DURABLE DISORDER The Return of Private Armies and the Emergence of Neomedievalism Sean McFate A thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 August 2011 DECLARATION I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Medieval Modernity 1 2. Evidence of Globalised Neomedievalism 50 3. The Return of Private Armies 188 4. The New Market for Force 212 5. Liberia: A Neomedieval Tale 295 6. Back to the Future 415 Glossary 426 Annexes 431 Annex A: Comprehensive Peace Agreement 431 Annex B: IDIQ Contract (S-LMAQM-03-00034) 433 Annex C: Contract Amendment (Raises Contract Ceiling) 439 Annex D: Liberia Military DDR-SSR Program Timeline 445 Bibliography 450 iii TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Typology of the Private Military Industry 248! Table 2: Conceptual Framework of the Security Sector 335! Figure 1: The Creation of Overlapping Authorities 84! Figure 2: The UN’s Re-Conceptualisation of “Security” in the Post-Cold War World 91! Figure 3: State Fragility Index and Matrix of 2008 162! Figure 4: Conflict Trends 1945–2005 167! Figure 5: Contractors as Percentage of United States Military Workforce in Theatres of War (as of March 2010) 215! Figure 6: Per cent Breakdown of Fatalities in Iraq 216! Figure 7: Per cent Breakdown of Fatalities in Afghanistan 217! Figure 8: United States Military Contractors in Iraq by Type of Service Provided (as of March 2010) 221! Figure 9: Taxonomy of the Security Sector 334! Figure 10: One of fifteen demobilisation stations with biometric capture at DynCorp’s custom-built demobilisation site 355! Figure 11: The Liberian Minister of National Defence Brownie Samukai at a rally for the AFL, coordinated by DynCorp, in Monrovia, 2006 362! Figure 12: The author standing in front of an AFL billboard alerting the public to the new Armed Forces of Liberia 362! Figure 13: Part of a DynCorp recruiting convoy into the hinterlands of Liberia 363! Figure 14: DynCorp commissioned comic books to reach low-literacy audiences aimed at sharing information regarding the new AFL as well as encourage recruitment, especially among women in this case 363! iv Figure 15: The first day of recruiting attracted a long line of volunteers 366! Figure 16: A DynCorp vetting team comprising one international and one Liberian expert conducting background checks on an AFL applicant in the field 373! Figure 17: AFL Basic Training with a DynCorp Drill Sergeant 378! v ABSTRACT Since the end of the Cold War private military companies––conflict entrepreneurs that kill or train others to kill, typically in foreign lands––have proliferated at an alarming rate. Curiously, the primary consumer of this new service are not weak states looking to consolidate their monopoly of force (although this has happened) but strong states like the United States of America, which possesses the greatest monopoly of force in the world. This thesis examines how and why this has occurred. The reappearance of private military actors is also a harbinger of a wider trend in international relations: the emergence of neomedievalism. The erosion of the taboo against mercenarism signals a return to the pre- Westphalian norm of the Middle Ages, when states did not enjoy the monopoly of force and subsequent special authority in world politics. Instead, the medieval system was polycentric in nature with authority diluted and shared among state and non-state actors alike. Because the return to the status quo ante of the Middle Ages is occurring worldwide, it is best described as ‘globalised neomedievalism’. Globalised neomedievalism is a non-state-centric and multipolar world order characterized by overlapping authorities and allegiances on a local and global scale. It does not imply worldwide atavism. States will not disappear, but will matter less than they did a century ago. Nor does neomedievalism connote chaos and anarchy; the global system will persist in a durable disorder that contains rather than solves problems. A key challenge of neomedievalism is the commodification of conflict: offering the means of war to anyone who can afford it will change warfare, why we fight and the future of war. The implications of this are enormous since it suggests that international relations in the twenty-first century will have more in common with the twelfth century than the twentieth. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the generous support of the Smith Richardson Foundation, the New America Foundation and the London School of Economics and Political Science. It would have been difficult to complete this thesis without their assistance. I am especially indebted to the advice of Professor Christopher Coker, whose work on outsourcing war in the late 1990s encouraged me to pursue a doctorate on the topic. I am also thankful for the guidance of Dr. Gregory Mills, whose indefatigable work in fragile states as strategic advisor, scholar, journalist and occasional race car driver are an inspiration. Equally, my gratitude toward Dr. Christopher Kinsey whose pioneering work on the private security industry has long shaped my thinking on the topic. Additionally, I thank my editor Brian Slattery who toiled over this manuscript with keen acumen and an inquisitive mind. I wish to credit Alain Minc for coining the term ‘durable disorder’ in French and Philip G. Cerny for popularizing it in English. Lastly, I am indebted to my friends and colleagues at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the National Defence University and the New America Foundation. They provided me invaluable feedback and advice, as well as helping me maintain my sanity. Washington DC, July 2011 vii To the past––farewell viii Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling, And took their wages, and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay. ––A.E. Housman ix Chapter 1 Medieval Modernity There’s never a new fashion but it’s old ––Geoffrey Chaucer It is a familiar story. A superpower goes to war and faces a stronger than expected insurgency in distant lands, yet has insufficient forces to counter it due to political and military constraints. Owing to this, the superpower decides to hire contractors, some of which are armed, to support its war effort. The armed contractors prove to be both a blessing and a curse, providing vital security services to the campaign, yet at times killing innocent civilians in their zeal, causing strategic setbacks and damaging the superpower’s legitimacy. Without these contractors it would be hard for the superpower to wage war but with them it is difficult to win. 1 The armed contractors in question are not in Iraq or Afghanistan but Northern Italy, and the year is not 2007 but 1377. The superpower in question is not the United States of America (US) but the Papacy under Pope Gregory XI, who was fighting the anti-papal league led by the Ducate of Milan.1 The tragic killing of civilians by armed contractors did not occur in Baghdad but Cesena, 630 years earlier. The military companies employed were not DynCorp International, Triple Canopy or Blackwater but the Company of the Star, Company of the Hat and the White Company. This last company was a transalpine military firm led by Englishman Sir John Hawkwood, one of the most in-demand mercenaries of his day. He achieved international fame as a mercenary and served as ambassador alongside Geoffrey Chaucer, received angry letters from Saint Catherine of Siena and joined Flemish chronicler Jean Froissart and the Italian humanist Francis Petrarch at a lavish wedding feast for King Edward III’s son. 2 Contemporaries admired and reviled him. According to the fourteenth-century Italian storyteller Franco Sacchetti, two Franciscan monks encounter Hawkwood near his fortress at Montecchio. The monks greet him with the standard salutation: ‘May God grant you peace’. Hawkwood coldly replies: ‘And may God take away your alms’. Shocked by this rudeness the monks demand explanation. ‘Don’t you know that I live by war’, Hawkwood answers, ‘and peace would destroy me? And as I live by war so you live by alms’. ‘And 1 John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200-1575 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 151-155. 2 William Caferro, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 2. 2 so’, Sacchetti adds, ‘he managed his affairs so well that there was little peace in Italy in his times’.3 The parallels between medieval and modern private armies are uncanny. Today, the United States and other countries employ contractors to fulfill security-related contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In the late Middle Ages, such men were called condottieri––literally, ‘contractors’––who agreed to perform security services described in a written contract or condotte. Both modern and medieval contractors were organised as legal corporations, selling their services to the highest or most powerful bidder for profit.