Shadow Company was an informative movie on the topic of private military companies (PMC), focusing largely on their role in Iraq. I found it was reasonably objective in its approach, bringing in the opinion of ex-security contractors who believed strongly in their jobs, and journalists and historians who were critical of PMCs. It effectively covered what PMCs were, who worked in them, what they did, how big of an industry they form, and some of the controversy surrounding them. Shadow Company does not attempt to make any significant suggestions on the role of the future of private military companies, perhaps for the sake of objectivity. I believe that this is an important topic to discuss though, and will address the question in further detail.
When you consider that private military companies experienced a huge boom post-9/11 largely due to the Iraq war and U.S. foreign policy at the onset of the war, you might expect that I would be strongly opposed to the use of private military companies. This is a fair assumption, given my past criticisms of the U.S. mission in Iraq, and its involvement in the arms industry. You might expect that I would dismiss PMCs as some sort of reimagined form of Western imperialism , resulting in the perpetuation of war. However this is not the case, as I will argue today that private military companies serve a legitimate and necessary purpose in the future of international security.
In the late 1990s a U.S. Marine General named Charles Krulak described a concept he called the “Three Block War.” The Three Block War concept suggested that the variety of challenges that soldiers faced in modern conflict had evolved into 3 requirements- to conduct military action, to conduct peacekeeping operations, and to provide humanitarian aid. The concept was referenced by Canadian Lieutenant General Rick Hillier in 2005 and proved to be significant during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, although was later dismissed by American and Canadian forces as being too simplistic of the situation on the ground. Instead, they suggested additional blocks should be considered, such as “psychological and informational aspects of modern missions,” or “governance, reconstruction and economic development.”
It would seem then that regardless of how many blocks there are in the war, modern day conflict zones around the world are highly complex, and we are asking our troops to play the role of politician, police, doctor, charity worker, teacher, urban planner, and soldier all at once! In short we have tasked our troops with the impossible task of nation building, and perhaps overstretched our militaries in doing so.
In this requirement lies the reason for the rise of PMCs in Iraq, which arguably provided the first major study of the consequences of major private military industry involvement in a war zone. “We’re not going to be able to write the history of the Iraq war…without talking about private military companies. And that’s a huge difference from any prior war,” said Peter Singer in Shadow Company. From Iraq many hard lessons can be learned, the most critical of which is that there absolutely must be effective and constant oversight over the contracting, screening, and supervising of private military companies. In 2007 employees of Blackwater Security Consulting shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20. In the past few weeks, four were convicted in the U.S. of either first degree murder or voluntary manslaughter. While this somewhat counters the claims that security contractors operate with impunity, the fact that this was a watershed case speaks to the gross lack of international and domestic oversight of the actions of PMCs.
This is the first topic to be addressed then, the need for greater oversight when employing private military companies. The UN must come to a resolution governing their deployment and their operations, especially regarding their rules of engagement. Those who violate these rules, or any other laws regulating warfare, must be subject to the full extent of both international and domestic law the same way a soldier might be. It is interesting here to note that in Shadow Company, the instances in which force can used is when 1) it is required for self-defence, 2) when defending the “nouns” or 3) in defence of Iraqi civilians. Similar sentiments were echoed by Alan Bell when he presented to our class. What is interesting about these rules of engagement is that they are very similar to those of UN Peacekeeping forces, hinting at the possibility that their roles in international security aren’t always so different.
Human rights aside, in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq it seems that the implementation of PMCs has been less than successful, an argument which proves challenging to my suggestions. One of the largest issues here is that funds allocated for the development of the nations were not well managed, often being given to companies without any sort of bidding process for the contract. Millions were also wasted due to a lack of oversight by the government funders, who did not take the time to ensure contracts were properly and effectively completed. It should be clear that in order for private military companies to be genuinely effective, there must be competition for contracts in which the winner is carefully supervised and audited to ensure that they maintain a level of quality in whichever project they are undertaking.
But what sort of services should be contracted out? As wars increasingly become intrastate in nature, more expectations of nation-building and transitional governance are placed on troops. PMCs could provide logistical services such as shipping supplies and assisting with troop support, in a manner more secure than ordinary civilian services would be. They could also be employed to provide security for NGOs distributing aid and humanitarian assistance. In addition they could be tasked with protecting or developing infrastructure in the war torn nation. Or instead they could be contracted to train the police forces of the government experiencing conflict. However, I do not think it is best for PMCs to be used to establish widespread security in conflicted regions (that is to say they should be used to protect objectives, not establish zones of security). I also would strongly suggest against the use of PMCs in combat missions, as this delegitimizes their claim to being a defensive force, and also incorporates operations that I think are best left to legitimate militaries.
By employing PMCs to conduct these non-combat operations, Western forces can effectively outsource these roles, freeing up time for their militaries to focus on larger, “main goal” type objectives, such as dismantling a terrorist organization or preventing conflict between warring parties without falling victim to any sacrifices in other areas of security. In doing so, Western forces would more effectively address the issue of nation-building compared to the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously achieving their combat directives. By employing the private sector in providing these services it would be hoped that there would also be an improvement in the quality of service provided, as privatization allows companies to specialize in each role required in a way the military would not be able to. If these programs were implemented successfully, and occurred in conjunction with increasing levels of security, it seems reasonable that the state would be less likely to return to violence compared to if it was entirely rebuilt by military powers.
To conclude, I believe that private military companies are now thoroughly entrenched in the way militaries conduct warfare today and that through effective evolution of their implementation, we can legitimately and ethically employ their services in operations at home, and in warzones abroad. This first and foremost requires greater development of international legislation regarding the means by which private military companies can use force, with the greatest emphasis on the maintenance of human rights. Private military companies should expect to be subjected to close scrutiny by their employers to ensure their services are effective, professional and in accordance with international and domestic law. Second, more effort must be directed to ensuring that the method through which companies obtain contracts is significantly competitive. Here again, PMCs must fall under close scrutiny to ensure that all use of government resources is effective in achieving the desired goal. Finally, there must be debate within the political systems of those who employ PMCs as to what mission directives they might privatize, versus those which should continue to be considered of national interest and best handled by the military. In doing so, Western forces, and all else who employ PMCs, can more effectively streamline their military capacities, while also specializing their abilities to provide greater nation-building and state development assistance.
After all, when building a house does it not seem wiser to call on a plumber, an electrician, an architect, a construction worker, and a painter, to complete the required tasks? Surely it would be more cost effective and less time consuming than asking one individual to fill all of these roles. Why should the same not be said for nation-building? Through the privatization of non-combat roles of development and security implementation, countries who employ PMCs can more effectively complete their missions in conflict zones abroad, in turn striving for more definitive and long-lasting peace.