halliburton?” The New Yorker 16-23.2004.

65 diate consequence of the argument just made is that it would be highly unlikely that “market discipline” in and by itself would be sufficient to keep the business legal and ethical. This is an important point because there is present- ly considerable talk about industry self-regulation and the importance of “market discipline” in that regulation. At the same time (and somewhat par- adoxically) it is not a deeply contested insight. Many industry representatives, who push for the development of the sector and for legal changes which would enhance this expansion – for example by making it possible for the UN to hire private firms for their peace stabilizing operations – insist on the importance of controlling the “rogue” firms. This leads onto the obvious question of what the state of official regulation of the sector is today.

4. Official regulation

Regulation of the private military market is fragmentary, contradictory and incomplete. The consequence is not only that regulation is difficult for states, but also firms in the market find the legal uncertainty surrounding their activities very trying. This certainly adds to the overall informality and lack of transparence in the sector since the easiest way to avoid having to deal with unclear legislation is to avoid formality. Behind the fragmentary, contradictory and incomplete state of official regulation lies first the obvious difficulty related to regulating any global market. This difficulty is in no way specific to the market for force. However, compounding this general difficulty are two things: the relatively recent spur of commercialisation and globalisation in the military sector and – more fundamentally – the fact that states have so far shown little interest in developing regulation. As is the case with attempts to regulate any global market, a first hurdle is that regulation by definition has to be multilayered, as it involves international, several national, and local levels. Contested is usually both the interpretation of the regulation and the basic question of which regulation to apply. Starting at the international level, as underlined in chapter 2 mercenary activity has been an illegitimate practice internationally since the late 19th century. This said, formal international regulation is relatively recent and has its roots in the de-colonialisation process and the related conflicts. Condemna- tion of the use of mercenaries began appearing in UN general assembly reso- lutions related to the de-colonialisation (e.g. 1969 resolution 2548 on the “implementation of the declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples”). Moreover, the first international convention is an

66 OAU convention adopted in 1977 on “the Elimination of mercenaries in Africa” which entered into force in 1985. The UN followed suit in 1989 by formulating a convention (equally focused on the post-colonial situation) against “The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination”18. The conventions have been of limited significance in actually regulating the market for force. The OAU convention is formulated in harsh terms re- ferring to the obligation of states to punish mercenaries in the harshest way possible, including by capital punishment (Art 7). However, since it does not explicitly prohibit the use of mercenaries by states in internal wars nor pre- clude the presence of advisers, trainers and technicians, it has been highly ineffective for dealing with contemporary mercenarism and is in dire need of reform (Kuofor 2000). Similarly, the UN Convention, which only entered into force in 2001, has been significant above all because it encouraged debate, awareness and improved international understanding of the problems involved in regulating the private military market. Indeed, attached to the Con- vention has been a special rapporteur whose reports have done much to promote awareness of the issue. However, in actual regulatory terms the convention has failed to make a mark. Part of the reason for this is that only 24 states have joined the convention so far and most states where the private military firms are significant (because they operate there, have their home base there or recruit there) have not signed. In Western Europe only Belgium and Italy have signed and Germany is in the process of doing so. The US, the UK, France, Russia, and South Africa have not signed and do not plan to do. The reason mostly given is that the convention is too imprecise/insufficient in its definition of mercenaries. Indeed, it is perhaps telling of the state of international regulation that the most significant (and therefore contested) issue is the definition of a “mercenary”. The present standard definition (retaken in the UN convention) was formulated in 1977, as part of the renegotiation of the 1949 Gene- va conventions I-IV and with the aim of clearly stating that mercenaries were not deserving of prisoner of war status (Article 47 of Protocol additional I19). This definition insists on the actual participation in a specified (international) armed conflict, on the pecuniary motivation, and on the lack of direct attachment to the conflict through nationality, residence or third party involvement.

18 The text of the convention can be found at (UN 1989). 19 The full text can be found at www.icrc.org.

67 For the regulators this is insufficient. It does not clearly cover internal as well as external conflicts. It is exclusively focused on individuals (and not corporations) for whom it is necessary to assess the motivation (an impossible task).“Armed conflict” is too narrow as it excludes things like the destal- ibilization of governments, illicit trafficking, terrorism and major violations of fundamental rights including e.g. ethnic cleansing, forced deportations and destruction of livelihood. “Any mercenary who cannot exclude himself from this definition deserves to be shot – and his lawyer with him” (Shear- er 1998a: 18). For the actors in the market, the definition is too inclusive as it fails to provide ways of distinguishing military/security services which are not mercenarism as they do not entail any combat. Advisers, technicians, logistics firms and security agents cannot clearly be excluded. The discussion is in a way stuck in a pre-regulatory stage: the dispute is over what should be regulated and how to regulate it, not about the interpretation of existing regulations. In the latest report on the activities of the UN special rapporteur, the bulk of space is occupied by a proposal of how to amend the UN Convention by changing the definition of mercenaries hoping that this would make it a more useful tool for market regulation (UN 2003: annex). Moreover the report brings attention to the need to develop “oversight, regulation and monitoring mechanisms that clearly differentiate military consultancy services from participation in armed conflicts and from anything that could be considered interventions in matters of public order and security that are the exclusive responsibility of the State” (UN 2003: 9). It is clear, these mechanisms are not yet there. The insufficiency and ineffectiveness of international regulation is mirrored at the national level. As Senior Pentagon Analyst, Paula Rebar, explains for the US: “policy is still being drafted, and it’s still kind of mushy”20. Many countries have no direct legislation of mercenarism. The regulation that exists is often un-implementable or not implemented. In the UK e.g. the last case where a person was tried according to the foreign enlistment act of 1870 dates back to 1896 (UN 2003: 12). Therefore regulation is more often than not indirect working through regulations covering the carrying of arms and the arms trade (for an overview see Annexe). These regulations usually restrict the kind of equipment, logistics, training, intelligence and advisory services that can be exported to countries at war as well as the types of arms that can be legally used by private individuals.

20 “The Pentagon’s Private Army”, Fortune, 3.3.2003.

68 These regulations are clearly not a panacea. This is so for obvious reasons including that national regulation often does not cover the activities of national citizens abroad or that states have many good reasons for not following them vigorously. But more fundamentally they fail to deal adequately with the kinds of issues at stake. National regulations usually assume that activities in the market take place with the knowledge of the state and most likely with its tacit, if not explicit, approval. When this is not the case, regulation often proves inadequate. It is telling that Kelvin Smith (an American government employee), who ran a training camp where “groups purporting to be headed to the fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya did “mock terrorist-type attacks on utilities plants” and six of whose pupils “later turned out to be members of al Queda”, was sentenced to two years for violating U.S. gun laws (Singer 2003: 270). Clearly, in the post 9/11 environment and under the post Patriot Act US legislation, Kelvin Smith’s fate would have been very different. However, for activities falling outside the (arguably rather expandable and ill-defined) “terrorist” sphere the problem remains even in the US. The overall picture is also evolving. There is a trend to revise and expand national legislation and introduce measures to deal explicitly with the issue of mercenarism and private military companies. The South African government was the first and has gone the furthest with its 1998 Regulation of Foreign Mil- itary Assistance Act which prohibits the recruitment, use or training of persons for as well as financing or engaging in mercenary activity and which was recently sharpened further. Russia made the use, recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries a crime in 1996. But also Western countries are beginning to consider legislation. France has recently passed a law on Repres- sion of Mercenary Activity (April 2003) (France 2002); in the UK preparato- ry work has been under way for some time now to regulate private military companies (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002a; 2002b). New Zealand is introducing a bill to outlaw mercenary activities21. Regulation is nonetheless likely to remain patchy both in coverage and in implementation. This is so because while governments have political and economic stakes in the expansion of the business it is often far from clear what their stakes in regulation are. Politically, governments have no interest in being overly zealous in regulating. As illustrated in the discussion above, private actors can be useful for organising covert or at least not so visible political support. Economically, the logic of “national champions” applies no less in the security sector than it does elsewhere. Contracts that do not go to national

21 The New Zealand Herald 16.10.2003.

69 firms and market shares not occupied by them might be taken by firms from somewhere else. Even if most governments are no doubt aware that “firms not states” are competitive and make profits (Porter 1990), they are still keen to support “their” firms. Both stakes militate against stringent and effective legislation which would undermine the possibility of being soft handed if necessary. Inversely, many governments, and certainly most Western governments, do not clearly see that they have much to lose. Most would probably side with the idea that “it is perhaps better to approach the military companies as a weapons system, which is what they are... In fact, the risk is lesser because expertise can be withdrawn whereas weaponry remains as the property of a pur- chaser” (Shearer 1998b: 92). This is the reason why reflecting more – as the subsequent chapters do – on what is different about this particular form of weapon system is very significant.

Conclusion

The “rules of the game” governing contemporary private military firms are, to sum up, less anchored in formal legislation than they are in the discipline of the market. Formal legislation and regulation has not developed apace with the development of the industry. Even if there are signs that there is some interest in altering this state of affairs both nationally and internationally, it is most probable that markets rather than legislators will have the upper hand in setting the rules of firm behaviour. These markets come with a caveat though. They are certainly not Smithean spaces where entry and exit are open and the rules of the game imposed by an invisible hand. The private military markets are exceedingly politicised spaces. The (one would wish more often) visible hand of the government plays a considerable role in buying, owning, planning, subsidizing, directing, and in facilitating operations in the market. Corpora- tions might benefit from holding that hand or they might have to avoid it. But they certainly cannot ignore it. The private military market is located in the grey area where the public and private meet and sometimes merge. It might be tempting to try to describe and explain this market as if it were a single place, where firms competed on relatively clear terms and were subjected to the same developmental trends. Industry representatives are prone to do so. They stress that their sector is a normal economic sector and by implication that they are normal firms working in a normal market. The reason for this insistence is that it makes it possible to claim that “market discipline” will ensure efficiency and will force and keep firms, prone to safeguarding

70 their reputation, from engaging in the more murky part of the activity no one can deny exists. A similar temptation exists among those who strive to depict the sector. Parsimony and clarity are highly prised virtues. Singer does not hesitate to argue that contemporary PMFs are organised as businesses, driven by corporate rather than individual profit motives, and competing in an “open and global market” (2003: 67), even though much of the content his book shows that to a large extent the market is neither open nor global nor competitive in any meaningful way. If parsimony and clarity become misleading they cease to be virtuous. This section has made amply clear that in the case of the military market it might be necessary to accept some modicum of complexity. The market must be thought of as segmented according to the goods and services exchanged, but also according to how they are exchanged and with whom. Where firms find themselves, is fundamental for what they consider assets and liabilities. Even more strongly, corporations are shaped by where their location is in the market: their employment strategies, the way they interact with other firms, their marketing strategy, the form and location of their headquarters, their financial structure, in other words, their corporate structure is shaped by the market segment in which they are operating. But perhaps most fundamentally for the analysis in the subsequent chapters, where in this segmented market a firm operates will radically change the kind of effect its operations has on public authority. To underline this is not to hail complexity for complexity’s sake. Rather, it is to stress the importance of considering that firms in the private military sector operate in these interlocking, but distinct markets. Putting blinkers on regarding any market segment could only make the discussion of the development of these firms on state authority partial and misleading.

II The Impact of PMCs on State Authority

3. State Authority I: The Military and Private Military Companies

One way of thinking about how the rise of the private military sector is affecting state authority is to focus on how it influences authority inside the armed forces. Indeed, the armed forces are the state institution which one would expect to be directly influenced by the rise of private military companies and the privatisation of military services. It is on the traditional terrain of the armed forces that the companies are threading, it is in relation to the armed forces that the core of the private sector is operating. This chapter suggests how one might think about what this sharing of terrain entails in terms of authority relations within the armed forces. The discussion to a considerable extent relies on examples from and discussions about the situation in the US armed forces. This choice is motivated by the fact that privatisation there has gone further than elsewhere, but also by the consideration that more information is available. However, since the aim is to provide a backdrop for considering the implications of privatisation in order to encourage debate about privatisation and regulation, this should not be seen as a drawback. Following the set up developed in the introduction, the chapter will be organised around the differentiation between three kinds of effects on the authority of the armed forces: direct, indirect and diffuse. It will start by showing that the increased presence of private contractors reduces and considerably complicates direct military authority on the battle field. Second, the chapter suggests that reliance of private contractors influences authority in the armed forces indirectly by affecting the military culture or more concretely the self perception of in the military profession in ways which reduce the grip of public authority on the military as an institution and augments the extent to which the military becomes an institution endowed with a sui-generis sub-culture. Finally, the chapter argues that the rise of the private market for force has diffuse effects on military authority by reducing the imprint of public considerations on the way that the evaluation of past military operations and thinking about future military priorities is organised. The chapter does not

75 suggest that these changes are necessarily negative. In fact, many would think that these developments – if adequately controlled and shaped – could be useful for society at large. However, they do indicate the importance of dealing with the issues raised. Therefore the chapter concludes by summing up the more concrete policy considerations that emerge in the chapter.

1. Contractors on the battlefield

As a consequence of privatisation and outsourcing civilian contractors are increasingly present in the same functions as soldiers on the battlefield. This development is blurring lines of authority in the military. This is not because of the intrinsically immoral nature of contractors. Rather it is because of the specificity of war situations: contractors often have a strong interest in interpreting their contracts narrowly at the same time the military is ill-equipped to make them act otherwise. The result is a three way contractual dispute between the military as an institution, the contracting firm management and its employees. This kind of dispute is likely to become increasingly central if the present privatisation trend continues. It is unlikely to be resolved by the current trend towards finding ways of integrating contractors as reserves to submit them to military discipline in combat situations. And, centrally to the argument here, this conflict is bound to undermine military authority on the ground. As underlined in chapter three, one of the consequences of privatisation and of the increasing complexity of weapons systems is that contractors have become increasingly central on the battlefield. They often end up in the same positions as soldiers. We are in a situation where we find:

civilian technicians assisting in the collection of surveillance data during operations missions [...] civilian maintainers providing battlefield maintenance of a TOW missile, the M1A1, the Bradley, or the Patriot missile [..]and contractors supporting the gathering and interpreting of data from the Joint Air Forces Con- trol Centre and feeding intelligence and targeting information to operators (Zam- parelli 1999: 14)

In the recent Iraq operations, private contractors were involved in maintaining and operating the F-117 stealth fighter, the M1A1 Abrams tank, and unmanned drones1. The consequence is in Paul Lombardi’s (CEO of Dyn-

1 Iraq Outsourced, New York Times, 14.12.2003.

76 Corp) characteristically immodest formulation that “you could fight without us, but it would be difficult”2. This centrality of their operation also means that the “job” the contractors do is central to effective military authority over the battle field. If the contractors disappear from the scene, so do some of the “emergency-essential services” that they are providing. Therefore, military control and authority on the battlefield increasingly presupposes an authority over contractors. This is not problematic because of some intrinsic deplorable qualities of private contractors. Machiavelli’s cautioning against the “whores of war” still influences much of the discussion surrounding mercenaries. Mercenaries are hence often said to be brave among friends and cowards among enemies, of dubious moral quality, and ultimately unreliable. They might chose not to defend their client, run away or even turn against him. Even though mercenaries might indeed behave in this way I would like to resist the idea that this is the case because of some intrinsic qualities. This kind of behaviour is likely to be a problem for any military commander of any type of force. Authority on the battle field is a perennial problem. Lack of discipline, violations of the norms regulating the conduct of war, flight from danger, and mutiny are a perennial part of military history. Any generalizing assumption to the effect that conscripted or permanently engaged public soldiers fight better and more loyally than temporarily hired mercenaries, does not stand historical or contemporary scrutiny (Paret 1992). It all depends on the conditions of the hiring/recruiting of either. Moreover, there is no a priori convincing reason for assuming that the motivations of contracted mercenaries would be less noble than those of public soldiers and that, correspondingly, this would make them morally superior and hence easier to control than their contracted coun- terparts. Also members of public armed forces might have pecuniary motives for their presence and/or might take pleasure in the aesthetics of war and killing (Cohen 2001; Cook 2000). It is therefore fundamental not to “turn a blind eye to the unpleasant aspects of officially sanctioned non-commercial activity” and fall into facile and deeply rooted prejudices against mercenaries (Lynch and Walsh 2000). The problem posed by the presence of contractors soldiers is hence not misbehaviour as such. The problem is that the established solutions for dealing with misbehaviour do not apply to contracted private actors. Indeed, all (public) military institutions have developed institutional mechanisms to deal with these absolutely central problems. There are martial courts for dealing

2 “The Pentagon’s Private Army”, Fortune 3 March 2003.

77 with disobedience, desertion and mutiny. There are screening mechanisms for preventing them. And there is a training process for socialising newcomers in- to the military. In the private markets corresponding mechanisms are partial and patchy and applied at will. Morever, it is important to recognise that specific problems do arise with the emergence of the contemporary private military industry for authority on the battle field. Contracts can be no replacement for obligation and obedience. On the contrary, there are exceedingly good reasons to expect disagreement and contestation about the interpretation of contracts. First, this is the case for reasons which are by no means specific to the military sector: there is always scope for contesting the interpretation of contracts. This is true in all contractual contexts. It is the underlying reason for the bulk of conflicts pertaining to commercial law. The military sector is no exception to this general rule. There is hence continuous haggling over the exact nature of obligations entailed in contract outsourcing and privatizing military services. It is therefore only normal that the Government Accountabili- ty Office in the US has been involved in looking at a number of cases. “For example, Brown and Root allegedly failed to deliver or overcharged severely on four of seven of its contractual obligations. Two others were partially taken over by the U.S. military personnel, and the remaining one was given to another company” (Singer 2001/2: 205). In many of these cases it is finances rather than authority that are at stake. However, in some it is also authority relations. The firms simply do not do the job they are supposed to for the military or do it so badly that it becomes unacceptable. For example, MPRI on contract to train officers in Columbia failed to send Spanish speaking instructors. Vinnell, in Iraq to train the new armed forces, had levels of drop out over 50%3. In both cases money was lost, but more importantly the authority of the military was contested in an immediate way. Second, however, there are two reasons for which contractual conflicts are more likely to occur in combat situations. One is that the “fog of war” often makes it necessary to leave open what the exact content of a contract should be. Since almost by definition it is impossible to know how a conflict situation will develop, it is impossible to specify exactly what and how much a contractor will have to do. The solution to this (in the US context) is the development of so called “cost-type contracts” (Avant 2002; Hartung 1999). The idea underlying these contracts is that beyond a minimum agreement on specified

3 “Privatised Military Industry Is Taking over the Work of War” The Boston Globe, 19.10.2003; “Vinnell’s Army on the Defensive” PMC discussion list, 22.01.2004.

78 work, the contractor will fill out post factum the bill for the services actually provided. That is, the content of the contract will be defined at the end of the contractual relationship rather than at the beginning. Besides the very obvious scope for using these contracts for overcharging and the like, the procedure also has another effect which very directly affects authority of military commanders on the battlefield: it paves the way for contractors to refuse to provide a certain service because it is not formally specified in the contractual relationship and therefore not required. As much is recognised by the very same US Department of Defence which has made privatisation an official strategy and has written into its directives that private solutions and outsourcing should be favoured over public ones. In one of its reports it argues that

DoD components cannot ensure that emergency-essential services performed by contractors would continue during crisis or hostile situations... If the contractors leave their jobs during a crisis of hostile situation, the readiness of vital defense systems and the ability of the Armed Forces to perform their assigned missions would be jeopardized (quoted in Zamparelli 1999: 13).

It might of course be argued that firms have a strong incentive not to refuse to provide a service simply because this would undermine their relationship with the military, i.e. the most important client (Spicer 1998). Although in principle a credible argument, it underestimates the specificity of conflict and war situations as compared to normal contractual situations. This leads to a second difficulty for military authorities in dealing with contractors. It is indeed the case that in situations where combat is ongoing or immi- nent, there may be very good reasons for service providers and contractors to interpret their own contractual obligations narrowly, just as would many soldiers if given a choice. This is the second reason to expect contractual conflict in combat situations. The closer contractors are to the battle field the more they run the risk of getting in “harm’s way”. A calculation (depending on who makes the calculus) comparing what the costs of getting into harm are with the costs of withdrawing, may actually make it more attractive not to provide a service. This might well be the case even if it means a problematic relationship with the military and/or the state in the future. Contractors are all the more likely to refuse obeying orders which put them in harm’s way as formally speaking they cannot legally be expected to. Contractors cannot be forced into harms way even in cases where a contractual obligation to furnish a specific service would exist. “In reality, the com- ponent commander cannot compel contractors to perform, even under contract, if it would force them to go into harm’s way” (Zamparelli 1999: 13). As

79 one study on the matter argues for the French context there is fundamental discrepancy between the world of the military discipline and that of contractual and rights based labour:

how should one reconcile this constraint [of self sacrifice in the military] with the classical labour law to which soldiers are not subjected? How should one apply to a civil work contract the obligation to accept killing, or rather depending on the case, to accept the order to be killed? In sum, how can one reconcile on a non-pacified or even openly conflictual terrain, soldiers subjected to a very particular status and civilians sent by their firms to fulfil contractual obligations? (La Commission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armées 2002: 37, my translation).

Finally, the uncertain status of contractors would also seem to militate against their willingness to take personal risks. Indeed, conflicts between contractor employees – who literally speaking are asked to risk their lives for the fulfilment of contracts – and their public and private managers, who ask them to make this contribution, have become increasingly common (Avant forthcoming)4. “PMC employees abroad work in a legal netherworld”5. The employees find themselves abused both by their employers and public authorities. The public authorities give them neither the legal protection nor the symbolic recognition reserved for official soldiers. This is reflected e.g. in the discussion about whether or not to grant private contractors who died in Afghanistan working for the CIA, a star on the memorial wall conventionally reserved for CIA officers dead in service6. Dealing with this conflict is going to become one of the central issues in the sector. The difficulties of imposing military authority on contractors is com- pounded by the fact that institutionally the military is ill-equipped to deal with the expansion of contractual engagements. This is not because by essence or magic, contracts cannot be handled by the military. Given appropriate training in commercial law and management as well as adequate staff for the purpose, there is little reason to doubt that the armed forces could deal with the expansion of contractual relations. However, the rapid growth of outsourcing and privatisation has not been accompanied by the development of institutional and administrative capacities the military would need to deal with the

4 “U.S. Contractors Are Targets Overseas; As More Military Work Is Farmed Out, More Civilians Are in Harm’s Way” The Washington Post, 20.10.2003. 5 “Can mercenaries protect Hamid Karzai?” The New Republic, 25.11.2003. 6 “CIA seeks Guns-For-Hire in Terror Fight” Associated Press, 27. 11.2003.

80 new situation. Privatising and outsourcing have been used precisely as a de- vice for cutting clerical (and other non-essential) staff in the military7. The idea that to work effectively the privatisation and outsourcing might require investment precisely in this kind of staff is slowly making its way. As stated by a DoD official: “the use of logistics contractors is not really a panacea that excuses the government and government officials from effective oversight and management responsibilities of a particular crisis or policy problem”8. However, so far little has been done to translate this insight practically. Particularly in the military, little has been invested, in the development of adequate skills for dealing with the contractual situation. A US Air Force contracting officer complained that the two contracting oversight officers per division, were unable to handle the amount of oversight involved (quoted in Singer 2003: 259). This concretely translates in a situation unthinkable in any private business relationship and totally absurd in terms of commonsense: contracts are formulated by the contractors, who are also responsible for overseeing their implementation and evaluating the results (Bracken 2002). The change in authority that takes place as contracts make their way into the battle field is well reflected in the developments on the reverse side of authority: namely responsibility. The blurred authority relations and uncertainty about where contractor obligations to obey military command ends, is well mirrored in the uncertainties about how far the military responsibility for contractors extends. The lack of clarity about the status of contractors makes them very vulnerable because as explained in a legal opinion on the use of civilian contractors to remotely pilot the Dark Stars vehicle

a person cannot be a combatant and a noncombatant at the same time [...] a civilian who takes part in hostilities loses his/her status under both the Protocol and Civilian Conventions and for as long as he operates in that capacity becomes a legitimate object of attack [.. and is] liable for trial as unlawful combatant or war criminal (quoted in Zamparelli 1999: 15).

A key issue is therefore how much responsibility the armed forces have for protecting civilian contractors in this kind of situation. The contractors – who clearly want protection extended as far as possible – ask for a share of the equipment at the disposal of the armed forces (including things like special

7 “Rumsfeld’s New Military Plan Seeks Unprecedented Flexibility” Congressional Quar- terly Weekly, 21.4.2003. 8 Theresa Whelan “Remarks to IPOA Dinner”, PMC List 2.12.2004.

81 equipment for in case of chemical and biological weapons). The armed forces are asking for an extension of the resources at their disposal for this task. It seems that at least in the US the DoD refuses to see the problem by arguing that contractors are civilians. The uncertainties about how to interpret contracts, what actually constitutes the obligation of the contractor and how far the Armed Forces have to take on responsibility for the contractors have their analogies in the relationship between the military commander and soldiers. Also soldiers might be tempted to leave the battle field, contest the interpretation of their obligations and demand more protection. The big difference, however, is that in the latter case there are elaborate internal rules for dealing with them. The bottom line is that there are martial courts set up precisely to deal with conflicts among soldiers and between soldiers and their superiors. The equivalent does dot exist when it comes to contractors. Contractors are not subject to military discipline but to the discipline of the market and their contracts. Yet, as has just been argued, that discipline is not working effectively. One way of resolving the specific authority problems raised by contractors, is to turn them into soldiers and hence subject them to the rules pertaining to soldiers and integrate them into military institutions. This eliminates the difference between soldiers and contractors and reestablishes military authority over the battle field. In the UK this practice has been officially sanctioned by the creation of “sponsored reserves”. The idea is that the private companies providing services in conflict situations should enroll parts of their staff as voluntary reserves sponsored by the firm9. In France, the reserves are not “sponsored” however, it has become far easier to engage civilians as reserves. Since the modification of the legislation on the matter in 1999, it is no longer necessary to have a military career to be in the reserve. The interest and acceptance of the armed forces is sufficient. Hence civilian contractors were given military status in the Balkans and in the Gulf (La Commission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armées 2002: 40-1). However, this is at best a partial solution and more likely it is no solution at all. It is partial as it leaves a number of principled problems open: private firms (not the armed forces) are responsible for screening and selecting the staff; private firms (not the armed forces) socialize the staff; private sector hierarchies and pay (not military ones) are the reference points of the employees. In short, sponsored reserves are likely to remain above all private sector employees.

9 Reserve Forces Act, 1996 (www.hmso.gov.uk/acts1996/1996014.htm).

82 More fundamentally, the civilians-turned-soldiers solution is unlikely to be a solution at all simply because it is likely to prove irrelevant to the bulk of the situations where contractors have to be disciplined by military commanders. It is often (usually) not clear from the outset whether or not contractors will be involved in combat. The consequence is a high uncertainty about when contractors have to be called in as reserves and when they can be present as civilian contractors. Since there are good reasons to prefer the civilian status (which obscures the real costs of armed conflict, reduces the visible military engagements and keeps official death-tolls low10), there is also good reason to expect that even if there is a quick fix for turning civilians into soldiers this fix will be underutilised and the problem of military authority over contractors will become increasingly pressing. The bottom line is that the authority problem for military commanders on the battle field nicely illustrates the “orthodox paradox” (Polanyi 1957: 36- 37). For markets to work a considerable amount of regulation is required. Therefore when “orthodox” policy-makers claim to “liberalise” they first have to create a whole regulatory and legal set up and often end up introducing more regulation and bureaucracy than they actually eliminate. The trouble is that in setting up the market for force, this regulatory background has been neglected. Drawing this argument together in terms of military authority, it seems fair enough to conclude that the emergence of contractors is actually diminishing direct military authority. The increased presence of contractors means an increased presence (and centrality) of staff which are not subject to military command and military discipline which in itself is a clear indication of diminishing authority. In addition to this, it creates uncertainty about what the authority of the military commander is actually extending to. Very concretely “how does a commander-in- chief or a field commander plan requirements without knowing who and how many personnel will be there or what requirements are actually on contract?” (Zamparelli 1999: 13). One can add that it is also uncertain what the uncertain resources at the disposal of a commander should cover: how far should they be expected to cover contractors? The contestation and questioning which inevitably comes with uncertainty gnaws at authority structures. It undermines its long term basis.

10 “U.S. and British private armies hide true cost of war: Hidden budgets” The Gazette (Montreal) 30.10.2003; “U.S. Contractors Are Targets Overseas; As More Military Work Is Farmed Out, More Civilians Are in Harm’s Way” The Washington Post, 20.10.2003.

83 2. The contract culture and public soldiers

The emergence of contractors further influences the internal organisation of military authority in more diffuse ways: it is more than likely to alter the internal military culture and hence change the way that authority relations work in the military context. This is so for at least two reasons: privatisation alters the organisation and logic of both recruitment and of education. The public military and private contractors are very closely linked. In the private sector many are an ex-something from some public military or policing institution. This is true at the ground level where private military/security providers have often received their background training in the public forces. Indeed, those who worry about the relative cost of private and public provision of military services would do well to try to include the costs of education incurred on behalf of the public (for the private) in their comparisons (Avant 2002). It is also true at higher levels. It has become an attractive prospect for high ranking military officers to retire into a rapidly expanding private sector which is eager to offer them positions because of their cumulated knowledge, their contacts inside military institutions and because of their marketing val- ue11. This kind of linkage will remain significant in most contexts as the military remains a main client of the private sector. This close connection between the private and the public is sometimes seen as an assurance of the professionalism and seriousness of the private sector. This certainly is how the private firms themselves market it: “we can muster more generals than Pentagon” as Ed Soyster (of MPRI) boasts12. This boasting was certainly about showing the weight of his own firm. But it is also about underlining its competence. However, the obvious bottom line is that relationships always go two ways. The flip side of the outreach of the (public) military is the reach in of the private contractors. It is therefore not entirely surprising to find that the Armed Forces are not unreservedly positive about the development of a private sector from within which many of them (or their col- leagues) work and have close contacts. One of the worries is that privatisation gives more space for a military culture that the public institution itself has in different ways and with varying degrees of success tried to curb. Discipline and the willingness to obey authority within the military, but also the outside civil authority have been encouraged. Inversely, Rambo-type rugged individualists

11 “Soldiers of fortune hit the Jackpot: Ex servicemen don’t hang up their guns.” The Guardian 26.10.2003. 12 “America’s for-profit secret army” New York Times 13.10.2002.

84 who enjoy carrying a gun and shooting are not welcome. There is a worry that the increased reliance on contracted staff will increase the social isolation of the armed forces and undermine the safeguards that have overtime been built up against the development of what admiral Lanxade (who was Mitterand’s chief security advisor termed “des doctrines dangereuses” (2001: 358). One well founded reason for this fear is that the emergence of a strong private sector might make the kind of screening procedures used in the public armed forces rather ineffective. Screening procedures are not necessarily applied in the private sector or at least not with an equivalent degree of con- sistency as in the public forces. Most private firms in the public/open end of the market make an explicit point of their own strict screening efforts and the consequent reliability of their employees. Rather characteristically this is how Sandline describes its employees and employment policy:

Sandline is privately managed by a number of senior exmilitary personnel from the UK and US armed forces. This management team is supported by access to a pool of consultants with extensive international commercial and legal expertise. Sandline personnel are highly professional, often former military, police and government employees, recruited from a number of countries. They are the best available, and have extensive experience of all levels of conflict, but are tuned to the nuances and political sensitivities in the world today. All employees are thor- oughly vetted by the company prior to employment and their activities are mon- itored closely at all times. Any breaches of discipline and confidentiality result in dismissal and may result in prosecution in the client country. Our employees operate in a hierarchical and disciplined structure, observing both international laws and customs as well as those of the host country (www.sandline.com).

However, there are no established rules for how screening should take place nor is there any monitoring of the firms. The efficiency of the screening and its implementation is therefore depending on the good will of the firms and their judgements. Even assuming that this is sufficient to make firms in the open end of the market effectively screen their staff, no such assumption can be made about firms operating in the other market segments. They do not (even claim to) apply any strict screening procedures. Since the market segments do communicate as firms, and their employees come into contact and many move back and forth between contractual arrangements with different kinds of firms and public institutions, the worry that the part of military culture that official public forces have tried to keep under control will become more prominent also in public Armed Forces stands out as understandable and justified.

85 Moreover, the growth of the private market for force reduces the significance of the screening procedures in the first place. The private market is indirectly (and for part of the staff) in competition with the public forces. This is already strongly felt in low wage countries as private security companies recruit on a large scale among experienced security staff in for example South Africa, India and Angola13. If the sector continues to grow, is capable of offering attractive working conditions and salaries this kind of effect will increasingly be felt in the West. Already now “an ex-SAS officer can earn about 400 pounds a day in Iraq, with others – paratroopers, and regular regiments – not far behind”14. Even now recruitment is a very expensive and difficult. In 1998 it cost the US army $11.187 for every man and women signed up (Pizzo and Gold 1999) and “sign up bonuses” reaching $12.000 in critical speciali- ties were offered for a four year enlistment (Park 1999). To be meaningful, a screening process has to have applicants to screen and especially there have to be enough applicants to allow for the option of discarding those that are not suited. If the private sector does drain the applicants away from the public Armed Forces, it could undermine the meaningfulness of the existence of a screening safeguard. Authority is further likely to be re-figured by the effects that the rise of private markets have on the training of soldiers. Just as screening procedures in recruitment are standard in public armed forces, so are the development of curricula in collaboration with civil authorities. The armed forces have been thought of as a school of the nation. An institution constructing the symbolic community of nationhood, but also creating opportunities for social mobility. As the French captain Lyautey explained at the end of the 19th century:

To tomorrow’s officers, you must say that if they have placed their ideals in a career of wars and adventures, it is not with us that they should pursue it: they will no longer find it there... Instead give them the promising conception of the modern role of the officer who has become the educator of the entire nation (quoted in Lecomte 2001: 740 my translation).

13 “Lucrative pay lures cream of SA cops to Iraq” The Sunday Independent (SA), 8.02.2004; “Demand for SA mercenaries” http://wyvw.news24.com/News24/South_Afri- ca/News/0,,2-7-1442_1350460,00.html; “Kuwaiti firm hires Indian ex-servicemen as mercenaries for Iraq”, PMC discussion list; 18.01.2004; “Angolan Temp Agency Teaming with Mercenaries” http://www.theonion.com- /4002/new3.html 14 “Soldiers of fortune hit the Jackpot: Ex servicemen don’t hang up their guns.” The Guardian 26.10.2003.

86 It would be wrong to relegate this conception of the armed forces to the 19th century and to underestimate its continued importance. The emphasis has shifted from a focus on education to create a nationalist loyalty to the state and now instead tends to stress the individual benefits and career opportunities provided by the Armed Forces. But education continues to be an important part of the activities in the armed forces. The emergence of the private sector and its increasingly central role in this educational process might well lead to an altering of the content of that education and it certainly does place a growing share of control over education outside the direct reach of public authorities. Indeed, the outsourcing of education can be rather far-reaching and also touch its most basic aspect, namely the elaboration of training programs and curricula. For the sake of illustration, the MPRI’s (a key US firm in training and education) own information about the training programs it runs is given in box 4.1. Clearly, the extent of MPRI’s involvement in training the US military is exceptional. Other Western countries have not gone as far as the US in outsourcing education. The UK has outsourced part of the training and support of the Joint service and staff college, and technical education tied to specific equipment is widely outsourced in all countries. However, by any measure, the status of the MPRI is exceptional. This said, the purpose is to illustrated a principled discussion.

BOX 4.1 MPRI Training Programmes

US Army Force Management School (1994-Present): MPRI provides the US Army Vice Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS) force management support in the areas of: (1) developing instruction for and executing the Army Force Management School and related courses; (2) developing, reviewing, and preparing force management publications; and (3) conducting associated studies, analyses, and staff support.

U.S. Army Combined Arms and Services Staff School: MPRI provides retired US Army Lieutenant Colonels to serve as Staff Leader Instructors at the Combined Arms and Services Staff School (CAS3), Leavenworth, Kansas. The mission of CAS3 is to train officers of the Active and Reserve Components to function as staff officers with the Army in the field. As part of their professional military education program, all basic branch officers attend CAS3 immediately after completion of branch/technical training at Officer Advanced Courses (OACs). The six-week CAS3 course, which is the Staff Process phase of OAC, is designed to provide the students with the skills necessary to serve as key staff officers with the Army in the field.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER NATIONAL SECURITY SERIES (ENSS). The Eisenhower National Security Series (ENSS) is a year-long series of programs, conferences, events, and activities on current national security topics. Each year, a "theme" is developed which is tailored towards engaging the national security community in a broad and unique dialogue that identifies and promotes new ways to focus national power to address the full range of security challenges confronting America in the 21st Century. The Series culminates annually with the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference in Washington, D.C. The Eisenhower National Security Series hosts distinguished participants and speakers from all the national security sectors including military, academia, corporate, international, and non-profit organizations.

IBCT ARTEPs and MTPs: Since September 1998, MPRI has supported the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) by developing Army Training and Evaluation Program - Mission Training Plans (ARTEP-MTPs) for digitized Combat Service Support (CSS) organizations. MPRI's MTP Development Team works alongside members of the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM), Training Directorate, Multifunctional Logistics Division, located at Fort Lee, Virginia and has played a major role in identifying and documenting training solutions in digitized brigade and battalion headquarters and company-level MTPs. Focus is on the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). The Army's current need for deployable, highly mobile combat forces, the fielding of digitized equipment, along with recent cost-related constraints, have contributed to the need for significant changes to Combat Service Support doctrine.

87 Civil Air Patrol: MPRI develops training materials for National Headquarters, Civil Air Patrol (CAP), an auxiliary of the US Air Force (USAF). This endeavor supports CAP's Middle School Initiative (MSI), which fills the void between the elementary school Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program and the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. CAP MSI provides the USAF with an excellent opportunity to reach middle school students at a critical point in their development, where it can influence their career decisions and develop their potential as tomorrow's leaders. MPRI has developed comprehensive training schedules and lesson plans that CAP incorporates into the weekly curriculum of selected middle schools. MPRI also developed a pamphlet that CAP uses to market the MSI program to middle school administrators. These and other associated products are available on the CAP MSI Web site at http://capmsi.cyprusweb.com/.

Tactical Leaders Course for the Brigade Support Battalion: MPRI supports the US Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) in developing an exportable training package for a Tactical Leader's Course (TLC) for the Brigade Support Battalion (BSB), Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT). With the Army's approval of the BSB operational concept, it is necessary to develop TLC training for the leaders of the BSB. The target audience for the training is the leadership of the BSB from battalion commander to squad/section NCO. It includes training for the battalion staff as well as the companies. Training will focus on the first 7-10 days of an operation in a small-scale contingency (SSC) or security and stability operation (SASO) environment. The training package is designed as modules and includes how the BSB and each of its companies provide support to the SBCT.

CGSC Military Leadership Instructor Program: MPRI provides Military Leadership Instructors with current military command and/or operational major command, joint, or joint task force staff experience to teach the fundamentals of military leadership in both phases of the Intermediate Level Education (ILE) program and the legacy Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) curriculum at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC). The ILE Core Course (Phase I) prepares field grade leaders for command, staff, and management positions in Army, joint, multi-national, and interagency organizations executing full spectrum operations. The Advanced Operations Warfighting Course (AOWC) (Phase II of ILE) develops operations career field officers with a warfighting focus for battalion and brigade command capable of conducting full spectrum operations in joint-multinational-interagency environments, and who have the requisite competencies to serve successfully as division through echelons above corps (EAC) staff officers.

US Army Combined Logistics Captains Career Course Instructors : MPRI provides retired US Army Majors to serve as Small Group Instructors at the Combined Logistics Captains Career Course (CLC3), US Army Logistics Management College (ALMC), Fort Lee, Virginia. The mission of CLC3 is to train logistics officers of the active and reserve components to function as branch-qualified logistics captains within the Army in the field. As part of their professional development, logistics branch officers attend CLC3. CLC3 consists of four phases. Phase 1 instruction focuses on leadership, tactical operations, communicative skills, and commander skills in unit administration/supply/movement/ maintenance, training management, and military history. Phase 2 instruction, taught at branch schools, focuses on captain-level skills needed to command a branch-specific functional company. Phase 3 instruction focuses on multifunctional combat service support concentrating on the tactical functions (fix, arm, fuel, move, sustain the soldier) and associated support operations. Phase 4 instruction (CAS3, taught a Fort Leavenworth) focuses on the staff process. MPRI instructors teach Phases 1 and 3.

US Army Sergeants Major Academy (USASMA): The Army is conducting a pilot Alternative Staffing program at USASMA. MPRI is supporting the program with retired SGMs who are providing instruction to students attending USASMA by expertise garnered from the curriculum and through their experiences as senior active-duty NCO leaders. They support small instructional groups and teach students the command and control processes at battalion and brigade levels, operations, intelligence, logistics, staff functions, requirements and relationships in the battlefield operating systems, and current doctrine. Also, MPRI is providing mentor and instructor support to battalion and brigade CSMs attending training at several of the combat training centers (CTCs). They also serve as liaison between USASMA and the CTCs, reinforcing doctrine and tactics, techniques and procedures among senior NCO leaders of tactical units.

Fleet Readiness Squadron Training Systems: Under a subcontract, MPRI is providing support in the revision and maintenance of the curriculum at the Fleet Readiness Squadron, VS-41, in San Diego, California. The training system curriculum revision and maintenance effort is in continued support of VS-41's mission, which includes training replacement aircrew personnel. The operational requirement of VS-41 to train replacement aircrew personnel continues at a vigorous pace. To maintain this pace and fully realize the mission potential of the S-3B aircraft, continued training program development and upgrade, along with enhancement of existing lesions to reflect current configurations, is vital.

Training the Force: MPRI supports US Army Training and Doctrine Command in expanding and updating of FM 25-100, Training the Force and FM 25-101, Battle Focused Training, as the new FM 7-0 and FM 7-10, as part of the government core team rewriting both manuals. MPRI is addressing a broad scope of issues that include, research, doctrinal development, training management development, and Live, Virtual and Constructive training integration within the context of both manuals. The revision of the current Army capstone training doctrine will support today's Army through the future Objective Force in a full spectrum environment, and leverage new technologies and improvements in training methods and systems.

Source: www.mpri.com

88 In terms of the organisation of authority, the uncontested implication is that private actors are given a much stronger say in the planning and carrying out of the education which is going to be part of the foundation for the profession’s self understanding. In the case of the MPRI, it would often (mostly) be argued that this is of no consequence since most of the staff is taken from the Armed Forces and is likely to ensure continuity in terms of transmitting the professional ethics and authority structures. Although this might be an adequate depiction of the MPRI, at least two reservations should be considered when it comes to outsourcing to even to a firm such as MPRI which is as close to the public authorities as a private firm is likely to get. The first is that at the end of the day, MPRI is a private company. This means that it is likely to have an organisational culture and operating priorities which are different from those of the Armed Forces. Indeed, this is part of the reason why the company has been brought in. It is hired primarily because it can provide specialised skills at a lower price, something which is possible precisely because it is run as a private corporation. It would be misleading to exclude that this would/could transpire into the educational programmes of the firm. Moreover, it is worth recalling that the company can change and evolve in time in directions which neither civil nor military authorities can control and even less foresee. The company is, in other words, more than a mere extension of the armed forces. The second reservation one should consider before embracing the idea that outsourcing education is unproblematic is that creating a market for military training is likely to leave ripples far beyond the specific case of MPRI. In- deed, part of the reason for outsourcing is to create competition among providers and hence ensure better efficiency and lower prices. That is, the underlying rationale is to encourage the set-up of markets. The process is often of limited effectiveness, as what happens is that one firm (such as MPRI) becomes a monopoly provider, or at least a vastly dominant one, hence replacing a situation of public monopolies by one with “private- public monopolies” (Avant forthcoming). To the extent that it is effective though, it would be very unrealistic to assume that the firms that do not manage to get contracts (or at least not as many as they could wish for) would and could not be tempted to move into the other segments of the market, that is, those involving private clients and hidden contracts. Rather, just as what has actually been occurring in the US, one would expect smaller firms to start offering training services to move into the market. Over these firms and the training they offer, the public has but a very weak control. Kelvin Klein’s training camps, offering piloting courses and mock terrorist exercises, would certainly not have received the ap-

89 proval of public authorities (military or civilian). Nor would many of the mili- tia training camps such as that from which the “Oklahoma Bomber” originated. Since the “market segments” are linked among themselves, with persons moving back and forth between the spheres, this is unlikely to leave the professional self-understanding and ethics in the public part of the armed forces untouched. The conclusion is that it certainly is worthwhile considering that even if outsourcing is done to and with “respectable” firms like the MPRI who are quasi public, it would be foolish to disregard the very likely development of a perhaps far less respectable private sector. It might, in short, be less paradoxical than it seems at first glance that the members of the armed forces are concerned with the effects that the development of a contract culture might have. The link between the members of the armed forces and the open and public end of the market is only a partial guarantee that contracting out does not also mean importing a contract culture where the ethical and normative assessments might diverge from those usually underlined in the public armed forces and where submission to conventional military hierarchies might rank lower than individual achievement, ca- reers and gain. To argue this, is not the same as saying that such developments are necessarily bad (or good). Any such value judgement presupposes a position on how stringently hierarchical military organisations should be as well as on how much the ethical, political and moral judgements transmitted through the organisational culture of the institution should resemble those prevailing in the rest of society. These issues are profoundly contentious. Therefore the point here is merely to underline the likelihood of these developments and the importance of encouraging explicit thinking and discussions about which kinds of answers one wants to favour as a part of any discussion about long term outsourcing and privatisation.

3. Evaluating the past and planning for the future

A final way of explaining the effects that privatisation might have on the internal authority of the military is to consider the diffuse effects it might have on the structuring of authority. Indeed, not only is the internal organisation and structuring of authority likely to be affected by direct interactions such as those just discussed, where direct interactions influenced recruitment and training conditions. There might also be more diffuse effects that are not directly traceable to any one specific interaction but have to do with the way that soldiers perceive themselves and their relationship to authority. That is, pri-

90 vatisation might influence the taken for granted, unproblematised, “doxic” authority understanding in the Armed Forces. This section points to two trends indicating that such shifts might be taking place in the US where the privatisation has gone the furthest. It also underlines, however, that it is difficult to establish the direction of the causal linkage between privatisation and this more diffuse change in the understanding of authority, let alone to say how much of the change is attributable to privatisation as opposed to other more general social developments. There are indeed indications that it is decreasingly taken for granted – even within the Armed Forces themselves – that authority to think about and work with military matters resides primarily with the military. One of these indicators is the growing willingness to entrust private companies with the evaluation, planning and development of activities within the armed forces themselves. In fact, considering the degree of outsourcing and privatisation of these tasks, leaves the impression that the Armed Forces trust the private sector more than they trust themselves. The private sector is charged with evaluating the fundamentals of military activities should be run and with charting its future developments. Again a look at MPRI is instructive (with the same proviso as above about the exceptional status and position of the firm). MPRI has been involved in a number of activities which give shape (not only to the education of the individual soldier but) to the armed forces at large. A number of these activities are mainly in what one could/ might think of as non-core military areas where it might seem logical to rely on a private firm because of its expertise (though it is not necessarily the case). Hence MPRI has been involved in providing instructors for the Military Leadership courses (in the frame of the Command and General Staff Officer Course). But it has also been involved in a variety of technical training programs where the rationale is less self evident. It hence provides instructors for the Logistics Captains Instructors (US Army Logis- tics Management College), for the revision of the curriculum of the Fleet Readiness Squadron (San Diego). In addition to this, the firm has been hired to do central work in relation to the development and organisation of the armed forces. It was involved in the US Army Staff Reorganization study (which ran from 1999 to 2000) which proposed changes in the internal organisation of the armed fores. In addition to this it has collaborated on a number of projects for the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Hence it has been involved in the upgrading of field manuals including for Battle focused training; it has run a doctrinal literature program assessing and revising the literature on strategic, operational

91 and tactical doctrine; and it has been involved in reviewing Opposing Forces (OPFOR) strategic doctrine (in particular in light of the terrorist threat) and in providing army transformation war-games; developing the field artillery doctrine and training. Also for the TRADOC MPRI has assisted in developing sug- gestions on reactions to threats by terrorism; on the Information Superiority concepts and doctrine and on the C4SR15, including training, materiel needs. When the head of the firm, Ed Soyster claims that “we (MPRI) make Ameri- can military doctrine”16 he is not just boasting. He is right on the mark. A second weighty indicator of the impressive authority that private operators have gained is the practice of entrusting the firms themselves with the elaboration and proposal of projects, with their implementation and with the evaluation of the results. That is there is a readiness to withdraw (military or independent) oversight of the activities of the firms which indicates a willingness to accept that private entities are more competent and reliable than public authorities even when it comes to deciding upon and controlling their own activities. And this in spite of the glaringly obvious risk that this creates in terms of firms working mainly for their own benefit. Indeed, private firms are deeply involved in the planning of the orders that will befall them. By way of example, the MPRI has done central work for the US Army Materiel Command staff and support. It has also provided experts who develop, implement and sustain the “joint venture programme which “develops concepts for leveraging digital technology to plan organise and equip the Amy’s total force”. It has made assessments of vulnerabilities of key US infrastructure sectors and recommendations for how to deal with these. Similarly it has supported strategic planning and evaluation to US Army Materiel Command Furtures group (HQ). Private sector involvement in the evaluation of equipment needs is of course a common and long standing practice in all countries since collaboration with equipment producers is often a sine qua non for information about developments and possibilities of using these practically for the armed forces. How- ever, firms are entrusted not only with advising and informing but also with lay- ing down the general rules and guidelines according to which outsourcing will be organised and private contracts managed. Hence, MPRI has worked on:

- the development and working of the Single Stock Fund, which is a logistics initiative to eliminate multiple levels of supply within the Army;

15 Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Re- connaissance. 16 Quoted in The Economist 8 July 1999.

92 - the writing of two new filed manuals on contracting in the battlefield environment - the introduction of Activity Based Costing to the Logistics Integration Agency (98-99).

It would only be logical to expect that the principled rules which are thus formulated and laid down by private actors would tend to work in their favour. Moreover, there is a willingness to make firms responsible for assessing their own implementation of contracts and their own activities in relation to the armed forces. For instance, the development of the Installation Management Transformation Plan (for chief of staff 2000-present) has been carried out by MPRI at the same time as the firm has done project management for US Army Installation Management Agency. Again it would of course be rather surprising if firms (in cases such as these) found their own practices and pricing wanting. It is impossible to make any claims about how the growing diffused authority of private actors in the armed forces is linked to the privatisation as such. The armed forces are not hermetically closed off from the rest of society, but on the contrary reflect and import developments from elsewhere17. It could therefore very well and certainly justifiably be argued that growing private authority in the military is a reflection of the more general privatisation revolution in society, of the ascent of market civilization (Strange 1990; Gill 1995). It is also certainly linked to the general “de-militarization of society, or what Martin Shaw (1991) has aptly termed the development of post-military society, whereby military as an institution and military values generally have lost their centrality in the West, and other institutions and values – including the private sector and market values – have become increasingly central (Howard 1978). This said, even if the increased authority of private actors (largely influenced by developments in other social fields) may thus precede the privatisation of authority in the Armed Forces, it seems very plausible that the privatisation itself will further increase that authority. Indeed, as private actors are increasingly engaged in setting the criteria of judgement, and play a central role in evaluating past performances and future needs, their norms of evaluation and performance will tend to become the taken for granted ones. This means that, they can be expected to highlight breaches against these values,

17 There is a long standing and lively tradition of military sociology dealing with this, whose key exponents include Janowitz (1975; Huntington (1957); Moskos, Williams et al. (2000); Rouquié (1981).

93 on the condition (obviously) that “the current norm of hiring firms to perform exploratory analysis and then paying the very same companies to enact their own recommendations” (Singer 2003: 357) is weakened. This trend is well illustrated by the numerous and ongoing discussions about contract breaches and overcharging by private firms in various contexts and most recently in Iraq18. However, the focus on firm performance, efficiency and contractual dilemmas also has the consequence that other norms and evaluation criteria are shoved to the background. Evaluations do not consider them, judgements are not made on their basis and successively the norms of private corporations are likely to displace public ones in the discussion. They will be norms according to which information is provided and debate can be based. They will also become the standard ones for passing judgement. To the extent that this is the case, it will also be case that private firms consolidate their authority in the Armed Forces.

Conclusion

This discussion calls for two kinds of conclusions. The first relates to whether or not it should actually be thought of as regrettable that private actors gain authority in the armed forces. There are at least two types of arguments for saying that an increased presence and authority for private in the armed forces is ultimately a welcome development. One is an argument which would welcome the weakening of the armed forces as an institution and of mil- itarist culture more generally. If the private sectors is one step in this direction, there is no obvious reason not to welcome it. The second type of argument is advanced by the business and more generally by privatisation proponents19. It emphasises the importance of the private sector in making the armed forces provide better and especially less costly national security solutions. This chapter has not been intent on settling whether or not these arguments are valid and just. These are profoundly political discussions which should be con- fronted in a more general context. However, what this chapter has aimed to show and argue is that the choice to privatise and outsource does entail mov-

18 Most recently surrounding the operations of various firms in Iraq (High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq, New York Times, 11.12.2003 e.g.). But more generally see Inter- national Consortium of Investigative Journalists (2002a). 19 For an illustration I recommend a brief look at the mission statement of the industry lobby group in the US “Business Executives for National Security” (BENS) http://www.bens.o- rg/about_goals.html.

94 ing authority from public to private actors in the armed forces and that this choice should therefore be consciously made and argued for. It should not be allowed to slip by as an unnoticed side effect of other measures designed to implement budget cuts and savings. The second type of conclusion is more practical. The chapter has repeat- edly returned to situations where the full implications of the authority shifts linked to privatisation have been ill thought through and even more badly regulated. The diffusion of direct authority on the battle field, has made planning more complicated for Military Commanders. It has created dilemma situations which are handled without sufficient guidelines and often on an ad hoc basis. Commanders have to decide whether to devote resources to defend contractors instead of using them for other purposes. They also have to decide whether to involve contractors in operations even though they risk being held responsible for illegal warfare because of contractor presence. Similarly, the diffusion of the authority to select and educate public soldiers is taking place largely in the absence of a transmission of the screening and safeguards that have conventionally marked education and selection in the public armed forces. Finally, the privatisation of the activity to evaluate, plan and organise the activities of the armed forces is taking place without sufficient consideration to what the implications are, both in immediate financial terms (as there are ample opportunities for abuse) and in the long run for the armed forces as a public institution. The bottom line here is clearer than a mere call for discussion: there is a strong need to accompany privatisation and outsourcing with the kind of regulation that is necessary for the private market for force to work effectively.

4. State Authority II: Democratic Politics and Private Military Companies

This chapter looks at how the rise of PMCs impacts on state authority in the broader debate about the legitimate use of force in democratic polities. It shifts the focus from the impact of private military companies on the organisation of state authority inside the military to a focus on its effects on state authority in national policy-making setting. This chapter asks how authority to decide on defence and military matters is influenced by the emergence of private military companies. This a second central aspect of state authority which it is reasonable to expect would be directly affected by the increasing reliance on private service providers. Indeed, the state is present in military matters also as a civil authority. In Western democracies this role is very important. The armed forces are under the command of civil authorities who have the ultimate say on how to deploy the use of force and, more generally, on how to structure the state institutions which express and defend the state monopoly on the legitimate use of force, namely the police and the military. It is therefore important to push on and ask how this fundamental authority of civilians is altered by the current changes in military matters. The question of who has authority to decide over defence and defence spending is always and virtually in all contexts difficult to answer. Even the formal rules designed to ensure political and democratic controls, usually by way of rules which define that certain decision and contracts require parliamentary approval or at least public announcing, tend to leave plenty of space for discretion and opacity about who actually decides and on what grounds. A space that is justified by the sensitive political and diplomatic nature of the decisions involved and by the need to avoid overburdening politics with security matters. It has also become increasingly clear that the conventional focus on “civilian control obscured important questions about the nature of regimes. Civilian autocracies have often depended as much as military dicta- torships upon military and police repression and surveillance by intelligence agencies” (Luckham 2003: 8). This obscure nature of authority would cer-

97 tainly make many believe that the endeavour to discuss how authority shifts with privatisation is a highly problematic one. To discuss change it is obviously essential to know from what there is a change. This point is valid and indicates the need for caution in the discussion. However, privatisation does bring about a number of very concrete changes which can be pointed out and this is precisely what will be done below. The chapter begins by probing the direct impact of outsourcing and privatisation on authority relations. It shows that the emergence of private military companies undeniably does entail an increase of the direct controls of private firms over defence matters. This said it does not have to imply the reshuffling of the weight of public institutions (and in particular reduced legislative control). Second, increased privatisation and outsourcing is most likely to have important indirect implications for state authority by playing an important role in reshaping public authorities. Privatisation and outsourcing creates a situation where it becomes vital for firms to lobby but also very tempting for state representatives to use private firms for their own (pecuniary or political) purposes. Finally, the increased importance of private firms in the military sphere is most susceptible of having a number of more diffuse effects on the state authority in the national political context. It strengthens the weight of private actors and weakens that of public ones. Most directly affected is the military institution which (as it is acutely aware in most places) loses public standing and status. But more arguably, by framing defence and security issues in technical and economic terms, the increasing presence and pressure from private firms marginalise political and ethical issues and those who promote them.

1. Democratic control of privatisation

It is common to view the push to privatisation as reducing democratic control over defence decisions and defence spending (Avant 2002; Singer 2003; Woodward 2003). Whether by accident or by design, it is argued that privatisation and outsourcing diminishes the grip of outsiders (the parlia- ments and Congress) on the decisions made in the narrow circles involving the executive, the military and the private industry. This section argues that although this is indeed often the case (as illustrated by the US and the UK), it is neither a necessary nor an inevitable outcome (as the French case illustrates). However, even if there is no reshuffling of the weight of state institutions, nor any formal change in the control mechanisms, it is important to acknowledge

98 that an significant share of the control over defence and defence spending is transferred to the private sector through the privatisation and outsourcing processes. A first, central, consideration is that in the process of outsourcing and privatising control over defence and defence spending is directly transferred to the private sector simply because of the dependence their presence creates and the related difficulty of transferring engagements taken with one firm to another or reversing them by reverting back to public provision. A loss of knowledge goes in pair with privatisation and outsourcing and the more complex the know-how involved the more irreversible the loss is likely to be. Outright privatisation entails entrusting the private sector with the provision of a service/equipment and hence removing insider knowledge from the armed forces. But also outsourcing often entails such a removal. In the case of technologically complex systems the very reason for outsourcing equipment maintenance and operation is to save costs of training. However, the reverse side of that saving is dependence on the private sector providing the knowledge that is consequently lacking. The implication of such dependence in critical (meaning central for combat) functions has been subject to longstanding discussions and a variety of reports inside and outside the military. However, it is less widely acknowledged that similar knowledge gaps may be important also for the far more mundane tasks which are the prime objects of outsourcing. “One does not improvise oneself cook, especially not at the battalion level in a snap” (interview). Or as Paul Lombardi (CEO of Dyn- Corp) explains: “Because we are so involved, it’s difficult to extricate us from the process”1. By way of example, the US firm Brown and Root’s had won a general LOGCAP (The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program which plans and or- ganises the logistics) contract in 1992 to support, plan and organise logistics. In prolongation it had obtained a contract to support the US troops (and by prolongation also those of its allies) in the Balkans in 1995. The firm’s presence was such that soldiers reportedly joked that their uniforms ought to car- ry “sponsored by BRS tags”. In 1997, the firm lost the general LOGCAP contract to DynCorp which made a better bid for the contract. This came in a context where BRS was widely perceived to have overcharged for its Balkans contracts (a charge advanced also by the GAO). However, the Balkans was cut out of the general LOGCAP to allow BRS to continue operations. This seemingly paradoxical decision was made on the rationale that it was important to

1 Quoted in Fortune, 3.3.2003.

99 allow the smooth continuation of operations (Singer 2003: 207-214). This goes to underline the extent to which the state can become dependent on specific and situational knowledge by privatizing and outsourcing even in activities where one firm could easily replace another. In situations where there are few or no competing private firms, dependence is clearly far greater. Moreover, the say of firms is increased by the fact that privatisation and outsourcing is likely to create situations where it is difficult to transfer contracts or to reverse them to have public firms take on the tasks for this. The reason for this is that as many contracts run over long periods of time the firm that has a contract in fact becomes a private holder of a public monopoly. For example, the UK Private Finance Initiative involves having private firms take on the cost of an equipment or a service in exchange for a contract whereby it is offered the possibility to rent out / lease it to the public over periods between ten and forty years (). Firms who engage in a PFI would come to structure the activity they are engaged in. Their organisation and their understanding of technology and development would come to predominate. It is hence difficult to imagine that the contracts could readily be shifted to other providers (supposing that there are credible alternatives). Moreover, the kind of guarantee the firms receive in exchange for taking the financial initiative by definition places the public in a weak position when it comes to negotiating contracts. Finally, the idea that the public can control the private sector by playing on the competition among firms is often a pipe-dream. In many contexts there will be only a couple of credible providers (and even fewer if only national firms or providers from allied countries are considered). Concretely this means that the risk of cartel formation and divisions of market is considerable, particularly as firms are not likely to ungrudgingly give up public contracts and facilitate the transfer of their activities to would-be competitors supposed to take over (La Commission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armées 2002: 30-2). This has been an important issue for example in the discussions surrounding the outsourcing of the UK decision to outsource the refuelling in air for the Royal Air Force to a private company with the rationale that a private company could provide the service far more cheaply as it could also lease the refuelling planes for other uses. The dependence on the contracts with (and the knowledge of) corporations paves the way for a shift in who influences defence and defence budgets. It grants private actors a considerable say over the price on different contracts. If the public is heavily dependent on a firm because simply it has a monopoly on a specific knowledge, it may well have to agree to rather disadvantageous conditions. Beyond the single contract it also has a structuring effect

100 on overall defence. That large sums are spent on some contracts is not indif- ferent to the overall structure of the budgets. Even if firms do not sit down and plan or actively undertake organised lobbying to shape defence policy and spending, privatisation certainly does lead to a very direct reshuffling of the authority over defence matters. These difficulties are general and to a greater or lesser extent implied in all outsourcing and privatisation proceeds. A second direct implication for the authority over defence matters is related to the institutional reshuffling which is often thought to be linked to the privatisation and outsourcing processes. Indeed, this is the lens through which the question is most often approached. One reason for this is that in the countries that have gone the furthest down the road of privatisation and outsourcing (particularly the UK and the US), private contracts are subject to lesser controls than public ones by virtue of the specific institutional arrangements that surround them. Usually this is justified by a combination of arguments re- ferring to the need to reduce bureaucratic red-tape and the need to respect the firms’ need for secrecy. Concretely, in the US, two points recur in the discussion. In the US, sales of military services abroad are subject to oversight in the frame of the international Traffic in Arms Regulations Law (ITAR). The law requires firms to obtain approval from the State Department before selling their services abroad to ensure that contracts do not violate sanctions or other US policies. However, firms will often try to circumvent this consuming procedure. One way is to place them under the Defence Department’s Foreign Military Sales programme. In this programme, the department pays a firm for a contract with a foreign government which then reimburses it and places it outside the reach of the ITAR. Another is to keep the contracts small. Under ITAR, Con- gress must be notified of all defence services contracts worth more than $50 million, but not of other contracts. In addition to this (and second) even when the contracts are notified it is possible to reduce public insight. ITAR stipulates that “the names of the countries and the defence articles involved in a contract should not be withheld from public disclosure” which has been read as if everything else should and can. In addition to this, the department of justice introduced guidelines (in May 2002) allowing companies to challenge the release of information about them and their activities to the public if this could harm their commercial interests. The lobby organisation BENS (Business Executives for National Se- curity) welcomed this decision in favour of which it lobbied as a major success for the industry, preventing a “backward” move on the privatisation and outsourcing policies. However, independent observers are concerned that it is

101 weakening the possibilities for independent oversight (see e.g. Avant forthcoming; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002c; Singer 2003). Similarly in the UK decreased possibilities for parliamentary oversight are associated with the outsourcing and privatisation. Private Finance Initiatives are not public and, unlike government regulation, do not require the approval of Parliament. The same is true of the call out of Sponsored Reserves. More- over, oversight of the sales of military services abroad is notoriously badly regulated. In response to the recent green paper on the regulation of private military companies, the secretary of states promises to take a close interest in American and South African regulation and refers to the recent (2002) “export control act” covering trafficking and brokering in arms and other sensitive equipment (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002b). However, regulation is in the making rather than already existing. It is also interesting to note that both the recommendations and the secretary of state reply place considerable emphasis on the importance of not burdening firms with bureaucratic procedures, some emphasis on governmental oversight, but is very low key on the issue of parliamentary oversight. It is only mentioned once in the following terms:

We [the report writers] conclude that procedures similar to those for parliamentary scrutiny of arms export licences should apply to any regulation of PM- Cs, with priori parliamentary scrutiny being applied to any licence applications that might involve PMCs in provision of armed combat services (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002b: 7).

The limitation of oversight to applications involving the provision of armed combat services could be expected to exclude the vast majority of applications, as very few firms would agree to define their service provisions in these terms. Both in the UK and in the US, there are good reasons to argue that privatisation does in fact very directly alter the public oversight over defence matters and spending on defence. They in very direct (and legal) ways reduce the possibilities of congressional and parliamentary oversight. However, it is important to emphasise that this is not per se inherent in the privatisation and outsourcing procedures, but rather linked to the conditions within which they take place. Statist France can serve as a counter example. There, the recent drive to outsource and privatise might provide for more rather than less insight. In- deed, since the mid-1990s also France has started to outsource heavily in its

102 defence sector. It is particularly the abolition of conscription (in 1997) combined with budget cuts which have made outsourcing (or “externalization”) an important feature of defence policies. The defence ministry decree no. 30 892 of Aug. 2000 specifies the conditions and limits of the policy in the sector and the industry has been very interested in taking on the contracts. However, in France these measures have been accompanied by an attempt to increase transparence. With the loi organique relative aux lois de finances (1.8.2001) [organic law relating to financial legislation] to come into force in 2006, the government will be forced to transmit more exhaustive and comprehensible information, and it will become easier to ask the Cours de Comptes to begin enquiries2. Moreover, the French have recently passed a law on the repression of mercenary activity (no. 2003-340, Journal Officiel 89, 15.04.2003) which paves the way for criminal prosecution of those engaging in mercenary activity defined in a relatively broad way. Finally, as one observer pointed out, in the French context you do not expect much oversight. “The services, the public firms and the government have always worked hand in hand. Letting the private sector in might not increase insight, but it certainly will not diminish it” (interview). This combination of measures and attitudes might explain why a report to the French National Assembly does not seem to view the issue of parliamentary oversight of contracts as an important or central one. To be more precise, the report does not even bring up the issue, but is focused primarily on the military and financial implications of the changes under way (La Com- mission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armées 2002). In summary, privatisation and outsourcing do shift authority over defence matters and defence spending from the private to the public sphere. However, it is less clear whether they can be held responsible for reduced “democratic” (usually taken to mean parliamentary) oversight of defence matters. As the discussion shows whether or not this is the case is related to what the point of departure is as well as what kinds of measures are taken to ensure that “democratic” oversight can cover also the private sector contracts and public-private partnerships in different guises. The discussion does underline that as the private sector does become increasingly present, discussing whether or not regulation and rules, which allow for such oversight are warranted and how they should be formulated to suit specific contexts, seems absolutely central. This is all the more the case as there is a strong incentive (which is the object of discussion in the next section) for the firms, for administrators and for policy-makers to abuse the lack of clarity that tends to surround the operations of private firms.

2 Budget de la défense: Projet de loi de finances 2004: Chapitre 3: La réforme de la défense.

103 2. Cultivating Contacts

It is no exaggeration to say that the role of private military companies in defining and altering public defence priorities constitutes a far greater challenge to democratic/national policy-making than does their direct impact. The privatisation and outsourcing of military services does lay the ground for a system where it is advantageous for policy-makers and administrators to use private firms to circumvent existing regulations and for firms to push and lobby policy-makers. The idea of a “military-industrial complex” has decidedly gone out of fashion and certainly is no longer a respectable object of study. There are a number of good reasons for this. However, one unfortunate consequence is that the efforts to probe the relationship between politics and the arms industry are far too few and far between. This is certainly not because the relationships are less problematic today than they were when Eisenhower de- nounced the military industrial complex. Rather on the contrary, one would expect the increased reliance on outsourcing and privatisation to make it all the more important for firms to keep good contacts to the political, administrative and military authorities deciding on the attribution of contracts. Such contacts have always been important, but the fact that contracts are now at- tributed on the basis of competition increases their importance, as the door is ajar for outsiders to get into defence sub-contracting. The lobbying for contracts is not necessarily irregular in any way. It is not illegal in any formal way for firms to try to impress policy makers with the efficiency of a particular equipment, the reliability of a certain corporation or in general the advantage of “private solutions”. The lobby group in the US e.g., BENS (Business Executives for National Security) is a public and perfectly legally established institution. Its reports on a variety of security related topics are public and down-loadable from the internet. There is also nothing illegal about firms employing retired generals and/or present policy-makers to boost their image and spread information about themselves. However, even if these contacts and the lobbying are perfectly regular and legal, it is important to acknowledge the extent to which they might alter and bias the understanding of defence needs. Cultivating contacts for example may use one part of the administration where privileged contacts are located to persuade another. Thus, a Pentagon Memo (from April 2001) reads “MPRI may need our help or moral support in getting the license from State” (quoted in International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002c: 7). Contacts also make it possible to use arguments that would otherwise not be accepted.

104 The case for which MPRI was in need of “moral support” in 2001 for example, concerned a contract to train the military of Equatorial Guinea (with which the US has bad political relations). The firm finally managed to get a license with the argument that since the country was anyway going to get the training it was better to have US firms supplying it than anyone else. The tendency to bias and alter the defence spending and priorities is accentuated by the fact that firms often make it very attractive for policy-makers to alter their view on the issue. There certainly is no shortage of cases where firms seem to have cultivated their political contacts to increase their share of the contract cake. In the US context the case of Halliburton and its subsidiary Brown and Root (now Kellog, Brown and Root) has come to epitomize the importance of well placed political contacts3. The firm’s link to politics go through former Pentagon head and present defence secretary Dick Cheney. When Ch- eney was at the Pentagon, BRS was awarded in 1992 $3.9m to make a classi- fied report dealing with how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops, and then (later the same year) an additional $5m to up- date this report (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002c: 3). BRS was then awarded a number of smaller contracts, but the big “bo- nanza” came during the period when Cheney was the CEO of BRS between 1995 and 1997. During the five years preceding Cheney’s term at the firm, it received government credit guarantees worth $100 m, under Cheney that figure reached $1.5 bn. In particular, in the Balkans where the firm obtained a LOGCAP contract worth $546m for supporting the US troops which eventually spilled over into contracts with the armed forces of other countries involved in the operations. The BRS also won contracts in Kosovo including a contract with KFOR originally worth $180m but which ballooned up to $1bn (Singer 2003: 215-6). Most recently, the firm has been in the media because of its contracts in Iraq where it is accused among other things for overcharging on its oil contracts, but continues to be granted new contracts4. It is perhaps not uninteresting to note that upon his final resignation from the company, the board voted Cheney a $33.7m retirement package and Cheney con-

3 One of the more complete accounts of this is “What did the Vice-President do for Hal- liburton”, New Yorker 16 and 23.02.2004. For an attempt to refute this image, “The Hallibur- ton Huff – The oil services firm did nothing wrong in Iraq”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11.01.2004. 4 “Details given on contract Halliburton was Awarded” The New York Times, 4.11.2003; “High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq, New York Times, 10.12.2003; “Halliburton Contracts in Iraq: The Struggle to Manage Costs”, New York Times, 29.12.2003.

105 tinues to receive deferred compensation payments of over $160.000 a year from Halliburton5. This is no isolated case of close and questionable linkages between politics and the private military industry. In the US, Frank Carlucci (defence secretary under Regan) has been linked to Vinnell (through chairmanship of the corporate groups that have owned the company) as have other high ranking policy-makers who have served on the boards including former president Bush, James Baker, and OMB director Richard Darman (International Con- sortium of Investigative Journalists 2002c: 3). DynCorp – which donated more than $100.000 to the Republican Party, got the contract for training the police force in the in Iraq6. There is overall growing concern about the close link between campaign donations and the award of public donations7. Outside the US there is also no shortage of scandals. The “Augusta affair” has shaken Bel- gian politics. Sweden has been haunted by an ongoing round of scandals around arms producer Bofors. In France, the link between the oil industry, security firms and the political establishment has been the subject of juridical in- vestigations (Global Witness 2003a). Finally, policy-makers might have reasons which have nothing to do with personal pecuniary gain to use the private market for force to alter the authority structures for deciding on defence matters. One reason is that it makes it harder to put exact numbers on the costs of military activities. The cost of contractors is, as was pointed out above, often less visible. One of the things that strikes observers across the board when they try to get at the significance of private contractors in any specific intervention/conflict, is that when they try to find out how many contractors are involved (let alone on what kind of contract) no one really knows8. But perhaps more salient in this context is that “it is easier for the government to do questionable things with contractors”9. Indeed, a second reason for entrusting private firms is that it makes it possible to intervene in armed conflicts without officially doing so. Private contracts are usually not

5 Fact Sheet: The Bush Administration’s Contracts with Halliburton. Minority Staff Com- mittee on Government Reform, US House of Representative, May 2003: 1. 6 “Scandal-hit US firm wins key contracts”, Guardian, 13.4.2003. 7 For a general attempt (and the presentation of exact data) to link the campaign donations (as publically declared) and the award of contracts in Iraq specifically see, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/rebuilding_iraq/ 8 “U.S., British private armies hide true cost of war: Hidden budgets” The Gazette (Mon- treal) 30.10.2003. 9 Deborah Avant quoted in The New York Times. 14.12.2003.

106 officially “military” and, as such, do not have to be submitted to the kind of public discussions that officially sanctioned military interventions would have to undergo. To avoid such discussion is often an advantage. Interventions are unvariably contentious: there is rarely general agreement on which conflicts are significant enough to warrant intervention. This is particularly the case when (as is the case in the US) a widely held perception is that “it is politically unfeasible to increase the size of America’s uniformed military”10 and the existing “US forces are streched to their very limits”11. Finally, reliance on contractors makes military operations more palatable to public opinion. Contractors’ “deaths and kidnapping don’t make headlines”12. In fact, they are not counted in official death tolls. This matters more than a little since the spectre of body-bags haunts any decision about armed interventions. MPRI’s involvement in training the Croatians during the Bosnian war is a good illustration of why it may be politically expedient to rely on contractors. The firm was taking part in training the Croatian armed forces, and possibly also in planning, organizing and carrying the Krajina assault, at a time when the US supported a UN embargo on military equipment, training and advisory activity to the region, and the issue of whether or not to intervene and how was highly sensitive in US politics (Singer 2003; Silverstein 2000: 171-175). Al- though the involvement of the firm in training is not disputed, the extent of its involvement in the actual Krajina assault is. During the operation war crimes were committed for which the Hague tribunal recommended that three Croa- tian generals should be indicted13. The firm, which remains ambiguous on its exact role, of course denies responsibility for these events. And even more in- terestingly, “The US not only refused to cooperate with investigators, but defended Croatian tactics before the tribunal... The Pentagon sent lawyers to argue that the shelling was a legitimate military tactic” (Silverstein 2000: 172). Similarly, indirect interventions through private firms have been a common feature of the US interventions in Latin America. In the US “war against drugs” private firms have played a major role. “At least a half-dozen companies receive up to $1.2 bn. a year from the Pentagon and the State Department to fly the planes that spray suspected coca fields and to monitor smugglers from remote radar sites”14. These interventions get known only when things

10 “Warfare Inc.” Military Officer, May 2003. 11 “Anmerican Foreign Legion”, Washington Times, 10.04.2003. 12 Deborah Avant quoted in The New York Times. 14.12.2003. 13 These included the burning of villages, the making of some $170.000, the shelling of Knin and the indiscriminate and deliberate targeting of civilians. 14 “Pentagon’s private army”, Fortune, 3.03.2003.

107 go wrong such as when AirScan staff was involved in dropping a cluster bomb on a village in Columbia15, when Northrop Grumman had employees killed and captured by Columbian rebels as their plane crashed (but refused to say why their employees were there)16, when civilian CIA contractors (working for the Aviation Development Corporation) were involved in shooting down a plane with a missionary and her infant in Peru17, or when Equador complained about a the poison spread out over a village (by mistake) by private US contractors. Democrat Representative Jan Schakowsky has even tried to introduce a bill (the April 2001, Andean Region Contractor Accountability Act, H.R. 1591) which would prohibit funding of private contractors for military or police work in the Andean region. However, so far her bill has little support and little prospect of passing. It is not the case that private firms dictate national interests. Krasner is still right to argue that in case of conflict between state interests and the interests of firms the interests of the state will prevail (Krasner 1978). However, as this section has argued, the trouble is that privatisation and outsourcing practices do influence the definition of these public interests. They do so because they increase the pressure on firms to lobby publically and legally to increase their piece of the cake. They do so because they make it possible for policy-makers to use the industry for operations and actions that would otherwise not have been politically feasible or viable. Finally they do so because they create a link between the private and the public which is ripe with possibilities of corruption or political exchange: corporations get contracts in exchange for support and payments to policy-makers and administrators (payments often counted into the value of contracts and hence ultimately drawn from public funds). Herein lies no doubt one of the main issues at stake in privatisation. There is a strong risk that the military business politician becomes a sui-generis sub-specie of the more general “business-politician” who makes a political career out of the obscure exchange of services and which is at the root of clientelist political systems (della Porta and Pizzorno 1996; Guzzini 1995; Pizzorno 1992).

3. Prioritising private efficiency and technology

Finally, the privatisation and outsourcing trend has a diffuse impact on the exercise of the authority to decide on the use of military force. It pushes

15 “US Pair’s Role in Bombing Shown”, Los Angeles Times, 16.03.2003. 16 “Pentagon’s private army”, Fortune, 3.03.2003. 17 “Deadly Mistake”, Salon, 24.04.2001.

108 private corporations to take on an increasingly central role as authorities in the discussions about the use of force. In order to ground their authority, private firms focus on issues of technical expertise and economic efficiency. This reformulation of security matters in technical and economic terms (to the extent that it is accepted) has the consequence, first, of shifting authority away from actors who do not frame their discussion in these terms and, second, of shifting the status and authority of the military in national debates by “normalis- ing” the institution and its activities. There has always been pressure on private firms working in the military industry to try to influence the understanding of security generally and, hence, to some extent to pose as authorities in matters of security. However, in the wake of the cold war there seems to have been a qualitative shift as it has become even more central to firms in the military industry to be authorities in security matters. The increased competition in the industry, outsourcing, privatisation, globalisation and informalisation has made it absolutely vital. As one observer explains:

the key to corporate survival resides increasingly in a political or even a cultural capacity; the ability to influence future customers and suppliers (167-8)... The leading defence company of the future will be primarily a manipulator of opinions, in a diversity of markets, rather than the familiar engineering enterprise of the past. Some companies are already becoming this (174)... the key asset is the ability to influence the ways in which prospective buyers (governments and armed services) imagine the wars of the future (Lovering 2000).

The pressure to be active in imagining the wars of the future translates as an increasing presence of private firms in the discussions surrounding security and in the interpretations of international politics. Firms are experts not only in a narrow, technical field, they provide interpretations of security more broadly. They provide studies on a broad range of security issues and lobby for specific political and diplomatic options in security matters. One of the characteristics of the “new” private military corporations that is rightly noted in most descriptions is the emphasis many of them place on advertising themselves and their activities. The exact extent to which they do this of course varies considerably. San- dline and its former head Tim Spicer, for example spend considerable time and effort on influencing public opinion. Reportedly Tim Spicer – in collaboration with a professional PR firm – launched the very idea of “private military companies” (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002b). He has advertised the “new mercenary” by having his life written up

109 as a book (Spicer 1999). For a long time the Sandline International website (shut down well after the closure of the firm in 2004) provides statements on a variety of issues related to the privatisation of military services and is a good source of references for more general (academic and political discussions) on the topic. Other firms (such as DynCorp) are discrete to a point of being hard to find in the public debate except when they are contacted and interviewed. Similarly, there is considerable variation as to which issues the firms engage with. Some firms take a narrow approach and only try to direct imagination about security issues of direct concern to their own interest others have a more encompassing approach. It is nonetheless the case that the industry as a whole is increasingly visible and is making an increasingly strong claim to expertise in public discussions. By way of illustration: the US lobby organization, BENS, publishes “guides” to security issues specifically directed at the candidates running18. It also sees as part of its success not only to have promoted best business practices, but also to have been active in reshaping the security agenda as illustrated in box 5.1.

BENS helped create the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers that played an important stabilizing role in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear face-off of the 1980s.

As superpower relations improved and nuclear fears ebbed, BENS advocated rigorous weapons testing, increased competition for military contracts, and reforms long a part of business but missing from the Pentagon.

BENS played a major role in developing the process for closing obsolete military bases, freeing up billions of dollars in savings and allowing local communities to put unneeded military facilities to more productive use.

BENS was active in garnering support for the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program - known as the Nunn-Lugar program - that has funded the dismantling of Russian nuclear weapons.

BENS was an early advocate of the Pentagon developing a five-year business plan and making it available to Congress.

BENS pushed for restructuring the Joint Chiefs of Staff to create a more business-like chain of command and to oper ate an d plan requirements jointly.

BENS' educational effort, combined with members' personal outreach to key Senators, is widely recognized as essential to the successful ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Box 5.1 BENS view on its historical achievements (source: www.bens.org )

It is no less true in security matters than it is in other political and social contexts that it is less what you say than where you speak from that matters for being heard and respected in a debate (Bourdieu 1982). As could therefore be expected, the industry also has to make a claim that it speaks from a

18 The Campaign 2002: A guide for candidates and The missing security issues – A guide for candidates. Campaign 2000.

110 privileged position to gain authority with the public and with policy-makers. Logically the privileged position the industry can claim to speak from is that of the observer with an accumulated experience, great technical know-how and capable of the most efficient reaction. It is vital for the industry to underline that this is not merely the position of a defender of a particular business interest, which might not correspond to the “national interest”. As BENS informs the public:

BENS members use their business experience to drive our agenda, deliver our message to decision makers and make certain that the changes we propose are put into practice. BENS has only one special interest: to help make America safe and secure (www.bens.org).

It is also essential for the private industry to convince the public that the accumulated experience, technical knowledge and economic efficiency with reference to which it claims its authority to speak about security are really the central issues. That is, security matters have to be framed as if they were matters of technical understanding and economic efficiency (which are the areas where firms can claim expertise): there are effective responses to threats and these can and should be dealt with as cheaply and effectively as possible is the entailed line of reasoning. This line is attractive for rather obvious reasons: citizens and policy-makers want to be secure and if they can be secure without paying outrageously much that is preferable. The flip side of this argument is that other issues and criteria of judgement are less important and that those who promote them therefore speak from a less authoritative vantage point. This is where the diffuse effect on authority relations in the national public debate is felt. It is felt first of all as a restructuring of the discussion in a way which downgrades the importance of the (profoundly political) issue of deciding what is a threat and how important it is and, by the same token, downgrading also the authority of those who specialise in these political and ethical questions. Focusing security debates on technically competent and economically effective responses to given threats, disregards the fundamental insight that threats are not objective givens on which everyone can agree (Wæver 1995). Even if in some cases it might be relatively easy to agree upon a threat – a division crossing the national border for example, is a fairly clear and undisput- ed threat to national security – most cases are more complex and complicated. They involve interpreting a situation and statements as well as adjudicat- ing between the importance of different types of threats: how one values the relative risk of a missile attack, terrorist highjacking, terrorism of any kind by

111 resident immigrants or natural disasters (a meteorite fall e.g.) is essential for knowing whether one should privilege the development of a missile defence system, in airport security, in migration control, or perhaps in a system of protection against meteorites. Settling these questions is prior to any issue of technical expertise on how to reply to the threats. The private military industry privileges the kind of threats that they are equipped to respond to in their studies. This is not necessarily because they have a calculated interest to do so (though that of course might be a part of the story). Rather, it is most likely to be a profoundly held conviction with roots in the cognitive practices of the industry. These threat are what representatives in the industry are used to discuss and think about. This is where their expertise lies. This is what they know about. Industry representatives would not deny that other things might matter too, but they would certainly be very clear on the importance and significance of their own field. To the extent that their weight in the discussion increases and an emphasis on technology and efficiency becomes authoritative, the issue of how to value different kinds of threats disappears from view and loses its relevance in the debate. As part and parcel of that process there is also a reshuffling of authority whereby the authority to speak of actors who raise that issue diminishes. If security can be narrowed to down to a matter of technical expertise and economic efficiency in responding to given threats, the usefulness of political discussions, journalistic or academic writing and civil society movements debating about the nature of threats becomes superfluous. Second and in addition to this, even assuming that threats can be and are agreed upon, the framing of discussions in terms of technical expertise and cost efficiency, is a simplification which has the consequence of minimizing disagreements on how to deal with security. There is rarely a generally agreed upon technical solution for responding to a threat nor is there any agreement on matters of economic efficiency. Threats can be responded to in a great variety of ways, the use of a specific military equipment might be one. However, besides the fact that there is usually a contending military equipment for responding to the same kind of threat, there are also many other possible responses: various forms of diplomacy including bi-lateral or multilateral sanctions, negotiations, arms control, de-es- calation measures, educational and social measures, assistance in policing, the establishment of regimes of financial control. The list could be prolonged almost indefinitely depending on the situation. The point here, is to underline that it is blatantly wrong to assume that there is any one “technical” solution to a threat. The implication is that the increased focus on the technological solu-

112 tions, which results from the private military industry’s involvement as security experts, tends to narrow the debate and in fact marginalises alternative ways of responding to threats and the authority of the actors advocating these. As could be expected, this redistribution of authority often produces tensions between firms and various advocacy groups over alternative ways of dealing with threats. Firm advocates will point to the incompetence and naive- ness of advocacy movements and their proposed solutions. Their rejection of the private “option” presented as founded on shaky old fashioned prejudices which lead them to make immoral judgements. In a rather typical vein:

What most seems to bother many observers, especially those on the left, is that nowadays, PMCs are respectable. They cannot bring themselves to believe that PMCs operate with discipline, observe laws and customs of the host nation, and adhere to the principles of the Geneva Convention [...] If a state cannot provide security and protection for its citizens–the essential rationale for existence for a government in the first place – it is immoral and the height of hypocrisy to tell another state it cannot take steps to defend itself because someone has inaccu- rate and outmoded ideas about private military forces (Isenberg 2000: 15-16).

Advocacy groups, in turn, express scepticism about the private firms and their behaviour. They will often deny (or relativise) the firms’ claim to success in places such as Angola or Sierra Leone (Selber and Jobarteh 2002; Francis 1999; Musah 1998; Global Witness 2003b; Makki, Meek et al. 2003). When potentially positive roles are acknowledged, it is usually reluctantly (Spearin 2001). This struggle for authority is a perennial part of security politics and it is fairly safe to predict that it will continue. The point made here is, that the outsourcing and privatisation of security services intensifies the contestation over who is a legitimate actor in these debates and that private firms are now taking part in the discussion, trying to focus it on the issue of the effectiveness of private solutions. An analogous argument can be made with respect to the emphasis placed by the firms on economic efficiency. One of the key contentions of the private industry is indeed that it is efficient: it costs less to use the private industry than it costs to use the alternatives. This in itself is a highly contested point. It is far from clear that the involvement of the private industry has diminished costs, for a host of reasons already discussed, including the costs (education, training) borne by the public armed forces, the difficulties of monitoring contracts, and the costs of political pay-offs. Both the US and the UK experiences are inconclusive in this regard. However, the point to be argued here is slightly different: even if we could assume that private firms were economically

113 more efficient, that is less expensive, in providing the particular service that they provide, this might not be the key consideration in the matter. The very basic question is whether or not the service is the one needed in the first place, which returns the discussion to the point about how to respond to any specific means. But even when there is an agreement that the service provided is indeed the one that should be provided there might be reasons for which providing it at the lowest cost might not be the most relevant consideration. From within the military it is often pointed out that one of the important drawbacks of the current outsourcing and privatisation trend is that the “dual use” (the use of staff for directly military tasks if they are needed) of logistics staff e.g. becomes impossible (La Commission de la Défense Na- tionale et des Forces Armées 2002). Similarly, there might be security reasons for keeping activities private. Hence, UK allies have contested the decision to privatise one part of the UK military research agency (DERA) essentially for security reasons. It is perfectly possible that there are long term considerations (ensuring that the service is provided on the same conditions even if the firm goes bankrupt or merges with another firm) that it seems preferable to keep certain activities within the military even if they are more cheaply provided from the outside. A debate which emphasises economic efficiency and sets up cost saving as the chief concern in the discussion will be inherently prone to disregard these types of questions. The effect of stressing technical solutions and economic efficiency in military matters is a normalisation and possibly a trivialisation of the military in national affairs. Indeed, it presents the military sector as one sector among others in the national economy. There is an obvious salutary side to this in that it makes (or should make) more sober scrutiny and open discussions about how resources are spent in military matters possible. A point industry representatives and others arguing for increased privatisation and outsourcing are driving with vigour. However, it also has the effect that it might trivialise the military and the deployment of the military in national public debate. It is not only an economic sector that is normalised but also a profession. Soldiers are working on contract as everyone else in the economy is working on a contract. One implication of this is that it becomes far easier to argue that – just as it is part of other people’s contracts to do unpleasant things in other activities – so it is part of the contractual obligations of soldiers and employees working in the military sector to accept the inherent difficulties and dangers of working in conflict situations. There is a worry – at least in some military establishments – that this might make the decision to intervene in conflicts (particularly those far away) easier (Lanxade 2001).

114 Even more profoundly, according to a security analyst, there is some worry that the emphasis on economic efficiency on gain, and more generally on the military as a sector of career where private profits can be and are made, might devalue the status of the military in society. With the devaluation of the status of the profession, the privileges that go with it are also at stake. In the US, the future of the pension scheme is under discussion. The risk of a devaluation of the status of the profession is felt to be particularly strong when the national loyalty of the armed forces and its employees appears to be questionable. According to one US Army colonel:

When former officers sell their skills on the international market for profit, the entire profession loses its moral high ground with the American people... ultimately, the privatisation of US military services under direct foreign contract cor- rupts our military both in the eyes of society and within the ranks (quoted in Singer 2003: 307).

At stake in the privatisation and outsourcing of military service is clearly a reshaping of who can count on being heard and respected in the debates about national security and what issues can be raised. Who carries out military tasks matters for how the national debate about security is structured? With privatisation and outsourcing, comes a re-centring of the debate on technical and economic issues, because it is with reference to these that private firms back up their claim to authority in the discussion. By a snowball effect this claim to authority is all the more central as privatisation and outsourcing increase the competition authority in the security is vital for winning in the competitions: the firms have to influence the understanding of present threats and future wars to survive. The consequence of this re-centring is that issues which fall outside this narrow framing, criteria which are different, and actors who push either the issues or the criteria will find it more difficult to enter the debate and perhaps even find themselves and their arguments devalued and dismissed as irrelevant, incompetent or uninteresting.

Conclusion

This chapter has looked at how privatisation and the outsourcing affects democratic authority over national security matters. It has argued first that it tends to diminish the grip of democratic institutions on security matters by displacing the capacity to provide certain security related services beyond the control of state institutions (the armed forces, national security services or

115 ministries) and in the hands of the private sector. This makes the public depend on private actors which diminishes its scope for authoritative decisions. In addition to this, increased privatisation and outsourcing has often not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the capacity to monitor and control contracts at all levels of the state. The parliamentary oversight has been particularly wanting in this respect. The lack of effective oversight and monitoring mechanisms further undermines the independent authority of the state in its different guises. The chapter has further emphasised that more important than this direct impact are the indirect and diffuse effects on state authority entailed by privatisation and outsourcing. There are strong reasons for representatives of the private industry to try to reshape the understanding of national security and their own particular role in it: their contracts and hence success in the competition and ultimately survival depend on the fact that threats, and the adequate ways of responding to them, are understood in a way that makes their provision of a particular service seem essential. They therefore have a strong interest in directly trying to influence the understanding policy-makers have of security and contract attribution by legal (lobbying) or illegal (corruption) means. Policy-makers in turn, have good reasons to allow themselves to be convinced. Personal and political gain is one such reason. But the prospect of circumventing political discussions is another. The consequence is a blurring of the distinction between private and public interests, weakening democratic authority in defining national interests. Finally, the chapter argued that because it is so important for the industry to shape the understanding of security they will reshape the value of different authority claims in the discussion about security. They will pursue issues, ideas and criteria which confirm their authority in security matters and disregard or denigrate other ones. They will strive to redirect attention to issues of technical and/or professional expertise in their own field, cost reduc- tions and the importance of free markets and competition. Issues that will be of lesser importance are questions of which threats are most important and what means are best suited to respond to given threats. To the extent that this narrowing of the debate is effective, it entails a corresponding narrowing of the scope of democratic debate and of the actors who can legitimately take part in it.

116 5. State Authority III: International Society and Private Military Companies

In the international sphere it is probably even easier and more common to overlook and trivialise the direct authority that privatisation and outsourcing are actually giving private, non-state commercial actors. The reason for this is the state centrism of much international relations thinking, especially when it comes to the use of force. Discussions about military authority on the battle field or about authority in national politics almost by definition treat the state as a site of competition and political contest and hence problematise its unitary nature. However, in discussions about international politics, it is common (not only among IR scholars) to assume unified states, acting according to national interests and employing private firms in order to defend these interests internationally. The consequence is an easy slide from discussing the interests and behaviour of private firms to an assumption that to are expression of state policies. For example, in his discussion (which is one of the few serious available critiques) of EO’s intervention in Sierra Leone, Francis sums up his argument in the following way:

this corporate mercenarism – in search of strategic minerals – represents the ‘new face’ of neocolonialism, operating under the guise of neoliberal market policies. Through this privatisation of security, mercenary companies therefore provide viable foreign policy proxies for Western governments in the pursuit of national interests (Francis 1999: 319).

Francis assumes – as do many others – that the corporate interests of “Western” firms correspond to the national interests of Western governments. This assumption, which is often unarticulated, is at the origin of much of the underestimation of the significant direct authority implications of the development of PMCs for Western governments: assuming that the interests of firms and Western governments coincide makes it less pertinent, not to say irrelevant, to ask questions about the extent to which their growing presence on

117 the terrain and in conflicts, give PMCs authority over the regulation of the use of force. The implicit or explicit logic is that since they are acting in prolongation of the interests of their governments it does not really matter if their say is increasing. If it is, it amounts to little more than a rearticulation of public authority. This chapter questions this conclusion and argues that it does matter and that public authority is changing also in the international/transnational sphere of politics. In order to make this argument, the chapter will follow the same logic as in the previous chapters. It will look at the direct, indirect and diffuse effects of privatisation on state authority in that authority and thereby try to capture the change that is occurring at different levels. The first point the chapter makes is that the increasing reliance on private companies gives these a considerable direct say over how force is regulated internationally and that this say does not necessarily make firms defend the national interests of their home states. Second, the PMCs alter the understanding other international actors have of their own interests. They lobby and place pressure on other states, non-state groups and international organisations to reshape the understanding these have of security matters. Even if this reformulation of interests will often dovetail nicely with the policies and security understandings of Western states, they sometimes do not and whether they do or do not is a matter over which states have little control. The final point is that the rise of private military companies and the discussion surrounding them are having a diffuse effect on the understanding of the authority to regulate the use of force internationally. Profound changes are taking place in the relative standing of public and private authority to regulate the use of force, as an indirect (and not necessarily intended) consequence of the rise of private firms as credible international actors.

1. The direct international authority of private firms

The argument that private firms are mere proxies for their governments, that the regulation of the use of force is “delegated and not privatised”, clos- es the door on a whole set of questions regarding the authority to regulate the use of force. Yet, such a closure is unacceptable. It blocs thinking about an important shift in who has a say in regulating the use of force internationally. This section begins to explore what is left out by accepting the closure. It looks at the kind of direct say private firms are gaining through the creation of an international market for force. It begins by pointing out that the market for force

118 gives firms an independent direct say over the use of force even when they act on behalf of a state or with its consent. It proceeds to argue that the creation of a market for force gives firms plenty of scope for taking initiatives on their own, that is to claim a right to directly interfere with the regulation of the use of force. The re-emergence of private firms that claim direct authority over the use of force is affecting the authority of Western states by creating uncertainty about the extent to which Western state really can control the use of force. First, private firms gain a direct say over the use of force internationally even when they are acting on behalf of or with the approval of states. When private firms are placed in charge of a specific aspect of military operations, they gain control over the implementation of this aspect. This point has already been argued in detail (in chapter 4 and 5 above) and will therefore only be briefly recalled here. This insight is obvious when the operation of weapons and intelligence is outsourced, as e.g. the outsourcing of the operation of F-117 stealth fighter, the M1A1 Abrams tank or the operation of unmanned drones in Iraq. However, the lines between the military and non-military aspects of operations are not clear cut and therefore this consideration is relevant for outsourcing also beyond weapons systems narrowly defined. The direct say of the private firms is greater if they are the only ones who can fill a certain function, something which is often the case especially in the short run. Similarly, the privatisation of training and equipment provision gives firms authority. The US in particular has been prone to outsource training and equipment programmes to private firms. It has offered countries (subsidized) contracts with private firms who have taken over the training and equipment programs. Programmes already referred to above include among others MPRI’s contract in Croatia, Vinnell’s contracts in Saudi Arabia, and Dyn- Corp’s contract to train Afghan police and security forces. The consequence of this privatisation of training is that private firms are left with a considerable say over precisely what kind of training and equipment will be delivered, to whom and to what terms. The private firms contracted have considerable leeway in determining how negotiated contracts should be interpreted and above all how they are implemented in practice. A firm might fulfil a contract and use it as a basis for further deepening and developing a business relationship. Vinnell’s contract with Saudi Arabia for example grew steadily over the years. Inversely, the firm might do a bare minimum, as MPRI for example did in Columbia when it sent in only trainers who did not speak Spanish. Which choice the firm makes is fundamental for what kind of know-how is transmitted. Moreover, the training contracts give the private firms a considerable direct say over how military

119 training develops. Its presence on the ground, even if it is state initiated, gives it the contacts and the information which will make its judgement on future needs a credible source for the development of future contracts. More than this, these contacts can also be used by the firm to develop independent business initiatives. Even if contracts are state initiated, firms gain the situational knowledge and direct contact to potential contacts which may well serve to develop business. This leads straight to the second point: it would be unwise to underestimate the independent say over the use of force that firms gain through the development of a market for force. Even firms that begin operations as part of a state initiated contract for training and equipping are likely to move on and to develop contracts on their own. A minority of firms – for example the MPRI – insists that it always gets the approval from the US government for these contracts. Most see it as their right to compete for contracts. Even highly respected PMCs used by states and international organisations time and again find themselves involved in less than clear business deals. In the US, there has been considerable focus on the role of private firms (DynCorp being one of the most prominent) involved in the attempts to curb the drug trade in Latin America. The firms are mostly hired for purposes of training, intelligence provision and logistics. Yet, their activities seem to have left them deeply en- meshed in the various armed struggles. This is illustrated for example by the involvement of AirScan (which is linked to DynCorp) in the contested cluster bombing of a Columbian village and in the shooting down of a plane with civilians (including American citizens) in Peru1. Third, there is more to the market for force than state initiated contracts. Much of the business is with a variety of non-state actors. As discussed in chapter 3, the more lucrative and respectable end of this market is that which involves private firms that need to secure investments and installations. The less respectable end of the market involves deals with various non-state armed groups or individuals. In either case though, it holds that the private firms themselves decide with whom to deal and on what terms. This decision might be based in part on considerations which have to do with state alliances and security concerns. Some firms (such as MPRI or Vinnell) claim always to consult their home government before taking on a contract. However, many firms do not claim to take their “home state’s” foreign policy into consideration or to ask for an official stamp of approval for their activities. Some firms show little concern for these interests such as Sandline when it accepted to work for

1 “Deadly Mistake”, Salon, 24.04.2001.

120 the government of Papua New Guniea or Yair Klein selling training to Columbian guerilla forces (Silverstein 2000). Others act in obvious disregard and direct contradiction of these principles, including for example the US citizen Kelvin Klein selling training to terrorists or the UK firm Sakina Secruity selling Jihad challenge packages (Singer 2003). It is worth underlining that even the most respectable deals between firms and non-state actors are subject to the same kind of difficulties as deals initiated by states: the contracts often develop in ways which leave firms involved in armed conflicts. For example, Defense Systems Limited (often cited as one of the more respectable UK firms) was hired into Colombia by British Petro- leum to protect its installations. However, soon this involvement became seen as contributing to the development of right-wing paramilitary groups involved in the killing and disappearance of civilians considered part of “subversive” or “criminal” networks. The firm has indeed admitted supplying night-vision goggles to an army brigade accused of killing and abusing civilians as well as of hiring an army officer of whose links to paramilitary groups the Inter-Amer- ican Commission on Human Rights has “abundant evidence and testimony”2. For obvious reasons, there are no reliable statistical indicators one could use to see whether deals, where firms are defying the foreign policy interests of their home governments are increasing or not. But this is not so important. The point is that it is up to the firms whether or not their contracts will reflect state concerns. There is no automatic correlation between the firms’ interests and the interests of the state. There is no convincing theoretical or empirical argument justifying the assumption that such a coincidence of interests will necessarily exist. In the international market for force, private firms themselves ultimately decide to whom to sell what and on which conditions. Gov- ernments have considerable possibilities of influencing or regulating these decisions, but it cannot be assumed that firms will follow their governments foreign policy interests. That is, private firms have direct authority over the use of force internationally. The question in this context is what implications this (re)emergence and strengthening of private authorities over the use of force means for the authority of Western states internationally. Authority is not necessarily a zero- sum (what is gained by some must necessarily be lost by others). It therefore cannot be taken for granted that the emergence of private authority entails a loss or even a reformulation of state authority. There are situations where an increase in the authority of private actors is compatible with or even reinforc-

2 “Columbian Self-Defense” New Books, 27.11.2002.

121 ing (a positive sum) the authority of the state. This is notably the case when private actors act in the interest of the state and merely reinforce its position, exactly as many advocates of private military markets argue that they do: it is merely a matter of doing the same more effectively (Shearer 1998b). Howev- er, as has just been argued, often this is not what happens. The fact that there are demonstrably many situations where the direct control private firms gain over the use of force is not used to bolster interests of states has implications for the authority of Western states to control the use of force internationally: it makes it possible for a variety of actors to ignore or circumvent the policies of Western states, hence very directly challenging their authority over the use of force. As just illustrated, armed groups can buy the arms and training that is necessary for their activities on an international market in direct defiance of Westerns governments wishing to prevent them from doing so. Relatedly, conflicts can be kept running over long periods of time despite attempts to control them by curbing the arms sales. Sometimes the logic of markets increases the likelihood that this will indeed be the case, as for example, in Congo-Brazzaville and in Angola where Elf-Aquitaine supported both sides to hedge its interests in the areas (International Consortium of In- vestigative Journalists 2002a: 5; Global Witness 2003a). Finally, international markets devalue the significance of an official stamp of approval by Western states on how international force is used in internal policies. In politics rulers can pay to have the opposition defeated militarily. But also in labour relations foreign firms can be hired to solve conflicts. Northbridge for example, flew two plane loads of special servicemen to Nigeria on a contract to rescue foreign workers held hostage on a Nigerian oil rig by striking workers and solved a labour related conflict3. The possibility of contesting, circumventing and ignoring the direct authority of Western states is translated in the increasing uncertainty surrounding this authority. Alliances’ policies and attempts to pressure other countries into a specific line of action are as uncertain as ever if not more so. Indeed, there is a nagging sense that in the “uni-polar” moment of “empire”, the authority of the empire is contested has not really brought about the kind of direct control one might have expected the empire to enjoy as the second pole disappeared. This is well expressed in the equally common concern with growing “international disorder” popularised Kaplan’s grim vision of the coming anarchy (1994).

3 “Privatised military the way for the future”, Reuters, 9.5.2003.

122 2. Redefining interests in international society

The presence of private firms in the regulation of the use of force is also affecting state authority indirectly. Just as firms reshape the understanding of the national interests in domestic politics and of the military within the armed forces, so do they also have an impact on the way interests are understood in international society. This section does not discuss how the emergence of private military firms works to redefine the interests of Western states. Instead, it looks at how the market for force influences the understanding of those with whom Western states interact internationally and the implications of this for the authority of Western states. The argument is that by lobbying, by creating uncertainty and by provoking resentment private firms are altering the interests of those with whom Western states interact in ways which may undermine the foundations of Western state authority. The growing presence of private military companies is influencing the way those (public and private actors) who receive military equipment, consultancy, support and training from Western states relate to the authority of these states. They are the receivers of training and expertise that is, increasingly outsourced and hence provided by private firms. It is only logical that this should influence their view on the authority of the states they are dealing with. Often outsourcing is no doubt well accepted and merely considered to confirm the authority of the outsourcing state. However, there are also a number of reasons why this might not be the case and on the contrary lead to resentment of and/or uncertainty about the authority of Western states. One such reason is that awareness is as great on the receiving end as anywhere else (if not greater), about the fact that outsourcing and “private solutions” are used to avoid engaging public soldiers and providing publically organised training. This provides good reasons to resent privatisation and outsourcing and to consider it as an expression of an unwillingness to engage (and possibly as a lack of respect). For example, the Georgian foreign minister told the press that his government had long tried to convince the US to set up a base on its soil. The US response was awarding the US company Cubic a contract (worth $15m over three years) with the Pentagon to support the Geor- gian ministry of defence to make its military more effective. The result is described by a Western diplomat in Tiblisi as the “setting up of a ‘virtual base’ where fuel and equipment can be stored without the diplomatic inconven- ience of setting up a permanent base in a country where Moscow already has two controversial bases”. However, from the Georgian perspective a key reason for asking for US military assistance was precisely that “the inconven-

123 ience” would tie the US to the region and symbolically mark its engagement. The consequence is a resentment of a privatisation and outsourcing strategy which allows the US (and other Western states following similar strategies) to withdraw from commitments that come with claims to authority4. As pointed out by Theresa Whelan (US deputy assistant secretary of defence for African Affairs) with reference to the use of contractors in Africa “from the policy standpoint, the challenge you have is that the use of contractors really sends a mixed signal about the level of US interest in and support of a regional country or operation”5. The eroding effects of this resentment on authority is accentuated by the indirect effects of privatisation and outsourcing on the way that foreign policy is conducted. There are many examples of situations where the reliance on markets and private firms’ markets has gone in pair with a commercialisation of the sphere of force and official processes have ensued. The Kurdish PKK protested when private firms were allegedly involved in trying to capture its leader Abdullah Öcalan on behalf of the Turkish government (Silverstein 2000: 161). President Mugabe protested when a video was diffused of his main opponents negotiating with a private firm to assassinate him6. And, the Niger- ian government protested vehemently when the Northbridge Services Group made a public offering to share the $2m bounty offered by the US for the capture of Charles Taylor (who was then on Nigerian territory) with an investor willing to finance the operation7. In all these cases, private firms have taken the authority to use force into their own hands for simple gain. To those protesting, this is a sign of a deep and growing injustice in international politics where the haves are entitled to get their way at the expense and the have-nots. The fact that these acts receive tacit or explicit approval by (mostly Western and especially the US) governments does not make the “financial might is in the right” seem more credible or trustworthy. Rather, it weakens the confidence in Western governments and, hence, erodes the basis of the authority of Western states to regulate the use of force. This is all the more true as privatisation and commercialisation of the use of force is creating uncertainty about who it is that has the real ability to control the use of force internationally. In many Western countries, privatisation

4 “US privatises its military aid to Georgia” The Guardian, 6.1.2004. 5 Theresa Whelan ‘Remarks to IPOA Dinner. Washington D.C. 19 Nov. 2003’, available at www.ipoa.org/content/Whelantranscript.pdf. 6 Even if the firm was probably hired by Mugabe himself with the aim of producing the video recording, it is telling that it was thought of as a credible offer. 7 “US mercenaries float plan to snatch Taylor from Nigeria”, Financial Times 10.12.2003.

124 and outsourcing is making private firms convince public institutions to take on their view. It is also forcing public institutions to adopt a private sector out- look. Public institutions begin to behave as private firms. This is often pointed out in the contexts of military reform under severe budgetary constrains in developing countries and in former Eastern bloc countries. But it is also true in the developed world. As Jane’s Defence Weekly explains:

In the UK and the USA, military-owned units belonging to the logistics and support bases have become increasingly profit-oriented since the early 1990s in order to justify their continued existence in an era of force restructuring and downsizing... They are expanding aggressively into the civilian economy8.

What holds for military is also true of government institutions. In the UK the reform and downsizing of private institutions and ministries have (at least according to some) pushed these into “commercialism”. The Ministry of De- fence is no exception on this account (Edmonds 1998). There is a blurring of the lines between private and public interests and behaviour. It is often impossible to find out where one ends and the other begins. It is uncertain what is for profit and what is for principles. To many observers this uncertainty is central. It is even more central than the issue of accountability of the firms or of their purported effectiveness in militarily settling conflicts. Discussions about oil interests in Iraq (and Halliburton) are a topical case in point. So are the discussions about the organisation of reconstruction and of military training in the country. Reports of Iraqi discontent with poorly done, unfinished work by private firms often involving racketing of local subcontractors abounds (Chatterjee and Docena 2004). Vinnell’s contract for training the new Iraqi armed forces has had to be abandoned half way because of the poor results. In all these cases there has been a strong suspicion that policies are not following public interests but reflect a general disorgani- sation and lack of consideration as to who should do what, why and how wors- ened by the obvious temptation private firms have to influence the process. As Daniel Winter, president of Northrop-Grumman’s Mission Systems (of which Vinnell is a subgroup), explained to Defense Week the firms see the “money the Bush administration will spend on retraining the Iraqi Army was a ‘wild card’ and come up with proposals and contracts to show the Pentagon that they can help using it9.

8 “Forces in business”, Janes’s Defence Weekly, 14.2.2001. 9 “Vinnell’s Army on the Defensive” TomPaine.com, 21.01.2004.

125 When private and public lines are perceived to blur it also becomes difficult for states to claim that their policy follows a general and justifiable interest beyond that of the specific contract or firm. Hence, unsurprisingly according to the initiator of the “Campaign against mercenarism in Africa”,

The key issue here [regarding the development of private military companies], and what concerns a lot of people in Africa, is not just merely whether the ob- servance of the rules of engagement on the field or anything, but what these conflicts in Africa are about? It is the illegitimate appropriation of resources10.

Growing uncertainty, injustice and resentment augur badly for the future of state authority. The understanding other states and actors have of their own interests are altered by them. They may no longer think that the touted “leadership” of the US in the unipolar world serves their interests. Yet this leadership depends on sustained authority, and authority rests on recognition and acceptance. The consequence of resentment, uncertainty and an impression of injustice is that both are weakened. Acceptance vanishes with the sense of injustice and the resentment of policies followed. Recognition is weakened if other actors are seen as gaining more importance and strength in the system. The impression that private firms are gaining importance and say is reinforced by their capacity of gaining a say in international politics through their direct lobbying efforts. Private firms lobby international actors just as they do national ones and for very similar reasons: it is essential (not to say vital) for the private firms to shape security understandings and in particular to make sure that the service they provide and/or goods they sell are understood as important for defending that interest. Again similarly to the national level, these lobbying efforts can be – but are not necessarily – illegal in nature and involve the whole range of actors who are influential in setting security agendas. They involve everything from information about products and services to outright bribes and corruption passing through the organisation of specialised training and security courses. It would be impossible to attempt to cover the exceedingly broad range of activities that private firms engage in to shape security understandings internationally. However, it might be interesting to look at one example in some degree of detail. For this purpose, I propose to discuss the lobbying efforts to reshape the understanding of what role private firms can and should play in multilateral (and specifically UN) interventions as an illustration which is in-

10 “Dogs of war”, broadcast 18.5.2000; http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/archives/sl2862- 1.htm

126 teresting both because of its centrality for the view on authority over the use of force in international politics and because it centrally involves international institutions. To extend the private involvement in multilateral operations is interesting for many firms in the private sectors. These operations are seen as an increasingly central part of international politics in the post cold war environment. In addition to the growth of international “peacekeeping operations”, the early post-cold war period was marked by the development of “humanitarian interventions” which ebbed off following Somalia (MacFarlane 2003; Kaldor 2000). This trend is now followed by the post 9/11 “regime changing” interventions that are part of the American-led war on terrorism. Moreover, a number of regional organisations are setting up intervention forces to deal with conflicts at the regional level (Pugh 2002). At the same time, the developments of interventions of various stamps have been closely connected with a growing concern (particularly in the West) with the over-stretching of public armed forces. It is therefore not surprising that private firms see it as an attractive and realistic possibility to develop activities in this area. However, for this to be possible takes a basic revision of the understanding of the regulation of the use of force internationally. Mercenarism has been an illegitimate practice since the mid 19th century, it is associated with colonial and neo-colonial policies in large parts of the world, and the UN has a special rapporteur looking at mercenarism internationally and promoting the 1989 Convention against the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries. The implication is that private firms cannot be directly involved in multilateral military operations and that for this to become possible would take a rethinking of the meaning of mercenarism in international relations although they can be (and are) used to back up and support these operations. Many firms have actively pushed for such a rethinking and have, to some extent, been effective in bringing it about. Firms have been directly engaged in advocating a change in the international practice. Sandline for example publicly engages in debates with policy-makers and makes constructive proposals for how a licencing system might be organised to make the engagement of private military firms (not of mercenaries) a realistic possibility. A crucial part of this is a review of the definition of mercenary which would make it possible to differentiate the firms providing services to legitimate governments from the individual and firms selling illegitimate – mercenary – services ( ). An interest group has also developed to promote the issue. The international peace operations associations is an independent group with no formal links to the industry which engages in debate on the issue in the various fora where it

127 occurs. It also runs an independent discussion list on the topic, which individuals of all stamps including academics, researchers, students and people working in the industry, who take a public interest in the issue are invited to join The list functions as an important discussion forum and source of information. It is, however, dominated by those who advocate an altered view on private military companies. This attempt to alter views on private military companies has been rather effective. Several national governments have begun processes of revising their legislation and understanding of the issue. The UK has gone the furthest towards revising the conventional stance on private military engagement in its Green paper and the process following it (Foreign and Commonwealth Of- fice 2002a; Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002b). But also in France and in Belgium has the issue been under discussion (La Commission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armées 2002). But most impressively is the effect on the UN special rapporteur on the issue. Following a mission to the UK to study the matter in 1999, two “expert panels” held in Geneva (2001 and 2002) and extensive contacts with the industry, the special rapporteur has made a rather impressive volte face, reversing a relatively constant line of rejection and condemnation of mercenaries to arguing for a need to revise the understanding of mercenaries internationally and to revise the convention that he is presiding over. In this volte face, En- rique Ballesteros follows a line very similar to that of many companies. First, he argues that it is imperative to distinguish among mercenaries because some:

companies are modern, multipurpose, transnational companies, which do not hesitate to recruit mercenaries for certain of the activities they offer. They tend to be highly efficient in matters of military science, but they also tend to have few scruples about recruiting mercenaries for difficult, highly dangerous mission in zones and territories where violence and armed conflicts are taking place (UN 2003: §29).

And logically following this:

The conclusion arrived at by the Special Rapporteur in this regard is that such companies need not be banned, but that domestic and international law must deal with the issue so that there are oversight, regulation and monitoring mechanisms that clearly differentiate military consultancy services from participation in armed conflicts and from anything that could be considered intervention in matters of public order and security that are the exclusive responsibility of the State (UN 2003: §30).

128 For such distinctions to be possible, the rapporteur consequently proposes a revision of the Geneva convention’s definition of a mercenary. The new definition is more detailed and much longer, but not necessarily less inclusive or easier to apply than the old one. In particular it is not clear that it is actually possible to use it for distinguishing “the good guys from the bad ones” as Spicer expresses it11. The legal applicability of the proposed definition is not the issue here. Rather for the present purposes, the interesting point is the capacity of the firms to shape international society’s understanding of security – and their own role in providing it. The changed position of the UN rapporteur on mercenaries on the issue private military companies is a partial victory for the firms, as it goes a long way towards meeting and adopting the positions and responding to the demands of private firms. The very fact that the firms were consulted and integrated on the expert panels is in itself an indication of the change in authority relations of which the revised position of the rapporteur is the expression. But finally, and most importantly, this altered position signalled a change in positions on how private military companies are judged and what kind of activities they can engage in internationally: they have an official stamp of approval as “efficient in matters of military science” and at least potentially legitimate international actors, which the next section discusses in greater detail.

3. The Standing of Non-State Actors

The most significant impact of the development of private military firms on the authority of Western states to regulate the use of force internationally, is no doubt the diffuse effect that comes through the increasing acceptance that some military firms are respectable actors who should be (and are) consulted in matters of international security, that there is a distinction to be made between the goodies and the baddies, and that the goodies deserve recognition and integration as respectable members of an enlarged international society. There is a change in the weight private military firms have in matters of international security. This increased presence of the private firms comes at a price. The efforts to establish private firms as legitimate actors on the international scene has had eroded the status of public ones. It has gone in pair

11 “Dogs of war”, broadcast 18.5.2000; The full text of the proposed definition can be read in the annexe to (UN 2003).

129 with a critique of public actors and a constant downplaying of their successes which gnaws at their credibility. It would be misleading to contend that private actors are gaining authority in the debate over the regulation of the use of force internationally only or mainly because of their efforts to de-legitimize public (state) action and the deployment of public armed forces. Rather an important part of this effort has gone through a positive argumentation emphasising their efficiency and military know-how (as discussed in chapter 5) as well as what Francis (1999) calls their “strategic impact”. As Francis rightly points out, a key base for claiming the legitimacy of private military companies in international society has been reference to their capacity to stabilize conflict situations which escape the control of beleaguered local governments, and in which foreign governments and international institutions do not want to get involved, but where human and economic costs makes stabilization crucial. Many presentations are outright eulogies of the firms. They are presented as “force multipliers” making national military forces or multinational peacekeepers “infinitely more effective” (Brooks 2003; Shearer 1998a). They are presented as “an essential part of the new world order” (Christopher Hird) and as offering beleaguered governments “a wonderful economic and military package” (Herbert Howe) (both quoted in Francis 1999: 323). They are more like messiahs than merecenaries (Brooks 2000). The firms do their best to sustain this positive image of their effectiveness by advertising their successes to the press when given the occasion. They are building up their reputation which is a fundamental asset in any market and even more so in markets for force (Haufler 2001; Gambetta 1991). A reputation of effectiveness makes it less likely that the effectiveness is actually tested and resources actually used. Therefore, it is particularly important to spread information which contributes to and confirms a positive reputation. It is important to advertise also rather unspectacular operations where that reputation can be bolstered. For example, Northbridge made sure to publicise its role in a recent labour conflict in Nigeria and a representative of the firm told the press. “We brought in a representative of the hostage takers and showed him the guys and their equipment waiting to go. He got the message. The hostages were liberated without a shot”12. This said, bolstering the reputation of private firms has also gone through comparing it favourably to the public sector. Since no one can deny that there

12 “Privatised military the way for the future”, Reuters, 9.5.2003.

130 are and have been difficulties and problems surrounding private firm interventions, the obvious way of dealing with this (if one has an interest in promoting the private market and private firms) is to place the drawbacks of private firms in perspective. By arguing that indeed there are troubles but that the very same difficulties exist also in the public forces, and that there the difficulties are even worse, it is possible – not to excuse the firms – but to argue that some perspective is needed. Box 6.1 illustrates this figure of argumentation by using the comments by the IPOA organiser Doug Brooks on the net in relation to an article that was bringing up problems with the privatisation of peacekeeping. This text in itself is not of any particular significance. It is used because it nicely summarises a figure of argumentation – and many of the

PMCs are charged with .... however the public is worse.

PMCs are charged with maximizing private profits on war. However, “profit maximization might have different terminology when UN units are involved, however the reality is the same. Some countries literally rent their militaries out for peace operations, others have attemp ted to extort the UN for hund reds of millions of dollars when offering troo ps for dangerous missions. The big difference, of course is that private companies can be fired”.

PMCs are charged with abandoning clients if their interests tell them to. However, “there are a large number of documented cases of UN or regional peacekeepers, presumably bound by international law abandoning civilians dependent on their protection. Srebrenica and Rwanda come to mind.”

PMCs are charged with hiring ruthless people. However, “national militaries carrying out UN and regional peacekeeping often have reprehensible human rights records in their home countries.”

Relying on P MCs creates a problem of accountability for misbehaviour. However, “as pathetic as firing the DynCorp employees was, that punishment was positively ruthless compared to what UN employees face for similar or worse misbehaviour in such places as West Africa, Cambodia, Mozambique and the Balkans.... Other than a few cases involving Western militaries (the Canadian paratroopers in Somalia come to mind) I am unaware of any documented cases of UN soldiers being held responsible for their actions during peace operations ... [it is possible] to put the onus on the private firms to screen and monitor their employees and threatening the firms critical profit maxmimization. State militaries, though, have few incentives at all to ensure proper behaviour.”

Relying on PMCs undermines the local social contract by putting the financial might in the right: However, “This issue is not uniquely a private/public problem, it is common to all international interventions.”

Relying on PMCs aggravates the under-representation of the developing countries in matters of international security: However, “developing countries have been far more enthusiastic about the use of PMCs to create effective peace keeping than the developed world. This is probably because people in the developing world suffer far more from delay [caused by bureaucratic procedures and misplaced political scruple] than does the West”

Source: Doug Brooks responding to [Singer,Singer, P.W. 2003 (2003) #2950] ‘Peacekeepers on the Inc’:IPOA Policy PMC Review discussion (June). list 21.6.2003 (www.policyreview.org/jun03/singer.html). Box 6.1 Returning arguments: The critique of the public in defense of the private

131 key arguments in it – likely to d be found in any discussion surrounding the legitimacy of private actors and the existence of a market for force. This figure of argumentation is a logical outcome of the critique of the private sector and of commercialisation. Moreover, many of the points raised as a consequence of this “returning-the-argument-strategy” are no doubt valu- able and justified. They confirm that military establishments and defence ministries have no more reason than do other institutions to indulge in compla- cency. They confirm the continuing need to take the military institution seriously and to think about the implications of changes in the international security context and in the nature of the security sector for military establishment (Kaldor, Albrecht et al. 1998; Cawthra and Luckham 2003). They re- mind us that institutions are rarely flawless and mostly in need to evolve to deal with internal and external challenges. The issue here though is not whether or not the points raised in “returning-the-argument” are right or wrong in any specific case or absolute sense. Rather, it is to underline the impact that this figure of argumentation has on the relative authority of public and private military institutions. The returning-the-argument-strategy always shows the public institutions as making even worse mistakes on all the fronts discussed. They are again and again presented to the public as less competent, more resource wasting, less flexible, less respectful of the war conventions, less reliable, and in need of private back- up to function. This critique is not only aimed at military establishments and public action in weak or failed states. It is often understood in the critique that there is a differentiation to be made between militaries and states in different contexts. This differentiation is often implicit rather than explicit though, which leaves a vagueness regarding to what extent any specific critique applies to the actions of militaries and public institutions in Western democracies or not, as in the reference to reprehensible human rights records and the problem of post intervention stability in the box. Morever, part of the critique is directly and explicitly aimed also at public action in or by Western democracies. Blunders are held forth as are the cases of Srbrenica, Rwanda and the Canadian soldiers in Somalia in box 6.1. Moreover, bureaucratic red-tape as hindrance to efficient military operations and a source of costs is a returning theme as is the immorality which comes from “standing by and waiting” in severe humanitarian emergencies (two arguments combined in the returning-the-argument on the under-representation of developing countries in box 6.1). Finally, and in addition to criticising the public actions, the advocates of the private firms tend to minimize and downplay public success. This is done

132 by omission of direct successes linked to public acts as part of the strategy for constructing a positive reputation for private firms. By way of illustration, Maritime Trident (a firm run by Tim Spicer) was hired by the Sri Lankan government to do a security review of its airport and seaports. This deal was part of the conditions which Lloyds posed for lifting the “war risk surcharge” it had imposed on vessels following Tamil Tiger attacks. Following the review and the implementation of its recommendations, Sri Lanka became as secure as any place in Asia. A development that Spicer took good care to advertise in the press. However, in this context he conveniently forgot to mention the cease fire negotiated by a Norwegian led peace initiative which entered into force at the same time (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002b: 12). It is also the consequence of the more subtle omissions which come from narrowing security discussions. It is only logical for private military firms to have a rather narrowly focused approach to security. The key to establishing credibility has been the emphasis on the strategic capacity to solve military conflicts. Concerns with their impact on longer term social contracts, with how their presence influences the local context and the root causes of the problem are rejected as lofty considerations by those who are not directly concerned by ongoing carnage: “No problem precludes the use of private companies for peace operations, nor, considering the horrific nature of the problem and cost in lives, are there many critical enough to delay the implementation of private peacekeeping” (Brooks 2003). No ambiguity is allowed. The message is that conflicts are horrendous and therefore we must allow private firms to intervene. Thinking about root causes and context can be pushed off until later. It is justified to narrow security discussions. This “let’s move to action” attitude has dovetailed nicely with a more general narrowing of discussions surrounding how to react in conflict and crisis and hence been far more important than it would otherwise have been. In- deed, in the literature on development there is considerable critique of the present move by donor institutions and Western governments to focus on “insecurity” rather than “inequality”. Resolving development (and hence inequality) problems is to a growing extent thought to depend on first achiev- ing “security”, rather than (as was the case in the 1970s) vice versa (Duffield 2001). At the same time, “in the post-Cold War era open military governance has been de-legitimised. Democracy is the sole internationally acceptable form of government, and elections are the main criterion for its presence” (Luck- ham 2003: 10). The result is that emphasis is placed on military questions, including on the settling of military conflicts, reform and governing military es-

133 tablishment. Security questions are as it were increasingly central but also thought of (and dealt with) in isolation from their social context. The result is policies focusing only on the immediate security difficulties. The disastrous practical consequences of this narrowing belies the simplistic notion that misguided (but rapid) action is better than no action. There are too many sadly convincing accounts of the role played by misguided outside intervention in fuelling contemporary humanitarian disasters (e.g. de Waal 1997; Duffield 1994; Uvin 1998; Woodward 2003). But this is not the issue here. For the authority of states and of private companies respectively the narrowing is very important. For the companies it is an obvious trump that the discussion is located on a turf where they can claim expertise and point to successes to underpin their authority. Inversely, for states it is a far more mixed blessing. The narrowing in focus means that public policies feeding into the security sector and potential success there simply are left out of the picture in the discussions. When the social context of security is no longer taken into account, it no longer matters if and how public actors have (possibly even succeeded) with various preventive strategies before conflict breaks out. More long term developmental, social, economic, and environmental programmes simply fall out of the picture. Even if many of these policies have not been particularly successful and some have been outright disasters (literally), leaving them out is a drawback for public authority. Partly because it obscures discussion about how to improve the policies and, hence, avoid further failures and disasters that might erode their reputation. But more centrally to the discussion here, this is an area where private military firms have (and claim) little expertise, but where public actors and (often semi-public) aid organisations are doing most of the work. Leaving it out amounts to omitting a central part of security related public policy and, hence, a central part of the arguments that might be used to bolster public authority. The critique of Western states and the downplaying of their successes are not swallowed uncritically neither by policy-makers nor by the public anywhere. However, it would be unwise to neglect the effect these arguments are having on the standing and authority of public action and forces in security matters internationally. The recurring criticism is continuously sowing doubts about public actions and institutions. Even if the content of a specific criticism is not accepted, it undermines confidence in public institutions. It makes it difficult to take for granted that public forces and institutions do the right thing in the best way. It makes it seem natural to question these actions. It makes the conventional dictum that “public armed forces have no competitors”, that they enjoy an uncontested monopoly position decreasingly valid.

134 There are competitors. The private sector continually tells anyone who wants to listen (and many others too) that they can do a substantial part of the tasks of public forces better. They are also saying that for many tasks the public forces are dependent on them. They are sending the message that there may be good reasons not to follow judgements by public institutions and not to trust their armed forces. The public sector no longer has the only credible voice in matters of security. Private firms also have a voice and are often invited to use it. The consequence is an erosion of the trust in the public sector which is vital for its authority. It can justifiably be scrutinized and criticised. For many this is good news. State abuse of force has been extensive and horrendous (Koonings and Kruijt 2002). As signalled in the introduction, the aim in this report is not to deplore displacements and losses in state authority. What matters for the present argumentation is that these are taking place.

Conclusion

Private military firms and the market for force are increasingly accepted as legitimate institutions. As Spicer told reporters, he does not “think that anyone would object if a private military company, American, British, or whatever – was to become involved at the behest of the international community with the Iraqi resistance” (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 2002b: 13). Even if this is something Spicer says precisely because he thinks someone might object, the statement also speaks to a contest – which we are only at the beginning of – regarding who is to be considered a legitimate wielder of force internationally. This chapter has shown that this contest is in fact a contest not only about the control over the means of force, but also a control over the authority to decide upon their use. On the basis of the present developments, and more specifically with regard to Western states, it can rather safely be concluded that the development of a market for force diffuses authority of state and gives private firms direct control, by their direct impact on security understandings of governments and international institutions and by the diffuse impact it has on the faith placed in public and private actors. The more general and very fundamental re-negotiation of political space, of the inside/outside and the public/private divisions has clearly left neither security nor the military untouched. Where this process is leading and what exactly the outcome will be is still open. It is clear that private firms have gained some authority, it is not clear

135 whether they will gain even more or whether the process will be reversed. One of the key reasons for claiming national authority over the use of force internationally was that the “doctrine of plausible denial” had a number of inconveniences for states. While placing the responsibility on private firms (plausi- bly denying state involvement) was a useful tool for policy-makers, the plau- sibility of the denial could be (and was) contested by other states which led to conflicts. Moreover, private firms developed their own interests, sometimes running straight against state interests. The consequence was a haze around who actually had authority to act in international politics. With the emergence of private authority in matters of international security, this haze is returning. This haze itself is a source of further erosion of state authority: it makes uncertain which actions are public and which are private. It makes it necessary to consider and include private actors as well as public ones in considerations of international security matters. It is a permanent source of doubt about the authority of states. In the 19th century, the inconveniences of living with a doubted and contested state authority led to a reaffirmation of state authority. It is not clear that anything similar is happening at present. The trail so far leads in the opposite direction.

136 Conclusion

Authority can be and is examined from different points of view and with different aims in mind. Some studies are primarily explanatory-sociological, exploring the conditions and causes of the emergence of authority, its development and dis- integration, its causal relations with various political, cultural and economic fac- tors, and the like. [...Others are] predominantly normative and moral...” (Raz 1990b: 1).

This study has been of the explanatory-sociological kind. It has argued that the increase in privatisation and outsourcing in the military, the creation of a global market for force where private military companies are competing for contracts and market share have effects on state authority over the use of force. It has focused on the reshaping of the military field and the effects of this reshaping on authority relations, and in particular on state authority. It started by describing the current privatisation and outsourcing trend and the resulting private military industry. It showed that these development were largely promoted by a narrowing understanding of what kind of monopoly control state institutions need to have in order to retain their authority over the use of force. It is no longer thought necessary for states to have strict inside control over the military institution. A nationalized military industry and strictly state controlled trade in arms are seen as decreasingly central. Instead, the virtues of private “solutions” whereby private actors that can efficiently provide (military) services at low costs are hailed as increasing the possibilities of states to make better use of their defence budgets and become more secure. The result is the rapid growth of the private military industry described in chapter 3. This industry operates in a global market for force where military services are bought and sold. This market is highly fragmented, as firms compete by offering differentiated services (military logistics, consultancy/training, and direct operational support), to different kinds of clients (public/private) wanting various kinds of contracts (hidden/open). But the links

137 between the market segments are stronger than usually acknowledged, as both firms and individuals move between different market segments. The bulk of the preceding analysis has been concerned with the effects of the development of a global market for force on state authority. It is usually assumed that state authority (in the West) is unaffected by a privatisation and outsourcing trend. The most common view is that it is a matter of delegation (of control over the use of force) and not of privatisation (of authority). On this account, the growing private sector merely signals the emergence of new means and methods in governing the use of force less expensively and more effectively. However, a closer look at the effect of the restructuring of the military on specific authority relations gives a rather different picture. Chapters 4 through 6 showed that the three central authority relations involved in the use of force are altered by privatisation. In the military, in national politics, and in international relations private firms have increasing direct control, are increasingly able to set security agendas and alter the understanding of interests and weigh on the debates as credible and central authorities. Private firms are gaining a direct say over the use of force, simply because privatisation and outsourcing have made them far more central to its practical use. They are increasingly present on the battle field or in the undertaking of functions which are critical for military operations. They are increasingly in control of the equipment and services necessary for military operations. They sell these on the market to the customers of their choice. They do an increasingly significant part of intelligence gathering and analysis. They back up military operations. They analyse and suggest responses to security threats. And private firms are increasingly responsible for the direct interaction with allies. Private firms are further gaining an indirect say over the use of force by their capacity to shape understandings of security, threats and national interests. They train university graduates and future soldiers. They write manuals. They advise on the restructuring of the armed forces. They advise, inform, lobby and corrupt policy-makers. They structure and provide background information and interpret its meaning. They lobby and train international allies. And they are participating in the reshaping of the international norms governing who can claim legitimacy as a legitimate wielder of force internationally and who cannot. Finally, the involvement of private actors in military matters enjoys a diffuse acceptance. A reconsideration of the weight of different voices in the discussion about security and legitimate uses of force has been taking place. It shocks no one that the private actors, who have high level of “local”, “practical” or “technical” knowledge, who do things efficiently and obtain good

138 strategic results, have an opinion on matters pertaining to the legitimate use of force. On matters as diverse as the future structure of the armed forces, the military options in a given conflict, the adequate reaction to the threat, it has become accepted that private firms have a legitimate voice and that they are encouraged to use it. This gnaws away at public authority. At the very least it means that state authority and state institutions are now competing with private ones. But it often implies implicit or explicit critique of public choices, actions or institution. To be accepted and taken for granted is what constitutes authority. Contestation and critique sap its foundations. The outcome is that private actors are accepted as authorities in matters of security, albeit to varying degrees and in varying functions. Policy-makers find it increasingly difficult to argue the superiority of nationalised / public soldiers and armed forces. A telling illustration is the difficulties Theresa Whelan (US deputy assistant secretary of defence for African Affairs) ran in- to when she was trying to find something positive to say about the use of public armed forces as opposed to private ones in the African context. After underlining the economic efficiency, greater local sensibility and competence, the rapidity and the strategic effectiveness of private contractors as well as some of the managerial difficulties pertaining to the increased use of contracting and outsourcing, she was looking for something good to say also about the use of public forces. She comes up with two things: one firm thing is the fact that public forces have military status and are hence covered by international and national conventions. The second thing is more shaky: it is the advantage of using public forces in relations with allies. But the argument does not really hold. It is important “fly the American flag” but as she immediately points out, also contractors can fly the flag. Then she stresses the importance of “brotherhood thing” between soldiers. But again:

Now, arguably, almost all of the contractors that we are going to use or would use for field training are retired military and all have that experience and knowledge base and they can refer to their own experience when they were in uniform. So there is that shared experience. But there is a little bit of a difference between someone who is currently in uniform and a contractor1.

In clear, Theresa Whelan finds it hard to say anything specific where public forces compare positively with contractors. Reference to an unspecified “little bit of difference” is too thin a veil to hide this. This incapacity to find

1 Theresa Whelan “Remarks to IPOA Dinner”, PMC List 12.2.2004.

139 anything genuinely positive to say about public armed forces, public institutions and public actions characterizes not only Whelan’s speech, but more generally reflects the evolving consideration attached to different actors in military matters. This is not to say that state authority has vanished and is replaced by private authorities. Nor is this an attempt to declare (for the nth time) the advent of the new middle ages. It is not particularly compelling to think of present developments as of a “new middle ages”. There is no pope and no emperor (pace US efforts). Moreover, modern democratic welfare states are more intrusive and controlling than mediaeval political authorities. This is as true when it comes to governing the use of force as when it comes to other aspects of life. States continue to claim ultimate authority over the use of force and are likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. States will continue to declare war and negotiate peace, organise the military, be the focal point of political life (including decisions about the use of force) and be key actors in the international society of states. States and not firms will for the foreseeable future make the decisions about which conflicts merit intervention and which do not. States are not about to vanish nor are many of their key powers. Sovereignty as a social institution seems alive and well (Werner and de Wilde 2001). The point is that the form and nature of state authority is changing. A pre- liminary condition for capturing this is to abandon the simplistic, but influential, notion that posits that there are only two options: total state control or no state control, either hierarchy dominated by the state or anarchy with only private authorities. The shifts in authority just discussed are shifts in the rules governing of the use of force, and these rules may express an almost un- limited mixture of private and public authority (Onuf and Clinck 1989). On- ly accepting this is it possible to begin exploring the nature of authority and rule as this analysis has done. Moreover, it is important to underline that the rise of private authority described in this study is a process in the making rather than a completed one. It is uneven and patchy as some states have gone much further than others down a privatisation path which goes unequally into different spheres of the military sector. Therefore, the analysis and discussion above draw heavily on the examples from those countries which have gone the furthest down the path and their conclusions have often been tentative. The aim has been to suggest developments which are as much underway as they are finished, and developments which are certainly neither irreversible nor inevitable. Ultimately the salient question is whether the changes in authority drawn up matter; whether we should welcome, embrace and encourage them, or

140 whether we would be well advised to resist them and imagine alternative fu- tures for ourselves. At the narrowest, one can address this question in a “managerial” way. The preceding study has given plenty of indications of specific aspects of current changes which are decidedly not to be welcomed and which could use- fully be addressed by improving governance (in the corporate sense) of the military sector: examples belonging to this category drawn from the discussion above include: - the lack of institutional capacities for managing outsourcing and privatisation in the military, - the lack of clarity surrounding the status of contractors in military operations and the limits of their obligations, - the lack of clarity about the responsibility and obligations of military commanders, - the lack of well defined, transparent, contract awarding procedures, - the insufficient safeguards against corruption in the form e.g. of controls on party finances, - the insufficient development of mechanisms extending legislative controls over military related activities also to private contractors, - the difficulty of de-linking (in the case of rogue firms) or linking (e.g. in the case of publically sponsored privatised training) public policy and private initiatives, - the lack of clear rules of engagement and liability for firms and their employees. - the absence of effective international norms regulating and limiting the activities of contractors.

On this account, privatisation and outsourcing (in the military sector as in any other sphere) matter because they have created new difficulties of “en- forcement, accountability, transparency, and credibility” (Haufler 2001: 2) which have to be “managed” and dealt with. However, a focus on management evades the bigger aspects of the why-all-this-matters question that cannot be resolved by simple managerial techniques. It first of all avoids the basic political question qui bono? Who benefits and who loses from the current privatisation and outsourcing trend? If benefit is taken in a narrow sense to indicate economic gain, the evidence is inconclusive, as argued several times above. While enthusiasts supporting the development of privatisation and outsourcing mount impressive estimates and figures showing enormous savings (or possibilities to save), critics have been

141 equally effective in presenting figures on real existing privatisation showing that the main economic beneficiaries are the private firms (and possibly politicians and administrators). However, if we allow for the fact that a benefit might not merely be economic but also cultural, political and symbolic there are more straightforward conclusions to be had: the private is befitting while the public is losing out. This study has been largely preoccupied with showing how and why privatisation and outsourcing are eroding the political, cultural and symbolic foundations for state authority to rule the use of force. Private actors have gained a political say over the use of force. Partly because they are in direct control over many of the aspects of this use. Partly because they are shaping the political processes surrounding it as solicited consultants, as lobbyists, as parties to a “clientelist exchange” or more generical- ly as opinion makers. This has gone in pair with a growing cultural acceptance of private actors as legitimate security actors. The idea of “mercenaries” might still generate overwhelmingly negative reactions. With “private military companies” reactions are more mixed. And, if discussions shift to “private contractors”, the reactions are generally positive. Military matters are no longer the preserve of public institutions. They are no longer placed beyond the reach and judgement of normal politics. They have been “normalised” and are hence subjected to the same concerns with efficiency, costs, and corruption that are familiar from other spheres of social and political life. The culture of the market has moved into military affairs. Finally, symbolically public actors have lost out in the process. Within the military, the symbolic status of career positions is increasingly linked to the value of these in the market. Outside the military, the normalisation of the institutions undermines the symbolic status of the military. Soldiers no longer sacrifice themselves for the nation. They are on contracts (often lucrative ones) and they are engaged in an individual career. They are doing a job just like most other people. This of course also means that their profession does not a priori warrant special privileges and that they can be replaced by others. But arguing that there is a qui bono inherent in the development of privatisation and outsourcing, that public institutions are losing out politically, culturally and symbolically to private ones, merely leads onto the next enormous question: should we welcome this or should we not? Is it good or bad that private authorities are taking over part of the authority to regulate the use of force? For many, the mere mention of private authorities regulating the use of force evokes the prospect of a Hobbesian war of all against all, of a “com-

142 ing anarchy” which is more threatening than any imaginable state terror. For others, the rise of private authorities and the relativisation of the public ones deserves more positive consideration. Not only neo-Hayekian liberals argue that state planning and nationalisation is inherently oppressive and defective. Sociologists, historians, and philosophers revisiting the role of the state in regulating the use of force are far from convinced of the virtue of the centralised states as a solution to the problem of violence (Agamben 1995; Bauman 1989; Michaud 1978; Sofsky 1996). This last, and genuinely important, fundamentally political question has fallen outside the scope of this report. It is located within Raz’s “normative- moral” approaches to authority. However, that the conclusion of a “sociological-explanatory” study should end up sliding onto it should come as no sur- prise. Sociological-explanatory questions are relevant and important because they speak to normative-moral ones. Similarly, normative moral ones are interesting in so far as they shed light on social and political developments. This report has underlined the ongoing shifts in the nature and constitution of authority over the use of force, largely with the aim of pointing out that this shift warrants (not to say demands) more thorough normative-moral consideration than it has hitherto received.

143

Annexe: A History of Regulation of Private Military Companies (PMCs)1

1) National Level Regulation

Type of US UK France Russia South International Regulation Africa level (service) Recruitment X X X X X (UN, OAU) Equipment X expected X X X (EU, OAU) 2004 Supply of X X X X (UN) personnel

Advice X X

Training X X X X X (UN, partly EU, OAU)

Intelligence X provision

Logistics X support

Technical X X X (partly EU) support

Financing X? X X X (UN, OAU)

US The US Neutrality Act of 1937 prohibits enlisting or recruiting others to serve a foreign army. This also means that it is eg. illegal to transport abroad persons who have the intent of engaging abroad.

1 Compiled by Mette Lykke Knudsen.

145 The US Arms Export Control Act of 1968 was amended in the 1980s to include regulation of arms brokering and export of military services. It is implemented by the International Transfer of Arms Regulations from 1998 which sets up a license requirement for everyone wishing to export defense goods or services. Services include provision of equipment and technical data on such equipment, assistance in design, manufacture and use of defence equipment, military advice, and training (including even by correspondence courses).

In April 2001 another regulatory act was proposed, the Andean Region Contractor Accountability Act (H.R. 1591), with the intent of prohibiting funding of private contractors for military or police work in the Andean region. In early 2002 it was stalled in committee. Under Plan Columbia, Congress has limited the number of private military contractors.

Sources for this part: British Green Paper on HC 577 Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation 2001-02 (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 12th February 2002), available at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/mercenaries,0.pdf French report on Repression of Mercenary Activities (Rapport 142), at http://www.senat.fr/rap/102-142/102-142_mono.html Special Report on PMCs, May 2002, from Foreign Policy in Focus (US think tank), available at http://www.fpif.org/papers/miltrain/box4.html

UK At present there seems to be, in the United Kingdom, no effective legislation to prevent mercenary activity. The 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act, which makes it an offence for a British subject to enlist in the armed forces of a foreign state (at war with another foreign state which is at peace with the UK), has been practically impossible to enforce (eg. due to difficulties in assembling evidence from abroad, uncertainty as to the scope of the Act in relation to for instance internal conflicts). Since the 1970s it has been suggested to replace the Act, and work is currently in progress to assess the best way to implement regulation in this area (cf. the Green Paper and the Ninth Report). The current discussion is focused on the level of regulation (ie. who will actually have to implement the rules), as well as costs, benefits and consequences thereof.

146 The Export Control Act 2002 – expected to come into force during the second half of 2003 – is planned to impose controls on exports of military equipment.

Sources for this part: British Green Paper on Private Military Companies: Options for Regula- tion 2001-02 (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 12th Febru- ary 2002), HC 577, available at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/mercenaries,0.pdf House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Ninth Report, available at: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmse- lect/cmfaff/922/92202.htm Response of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Af- fairs to the Ninth Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, October 2002, available at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/cm5642.pdf

France No legal means have existed in French law that could actually be used to stop mercenary activity, prior to the newly established law on Repression of Mercenary Activity (April 2003). The motivation stated in the law proposal is that France wants to stop mercenary activities, because such activities aggra- vate violence, destabilise states and violate human rights. The law establishes penalties for mercenary activity following the definition of the Geneva Convention Protocol 1, Art. 47. (5 years of prison and a 75,000 Euro fine) and for organising mercenary activity, including recruitment, use, pay- ment, equipping and military training (7 years of prison and a 100,000 Euro fine).

Sources for this part: French Law on Repression of Mercenary Activity, April 14 2003, available at: http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDeJorf?numjo=DE- FX0200004L French Law Proposal on Repression of Mercenary Activity, April 4 2002, available at: http://www.senat.fr/leg/pj101-287.html French Report on Repression of Mercenary Activities (Rapport 142), available at: http://www.senat.fr/rap/102-142/102-142_mono.html

147 Overview of all work relating to the law, see: http://www.senat.fr/Extense/bin/nphcgi_view.cgi?file=%2Fappl2%2F users%2Fmcweb%2Fdoc%2Fdossierleg%2Fpjl01287.html&words=mercenaire&base=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.senat.fr%2Fdossierleg%2Fpjl01287.h tml#marker

Russia Since 1996, the Russian Criminal Code (Article 359) includes penalties for recruitment, training and financing of mercenaries (4-8 years of imprisonment) as well as for participating in an armed conflict as a mercenary (3-7 years of imprisonment).

South Africa Since September 1998, the South African Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits the recruitment, use or training of persons for as well as financing or engaging in mercenary activity - defined as direct participation as a combatant in armed conflict for private gain. Prior to this only members of the South African National Defence Force were prohibited from engaging in mercenary activities. Furthermore, the Act sets up a licensing system to regulate foreign military assistance in cases of armed conflict (ie. in cases of assistance to eg. internal conflicts no license is needed). Foreign military assistance is broadly understood and covers eg. logistics, financial support, supply of manpower, intelligence, operational assistance, advice, recruitment, medical and paramed- ical services, equipment, ie. basically all military related services except humanitarian activities to relieve troubled civilians.

Sources for this part: British Green Paper on HC 577 Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation 2001-02 (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 12th February 2002), available at:

148 http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/mercenaries,0.pdf French report on Repression of Mercenary Activities (Rapport 142), at http://www.senat.fr/rap/102-142/102-142_mono.html

2) International level Regulation

The OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa 1972 The Organization of African Unity was the first, in 1972, to draw up an international convention regarding mercenaries. The Convention defines a mercenary as: “anyone who, not a national of the state against which his actions are directed, is employed, enrols, or links himself willingly to a person, group or organisation whose aim is: a) to overthrow by force of arms or by any other means the government of that Member State of the Organization of African Unity; b) to undermine the independence, territorial integrity or normal working of the institutions of the said State; c) to block by any means the activities of any liberation movement recognised by the Organization of African Unity.” Furthermore, the convention defines these actions as punishable offens- es, and anyone who takes part in the recruitment, training or financing of such activities, or who gives protection to a mercenary, commits a crime. OAU member states undertake to take all necessary measures to eradicate such activities, eg. through national legislation forbid recruitment, training, equipment, financing or passage of mercenaries as well as the activity of organizations or individuals employing mercenaries.

Geneva Conventions Protocol 1 The protocol (of June 8 1977) additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12 1949 (art. 47) defines a mercenary: “2. A mercenary is any person who: (a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; (b) Does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities; (c) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;

149 (d) Is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; (e) Is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and (f) Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.” It also states that a mercenary does not have the status of “combatant” or “prisoner of war”.

The (OAU) Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa 1977 Following the workings on the Geneva Convention Protocol, the OAU in 1977 adopted a second convention regarding mercenaries. The convention takes as it point of departure the Geneva Convention definition. According to the convention, states must make mercenary activity punishable in national legislation, so that an individual, a group, an association, a representative of a state or a state can be punished for – with the aim of opposing by armed violence a process of self-determination stability or the territorial integrity of another state – sheltering, organizing, financing, assisting, equipping, training, promoting, supporting or employing mercenaries or allowing such activities within the area under the subjects control. Enlisting in mercenary bands is also punishable, and commanding or giving orders to mercenaries are seen as aggravating circumstances. States are to take the same measures as in the 1972 convention.

The (UN) International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Fi- nancing and Training of Mercenaries - December 1989 The UN convention prohibits mercenary activity on the basis of the definitions of the Geneva and OAU conventions. States are to take preventive measures against recruitment, financing, training and use of mercenaries, eg. not engaging in these activitites themselves as well as prohibiting and con- curring penalties on these actions in their national legislation. The conventions aim is broad by including offences perpetrated by the mercenaries themselves or by any other person, as well as attempts at and complicity to the offences. The framing of the convention began in 1980, it was adopted in Decem- ber 1989, and entered into force only in October 2001. Most Western countries (ie. main exceptions being Italy and Belgium) have not signed the convention – apparently due to lack of faith in its effectivity based on the present definitions (UK), believe that certain provisions (particularly definition and

150 jurisdiction) give rise to difficulties (France) or inapplicability with national law (Sweden). Another reason may be the fact that the convention to a large degree prohibits rather than regulates mercenary activity.

EU regulation There seems to be no direct regulation of mercenary activities within the European Union framework. However, such regulation within national contexts also seems not to be contradictory to other Union regulation (cf. Treaty establishing the European Community, Art. 296).

Building on the common criteria for arms exports from 1991-1992, the European Union in June 1998 established a Code of Conduct for Arms Ex- ports. It is not legally binding, but based on political commitment. It does, however, specify criteria for the management of and restraint in arms transfers, e.g. by stating situations in which a member state should not issue an export license, as well set up a mechanism for information exchange (a denial notification and consultation mechanism) regarding arms exports between member states. An annual status report on its implementation is published by the Council (at present four such reports have been published). Additionally, in June 2000 the Council adopted a common list of military equipment covered by the Code of Conduct (to be regularly updated). The European Union seeks close cooperation with the US in this area. In 2000 a Council regulation also set up along the same lines a Commu- nity regime for the control of exports of dual use items and technology. Additionally, in June 2000 the Council initiated a joint action concerning the control of technical assistance related to certain military end-uses (chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, plus missiles, and more generally where the recipient is subject to an arms embargo). Technical assistance is broadly conceived of to mean support related to repairs and maintenance as well as services in the form of instruction and training.

Sources for the International Part:

The Convention for the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa 1972, available in: Appendix V in: Musah, Abdel-Fatau & Fayemi, J. ‘Kayode (eds); Merce- naries. An African Security Dilemma. London: Pluto Press, or at: http://www1.unm.edu/humanrts/instree/mercenaryconvention.html or at:

151 http://textus.diplomacy.edu/Thina/txGetXDoc.asp?IDconv=2829#AP- PENDIX%20III Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Pro- tocol 1), available at: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm The Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa, available at: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/5e4 1dd4e2010663fc125641e0052c016?OpenDocument The International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, available at: or at: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/647 811bc19797fdfc125641f002d2c7e?OpenDocument Treaty establishing the European Community, available at: http://europa.eu.int/eurlex/en/treaties/dat/EC_consol.pdf EU Council security related export controls, eg. EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, available at: http://ue.eu.int/pesc/ExportCTRL/en/Index.htm Declaration by the European Union and the United States on the responsibilities of States and on transparency regarding arms exports, EU-US Summit, Washington, 18 December 2000, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/us/summit12_00/arms_e xports.htm European Commission (2001), Small arms and light weapons. The response of the European Union, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cfsp/doc/small_arms_en.pdf British Green Paper on Private Military Companies: Options for Regula- tion 2001-02 (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 12th Febru- ary 2002), HC 577, available at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/mercenaries,0.pdf House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Ninth Report, available at: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmse- lect/cmfaff/922/92202.htm French report on Repression of Mercenary Activities (Rapport 142), at http://www.senat.fr/rap/102-142_mono.html

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166 Finito di stampare nel mese di aprile 2006 da Rubbettino Industrie Grafiche ed Editoriali per conto di Rubbettino Editore Srl 88049 Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro) Collana Ce.Mi.S.S. – Serie Blu

11 Il reclutamento in Italia (1989) (Autori Vari)(*) 12 Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia dal 1506 al 1870, Vol. I (1989) V. Ilari (*) 13 Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia dal 1871 al 1918, Vol. II (1990) V. Ilari (*) 14 Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia dal 1919 al 1943, Vol. III (1990) V. Ilari (*) 15 Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia dal 1943 al 1945, Vol. IV (1991) V. Ilari (*) 15/bis Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia – La difesa della Patria (1945-1991) Vol. V – “Pianificazione operativa e sistema di reclutamento” (1992) V. Ilari (*) 15/ter Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia – La difesa della Patria (1945-1991) Vol. V - “Servizio militare e servizio civile – Legislazione statistiche” (1992) V. Ilari (*) 16 Soppressione della leva e costituzione di Forze Armate volontarie (1990) P. Bellucci, A. Gori (*) 16/a Servizio di leva e volontariato: riflessioni sociologiche (1990) M. Marotta, L. Labonia (*) 17 L’importanza Militare dello spazio (1990) C. Buongiorno, S. Abbà, G. Maoli, A. Mei, M. Nones, S. Orlandi, F. Pacione, F. Stefani (*) 18 Le idee di “difesa alternativa” ed il ruolo dell’Italia (1990) F. Calogero, M. De Andreis, G. Devoto, P. Farinella (*) 19 La “policy science” nel controllo degli armamenti (1990) P. Isernia, P. Belluc- ci, L. Bozzo, M. Carnovale, M. Coccia, P. Crescenzi, C. Pelanda (*) 10 Il futuro della dissuasione nucleare in Europa (1990) S. Silvestri (*) 11 I movimenti pacifisti ed anti-nucleari in Italia 1980-88 (1990) F. Battistelli, P. Isernia, P. Crescenzi, A. Graziani, A. Montebovi, G. Ombuen, S. Scaparra, C. Presciuttini (*) 12 L’organizzazione della ricerca e sviluppo nell’ambito Difesa, Vol. I (1990) P. Bi- sogno, C. Pelanda, M. Nones, S. Rossi, V. Oderda (*) 12/bis L’organizzazione della ricerca e sviluppo nell’ambito Difesa, Vol. II (1990) P. Bisogno, C. Pelanda, M. Nones, S. Rossi, V. Oderda (*) 13 Sistema di programmazione generale finanziaria ed ottimizzazione delle risorse in ambito Difesa (1990) G. Mayer, C. Bellinzona, N. Gallippi, P. Mearini, P. Menna (*) 14 L’industria italiana degli armamenti (1990) F. Gobbo, P. Bianchi, N. Bellini, G. Utili (*) 15 La strategia sovietica nella regione meridionale (1990) L. Caligaris, K.S. Brower, G. Cornacchia, C.N. Donnelly, J. Sherr, A. Tani, P. Pozzi (*) 16 Profili di carriera e remunerazioni del personale militare e civile dell’Ammini- strazione dello Stato delle qualifiche direttive e dirigenziali (1990) D. Tria, T. Longhi, A. Cerilli, A. Gagnoni, P. Menna (*) 17 La riconversione dell’industria per la Difesa (1990) S. Rossi, S. Rolfo, N. Bel- lini (*) 18 Il trasferimento di tecnologie strategicamente critiche (1990) S. Rossi, F. Bru- ni Roccia, A. Politi, S. Gallucci (*)

168 19 Nuove concezioni del modello difensivo italiano (1990) S. Silvestri, V. Ilari, D. Gallino, A. Politi, M. Cremasco (*) 20 Warfare simulation nel teatro mediterraneo (1990) M. Coccia (*) 21 La formazione degli Ufficiali dei Corpi Tecnici (1990) A. Paoletti, A. D’Ami- co, A. Tucciarone (*) 22 Islam: problemi e prospettive e le politiche dell’Occidente (1990) R. Aliboni, F. Bacchetti, L. Guazzone, V. Fiorani Piacentini, B.M. Scarcia Amoretti, P.G. Donini, F. Bacchetti (*) 23 Effetti economici della spesa della Difesa in Italia (1990) A. Pedone, M. Gras- sini (*) 24 Atto unico europeo e industria italiana per la Difesa (1990) F. Onida, M. No- nes, G. Graziola, G.L. Grimaldi, W. Hager, A. Forti, G. Viesti (*) 25 Disarmo, sviluppo e debito (1990) C. Pelanda (*) 26 Yugoslavia: Realtà e prospettive (1990) C. Pelanda, G. Meyer, R. Lizzi, A. Truz- zi, D. Ungaro, T. Moro (*) 27 Integrazione militare europea (1990) S. Silvestri (*) 28 La Rappresentanza Militare in Italia (1990) G. Caforio, M. Nuciari (*) 29 Studi strategici e militari nelle università italiane (1990) P. Ungari, M. Nones, R. Luraghi, V. Ilari (*) 30 Il pensiero militare nel mondo musulmano – Credenti e non credenti: il pensiero militare e la dottrina di Jaid, Vol. I (1991) V. Fiorani Piacentini (*) 31 Costituzione della difesa e stati di crisi per la difesa nazionale (1991) G. de Ver- gottini (*) 32 Sviluppo, armamenti, conflittualità (1991) L. Bonante, F. Armao, M. Cesa, W. Coralluzzo (*) 33 Il pensiero militare nel mondo musulmano – Teoria e prassi la dottrina classi- ca della Jihad e una fra le sue molteplici esperienze geocrafico-culturali: l’Asia Centrale, Vol. II (1991) G. Ligios, R. Radaelli (*) 34 La “condizione militare” in Italia – I militari di leva, Vol. I (1991) M. Marotta, M.L. Maniscalco, G. Marotta, S. Labonia, V. Di Nicola, G. Grossi (*) 35 Valutazione comparata dei piani di riordinamento delle FF.AA. dei Paesi del- l’Alleanza Atlantica (1991) D. Gallino (*) 36 La formazione del Dirigente Militare (1991) F. Fontana, F. Stefani, G. Cacca- mo (*) 37 L’obiezione di coscienza al servizio militare in Italia (1991) P. Bellucci, C.M. Redaelli (*) 38 La “Condizione Militare” in Italia - Fenomenologia e problemi di devianza (1991), Vol. III G. M. Marotta (*) 39 La Dirigenza Militare (1992) S. Cassese, C. D’Orta (*) 40 Diritto Internazionale per Ufficiali della Marina Militare (1993) N. Ronzitti, M. Gestri (*) 41 I volontari a ferma prolungata: un ritratto sociologico. Tomo I (I volontari a ferma prolungata ed i Sottufficiali) (1993) F. Battistelli (*)

169 41/bis Sottufficiali delle Forze Armate. Idee propositive per migliorarne il reclutamento, lo statuto e la carriera. Tomo II (I volontari a ferma prolungata e i Sot- tufficiali) (1993) M. Marotta (*) 42 Strategia della ricerca internazionalistica (1993) L. Bonanate (*) 43 Rapporto di ricerca sui movimenti migratori e sicurezza nazionale (1993) G. Sacco (*) 44 Rapporto di ricerca su nuove strutture di sicurezza in Europa (1993) S. Silve- stri (*) 45 I sistemi di comando e controllo ed il loro influsso sulla sicurezza italiana (1993) P. Policastro (*) 46 Le minacce da fuori area contro il fianco Sud della Nato (1993) R. Aliboni (*) 47 Approvvigionamento delle materie prime, crisi e conflitti nel Mediterraneo (1993) G. Mureddu (*) 48 Lo sviluppo dell’aeromobilità (1993) A. Politi (*) 49 L’impatto economico delle spese militari in Emilia Romagna (1993) A. Bolo- gnini, M. Spinedi, NOMISMA S.p.A. (*) 50 I paesi della sponda Sud del Mediterraneo e la politica europea (1994) R. Ali- boni, B. Scarcia Amoretti, G. Pennisi, G. Lancioni (*) 51 I problemi della sicurezza nell’Est Europeo e nell’ex-Unione Sovietica (1994) C. Pelanda, E. Letta, D. Gallino, A. Corti (*) 52 Il pensiero militare nel mondo musulmano - Ragion militare e ragion di Stato, Vol. III (1994) V. Fiorani Piacentini (*) 53 Presupposti concettuali e dottrinali per la configurazione di una futura forza d’intervento (1994) G. Caccamo (*) 54 Lo status delle navi da guerra italiane in tempo di pace ed in situazioni di crisi (1994) A. de Guttry (*) 55 La “Condizione Militare” in Italia, “Ufficiali e Sottufficiali”, Vol. II (1994) M. Marotta (*) 56 Crisi del bipolarismo: vuoti di potere e possibili conseguenze (1994) S. Roma- no, J.L. Harper, E. Mezzetti, C.M. Santoro, V. Dan Segre (*) 57 Il problema della quantificazione di dati attendibili sull’interscambio militare- industriale fra i vari Paesi (1994) S. Sandri, A. Politi (*) 58 Ottimizzazione della selezione del personale - Metodi e modelli di selezione e organizzazione nelle Forze Armate italiane (1994) A. De Carlo (*) 59 Gestione della crisi: metodologie e strumenti (1994) P. Isernia (*) 60 Politica militare e sistema politico: i partiti ed il nuovo Modello di Difesa (1994) P. Bellocci (*) 61 Sicurezza ed insicurezza nell’Europa post-comunista (1994) A. Rossi, P. Visa- ni (*) 62 Indagine sulla propensione delle donne italiane a svolgere il servizio militare (1994) R. Savarese (*) 63 L’impatto della presenza militare in Emilia Romagna: case study su Bologna (1994) NOMISMA S.p.A. (*)

170 64 L’impatto della presenza militare in Emilia Romagna “il caso Budrio”, il caso del “triangolo aeronautico”: Forlì, Cervia, Rimini, (1994) NOMISMA S.p.A. (*) 65 Sistema di sicurezza dei Paesi del Golfo. Riflessi per l’Occidente (1995) S. Sil- vestri, R. Aliboni, L. Guazzone (*) 66 Sistema di controllo dell’esportazione degli armamenti e della tecnologia avan- zata. Ammaestramenti delle crisi del Golfo (1995) A. Politi, A. de Guttry, S. Gallucci, M. Bilbesi, M. Lastella (*) 67 Emergenza marittima e Forze Armate – Piani di emergenza e coinvolgimento della Marina Militare in caso di gravi incidenti navali con versamenti di petro- lio (1995) U. Bilardo, G. Mureddu (*) 68 Il ruolo del pilastro europeo della NATO nella definizione di un sistema di sicurezza integrato: rapporti istituzionali e industriali (1995) L. Caligaris, W. Wessels, G. Treverton, J. Chipman, Laporta, G. Dottori, D. Ruiz-Palmer (*) 69 L’organizzazione e l’architettura C3I per il vertice decisionale nazionale (1995) M. Nones, R. Romano, S. Silvestri, A. de Guttry (*) 70 La disintegrazione dell’impero sovietico. Problemi di sicurezza nazionale e col- lettiva in Asia Centrale (1995) V. Fiorani Piacentini, B. Nicolini, G. Pasini, G. Pastori, R. Redaelli (*) 71 Evoluzione del rischio da Sud in connessione con il prevedibile progresso tecnologico e misure di difesa (1995) C.M. Santoro (*) 72 Presente e futuro della professione militare in Europa. L’Ufficiale italiano (1995) G. Caforio, M. Nuciari (*) 73 Possibili effetti della legge sull’obiezione di coscienza sull’assolvimento dei compiti istituzionali delle FF.AA. (1996) U. Pescatori, G. Muzzarelli 74 Lo Status delle Forze Armate italiane impegnate in operazione “fuori area” condotte sotto l’egida di organizzazioni internazionali (1996) N. Ronzitti 75 Il potere aereo post-CFE (1996) A. Politi 76 La gestione disciplinare e normativa del personale volontario (1996) G. Ga- sperini, M. Negri (*) 77 Il soldato della complessità: tra specializzazione e flessibilità (1996) M. Negri, G.B. Colucci 78 Il futuro della CFE. Il passaggio alla seconda fase di riduzione dopo la con- clusione della prima (1996) M. Cremasco 79 La componente sicurezza/rischio negli scacchieri geopolitici Sud ed Est. Le opzioni del Modello di Difesa italiano (1996) A. Colombo 80 La geopolitica del Mediterraneo: problemi e prospettive dell’Italia negli scenari futuri (1996) C. Giglio, P. Soave 81 La conoscenza come risorsa produttiva: le Forze Armate di fronte alla società postmoderna (1996) F. Battistelli, T. Ammendola, M. Negri 82 Geoeconomia dei principali stati occidentali. Riflessi sull’Italia (1996) R. De Santis, G. Vulpes 83 Le operazioni militari all’estero gestite al di fuori del sistema delle organizza-

171 zioni internazionali o nel suo ambito: problemi giuridici o organizzativi per le Forze Armate italiane (1996) A. de Guttry 84 La difficile scommessa. L’allargamento della NATO ad Est (1997) M. Cremasco 85 L’embargo e le altre misure economiche come mezzo di gestione e soluzione delle crisi (1998) G. Pastori 86 La questione sindacale nell’evoluzione delle politiche strategiche della sicurezza in Italia - Osservazioni storico metodologiche (1998) A. Ciampani 87 Cooperazione dell’Italia con l’Austria, La Repubblica Ceka, la Slovenia, la Croazia e l’Ungheria (1998) S. Mazzaroli 88 Elementi di diritto umanitario dei conflitti armati (Diritto italiano di bandiera) (1998) A. Marcheggiano (*) 89 Italia e nucleare francese: attualità e prospettiva (1998) C. Paoletti (*) 90 Analisi delle spese per l’investimento dell’Esercito. Esame delle note aggiunti- ve: previsioni e scostamenti. Valutazioni sulle principali cause degli scostamenti (1998) M.T. Fiocca 91 Applicazioni spaziali civili di possibile interesse della Difesa (1998) M. Nones, A. Traballesi 92 Lo Stratega mediatico (1998) P. Visani 93 Le prospettive di integrazione tra Unione Europea e Unione Europea Occi- dentale (1999) E. Letta 94 Prospettive di applicazione del D.D.L. di iniziativa governativa riguardante l’i- stituzione del servizio civile nazionale e della nuova legge sull’obiezione di coscienza (1999) C. Politi 95 Aspetti politici ed economici della European Security and Defence Identity nel quadro di una integrazione degli eserciti europei (1999) A. Ferranti 96 Le zone di pesca nel Mediterraneo e la tutela degli interessi italiani, (1999) N. Ronzitti 97 Il processo di approvvigionamento degli idrocarburi in situazione di crisi internazionale (1999) N. Pedde e V. Porfiri 98 Albania – (Manuali-Paese) (1999) a cura del Centro per l’Europa Centro- Orientale e Balcanica (*) 99 Bosnia-Erzegovina – (Manuali-Paese) (1999) a cura del Centro per l’Europa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica (*) 100 Proliferazione missilistica: stato ed evoluzione della minaccia e prospettive per un sistema di difesa antimissile (1999) A. Nativi 101 Il controllo degli armamenti nella ex-Jugoslavia con particolare riferimento alla Bosnia-Erzegovina (1999) M. Cremasco 102 Peace Dividend. Aspetti teorici ed applicazioni al caso italiano (1999) G. Streppi 103 Evoluzione dei rapporti transatlantici nel settore della produzione industriale della difesa, a fronte della costituzione dell’Europa degli armamenti (2000) A. Traballesi 104 La geoeconomia delle imprese italiane: riflessi sulla gravitazione degli interessi geostrategici nazionali (2000) A. Cattaneo

172 105 Strategic sealift: sviluppo e caratteristiche nazionali di un importante strumento di proiezione e di forza nel mediterraneo allargato (2000) G. Mured- du 106 Repubblica di Jugoslavia (Manuali-Paese) (2001) a cura del Centro per l’Eu- ropa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica 107 Fyrom: La Repubblica di Macedonia (Manuali-Paese) (2001) a cura del Cen- tro per l’Europa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica 108 La corte penale internazionale, i crimini di guerra e le truppe italiane all’estero in missione di pace (2001) N. Ronzitti 109 Gli effetti delle sanzioni economiche: il caso della Serbia (2001) M. Zucconi 110 Il coordinamento interministeriale per la politica industriale della difesa: valutazione comparata tra la soluzione italiana e quella dei principali paesi europei (2002) M. Nones 111 La difesa europea in ambito alleanza: una sfida per l’industria degli armamenti (2002) A. Traballesi 112 I diritti delle donne: le presenti strutture normative nel diritto internazionale ed i loro effetti nei casi di conflitti etnici (2002) P. Brusadin 113 Il legame nazione-esercito: l’abolizione della leva basterà a rendere le forze armate meno impopolari tra i giovani? (2002) T. M. Blasi 114 La logistica degli anni 2000: ricorso a risorse esterne (outsourcing), contratti di servizi, logistica integrata, contratti chiavi in mano. Evoluzione o rivoluzione? (2003) F. Franceschini, M. Galletto, M. Borgarello 115 Cambiamenti organizzativi dell’industria statale della difesa: confronto con le altre realtà europee, con particolare riferimento agli stabilimenti di manuten- zione navale (2003) R. Stanglini 116 La bonifica umanitaria nel quadro della cooperazione civile e militare (2003) F. Termentini 117 La questione di Cipro (2003) G. Sardellone 118 The international role of the European Union (2003) R. Balfour, E. Greco (edizione in lingua inglese) 119 Storia del Servizio Militare in Italia – il terzo dopoguerra (1921-2001), Vol. VI (2003) V. Ilari, P.P. Battistelli 120 Cooperazione tra Forze Armate e Organizzazioni Non Governative nelle operazioni militari di risposta alle crisi (2003) M. Panizzi 121 Gli interventi in aree di crisi a favore della tutela del patrimonio culturale, in applicazione ai dettati della convenzione dell’Aja: esperienze e prospettive (2003) F. Parrulli 122 Ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Unioni (2004) V.V. Naumkin, L.S. Pe- repyolkin 123 Diritto Internazionale Umanitario Violazioni e crimini nelle nuove tipologie di conflitto (2004) C.M. Polidori 124 I ritorni industriali negli approvvigionamenti internazionali: la negoziazione, il concordamento ed il controllo dell’esecuzione (2004) R. Rufo

173 125 Il ruolo della Telemedicina nel nuovo modello di Difesa (2004) M. Anaclerio 126 La certificazione dei prodotti aeronautici alla luce del D.P.R. 25 ottobre 1999 N. 556 (2004) B. Morelli, V. De Blasi 127 Sviluppo tecnologico ed evoluzione della dottrina d’impiego del potere aero- spaziale (2004) A. Traballesi, N. Cardinali 128 La funzione dell’Intelligence nel contesto del processo decisionale (2004) A. Politi 129 Le minacce “globali” alla sicurezza e all’ordine internazionale (2005) P. Soave 130 Norme sull’esercizio della giurisdizione delle Forze Armate inviate all’estero. Tutela giuridica del personale (2005) D. Libertini 131 Le problematiche giuridiche relative alle Forze Armate impiegate all’estero (2005) G. Bartolini 132 Bioterrorismo: il ruolo dei media nella gestione dell’emergenza (2005) E. Bor- ghi

Collana Ce.Mi.S.S. – Serie Blu – Atti di convegni

• South-Eastern Europe, bridge or border between civilizations (Atti del convegno tenutosi a Sofia nei giorni 17 e 18 ottobre 1997) • The Future of NATO’s Mediterranean Iniziative (1997) (Atti della conferenza CeMiSS – RAND Corporation – Roma, 10 e 11 novembre 1997) (edizione di- sponibile anche in lingua araba) • NATO enlargement: situation and perspectives (Atti del convegno tenutosi a Budapest dal 11 al 15 luglio 1998) • I reparti multinazionali come strumento della sicurezza regionale (Atti del 1° seminario italo/polacco – Roma, 24 marzo 1999) • Centralità dell’Italia nello sviluppo delle relazioni Nord-Sud nel bacino del Mediterraneo. Quale ruolo per la Sicilia? - Atti del Seminario di studio fra stu- denti dell’Ateneo palermitano ed Istituti di Formazione della Difesa (Palermo, 23-25 novembre 1999)

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• Diritto Internazionale per Ufficiali della Marina Militare (1996) N. Ronzitti (Ristampa della ricerca n. 40 sul supplemento della “Rivista Marittima” del luglio 1996)(*) • Un’intelligence per il XXI secolo (1999) G. Dottori • Il Neo-Terrorismo: suoi connotati e conseguenti strategie di prevenzione e con- tenimento (2001) V. Pisano • La dimensione marittima delle operazioni interforze in ambito europeo (2005) G. Giorgerini

174 • After the Iraq war: strategic and political changes in the Middle East (2005) Ce.Mi.S.S.-Gloria

Collana Ce.Mi.S.S. – edizioni Franco Angeli

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Collana Ce.Mi.S.S. – edizioni A & P

1.09 Security Threat perception in South – Eastern Europe (2001) CeSPI and EWI 1.10 La guerra incruenta (2001) F. Pierantoni 1.11 La politica di sicurezza e difesa dell’Unione Europea (2001) F. Attinà, F. Lon- go, C. Monteleone, S. Panebianco, P. Rosa 1.12 The flexible officer (2001) G. Caforio 1.13 Il documento di Washington: problemi politici e giuridici (2001) N. Ronzitti 1.14 UMA: Les difficultés d’une reconstruction régionale (1989-1999) (2001) K. Chater 1.15 Peacekeeping: Polizia internazionale e nuovi ruoli militari tra conflitti etnici, terrorismo, criminalità organizzata (2001) R. Bettini 1.16 Il XXI Secolo: Ipotesi e tendenze dei modelli di difesa negli scenari mondiali (2001) C. M. Santoro 1.17 Sociological aspects concerning the relations within contingents of multinational units: The case of the Italian-Slovenian Hungarian Brigade (2001) G. Ga- sperini, B. Arnejciˇ ˇ c e A.Ujj 1.18 Il ruolo della forza europea di reazione rapida: un quadro strategico degli anni duemila (2001) M. Cremasco 1.19 Il ruolo delle istituzioni finanziarie internazionali nei processi di peace building (2002) M. Fiocca 1.20 La sicurezza in Europa dopo il Kosovo (2001) R. Menotti e R. Balfour 1.21 Il processo di integrazione del procurement militare in Europa (2001) L. Bertini 2.22 Towards a European security and defence policy (2002) Ce.Mi.S.S. – C.D.S.

176 2.23 Il ruolo internazionale dell’Unione Europea (2002) R. Balfour – E. Greco 2.24 Rapporto dal futuro. 2004: lo Stato dell’Europa e l’Europa come Stato (2002) L. Bonanate 2.25 Changing U.S. defense policy and the war on terrorism: implications for Italy and for U.S.-Italian relation (2002) Ce.Mi.S.S. – RAND 2.26 Il diritto dei trattati nelle attività di interesse delle FF.AA. (2003) N. Ronzitti 2.27 Le dinamiche palestinesi nella politica giordana, prospettive per la stabilità di un pivotal state (2003) R. Storaci 2.28 Le cooperazioni rafforzate per la ristrutturazione dell’industria europea degli armamenti (2003) G. Bonvicini – G. Gasperini

Collana Ce.Mi.S.S. - edizioni Rubbettino

04/1 The Errf and the Nrf – The European Rapid Reaction Force and the NATO- Reaction Force: Compatibilities and Choises (2004) – Ce.Mi.S.S. – C.D.S. 04/2 Transforming Italy’s Military for a New Era: Options and Challenges – (2004) – Ce.Mi.S.S. – RAND 04/3 Globalization, Armed Conflicts and Security (2004) – A. Gobbicchi 04/4 Verso un concetto di Politica Estera Europea. Le sfide esterne e di sicurezza per la UE (2004) – R. Balfour e R. Menotti 04/5 Comunicazione e politica internazionale. Mutamenti strutturali e nuove strategie (2004) – E. Diodato 04/6 La Nato dopo l’11 settembre. Stati Uniti ed Europa nell’epoca del terrorismo globale (2004) – G. Dottori e M. Amorosi 04/7 La dimensione finanziaria del terrorismo e del contro-terrorismo transnazio- nale (2004) – M. Fiocca e S. Cosci 04/8 Islamist and Middle Eastern Terrorism: a Threat to Europe (2004) – M. do Céu Pinto 04/9 Tra due culture. Le problematiche della famiglia del militare (2004) – M. A. Toscano 04/10 Russia’s Western Orientation after 11th September (2004) – D. Sagramoso 04/11 Opinione pubblica, sicurezza e difesa europea (2004) – M.L. Maniscalco 04/12 Guidare il cambiamento: la leadership nelle Forze Armate Italiane (2004) – T. Ammendola 05/1 Le forze di pace dell’Unione Europea (2005) – N. Ronzitti 05/2 Gli atteggiamenti dei giovani italiani verso il mondo militare (2005) – R. Stras- soldo 05/3 Flussi migratori illegali e ruolo dei paesi di origine e di transito – A. Corneli 05/4 Mediterranean security after EU and Nato enlargement (2005) – CeMiSS – ZTBw 05/5 Nuove prospettive per l’Aeronave (2005) – N. Bonora 05/6 Modelli organizzativi “a rete” per gestire la ricerca militare in Italia (2005) – P. Mari e A. Giovanetti

177 05/7 L’Europa allargata: come cambia la politica estera europea? (2005) – R. Balfour 06/1 La componente spaziale nella difesa (2006) – F. Borrini 06/2 La Questione della Sicurezza nell’Evoluzione della Politica Estera della Re- pubblica Popolare Cinese (2006) – V. Ferretti 06/3 Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate Use of Force (2006) – A. Leander

Paper Ce.Mi.S.S.

• L’evoluzione della politica di controllo delle esportazioni di materiali d’arma- mento e di alta tecnologia dual use alla luce della nuova intesa “The Wassenar Arrangement” (1998) A. Politi, S. Ruggeri • L’Ucraina nuovo architrave della sicurezza europea (1999) F. Argentieri • L’impatto dell’evoluzione sul futuro campo di battaglia (1999) ISTRID • Disordine, Sicurezza, Stabilità. Il sistema internazionale ed il ruolo per l’Italia (1999) P. Soave • Research-Papers on Balcans and Caucasus. A Russian Point of View (1999) N. Arbatova – V. Naumkin • Resources and economic cooperation in the Caspian and Black sea region and security in south-eastern Europe (1999) N. Behar • Western European Union: operational capabilities and future perspectives from the national point of view (1999) S. Giusti (*) • Conflict management in Europe on the return of the century (1999) I. Gyarmati • Risks for Russia’s security in the next decade: repercussion on the country’s domestic, foreign and defence policies (2000) I.B. Lada • Central-Eastern Europe and the process of approaching western institutions (2000) B. Klich, B. Bednarczyk, A. Nowosad, M. Chorosnicki - .Institute for Strategic Studies “Studies and Analyses” – Krakòw (*) • Institutions and civil society: crucial aspects of a peace process (2000) A. Co- razza Bildt • Projects of exploitation of the Caspian Sea Central Asia energy resources: impact on relations between the states involved and the stability in the region (2000) V. Naumkin • The CIS Security cooperation: problems and prospects (2000) – A.G. Arbatov, A.A. Pikayev; S. K. Oznobischev; V.E. Yarynich - ISS Mosca; • Is the establishment of a national security policy for a Bosnia – Herzegovina possible? (2000) S. Turkovic (*) • The regional co-operation initiatives in the black sea area and their influence on security in the Romania-Moldova-Ukraine region (2000) A. Pop • The regional and circum-regional co-operation initiatives in South-East Euro- pe and their influence on security (2000) Center for National Security Studies – Sofia

178 • Possible developments in the Balkans in the medium term (2000) E. Kojokine • Catalogo ragionato delle pubblicazioni CeMiSS (1987-1999) (2000) V. Ghiot- to • Il controllo della qualità degli approvigionamenti della Amministrazione della Difesa, con particolare riferimento ai servizi. (2000) Politecnico di Torino • Il futuro delle forze armate nell’era dell’information technology (2000) A. Fer- ranti • L’evoluzione della minaccia e l’alea di rischio delle nazioni moderne (2000) V. Porfiri – N. Pedde • The post – Yeltsin Russia: the main trends in domestic and foreign policy evo- lution (2001) N. Arbatova • European transport corridors and security in south eastern Europe (2001) In- stitute for Social and Political Studies – Sofia • Società e Forze Armate in Albania (2001) R. Devole • La politica estera e di sicurezza italiana nell’Europa Sud – Orientale e l’iniziativa quadrilaterale (2001) R. Umana • Tendenze dello sviluppo della dottrina militare della Russia (2001) M. Gareev • Maghreb Alaqsa. L’estremo Occidente (2001) M. Giaconi • Le politiche della ricerca militare e duale nei principali paesi industrializzati (2001) M. Nones, G. Perani, S. Rolfo • La cultura del peacekeeping (2002) T. Bergantini • Ottimizzazione della contrattualistica di Forza Armata (2003) R. Pardolesi • Possibili forme di coinvolgimento degli Stati facenti parte del dialogo mediterraneo della NATO in PSOs (2004) L.P. Zema, M.E. Gattamorta

(*) pubblicazione esaurita

179