Why does the military hire contractors

Any organization that is contemplating outsourcing needs to first and foremost think about their own core functions that should never be outsourced This is true in any industry but it takes on special importance when we are talking about a profession that is considering outsourcing duties to members outside their profession.

A few examples may help illustrate this point. For instance, there is a risk when members of a company disclose proprietary sales numbers to an outside consultant. This risk would count as a good consequential reason not to hire a consultant for this purpose. It is important to note, however, that that is merely a risk to be weighed in the over-all cost benefit analysis.

There will be many cases in which the expertise gained from outsourcing is worth the risk. There is no foundational and irrevocable damage done to the occupation of being a salesman in the unlikely occurrence that this information is leaked to a competitor. In fact the very notion of such a harm being done to an occupation is almost nonsensical. Compare this case with a hospital that is considering exposing outside researchers to client information. Here, there is not merely an issue of consequential value but an issue for the medical profession itself, since patient confidentiality is one of the tenants of the medical profession.

The more common usage of the term refers to a vocation requiring some sort of specialized knowledge. A profession in this more complete sense must have sole responsibility for a given function, it must have a code of ethics or a code of unacceptable behavior, and it must be internally responsible to reprimand those who fall to meet the standards of the profession.

These are activities where the function is extremely important to a society, where not only is special training required, but a higher or at the very least specialized and functional code of ethics is required as well.

So while it be troubling for members of a company to see many of their responsibilities outsourced to those with similar skill sets or training; it is devastating to a profession to allow those outside of the profession to conduct the core function that had been the exclusive domain of the professionals who are selected, trained, and disciplined internal to the profession.

We have in effect damaged the profession itself. We have torn it apart from inside. The medical profession was created in order to improve society. There are numerous unseen and possibly unknowable advantages to the existence of a medical profession that we are undermining with this brand of outsourcing. While the ratio of private contractors to soldiers in the first Gulf War was one to one hundred, the ratio just before the invasion of Iraq was already less than ten to one.

Within the first year of operations, over fifty contractors were killed in Iraq , and over wounded a greater causality toll than any ally, including the British. Although there may be some concerns in oversight, there is probably no more harm in outsourcing KP duty to private companies than there is Hospitals outsourcing their cafeterias, there are certainly some functions that outsourcing would harm irrecoverably.

And, private contractors are not merely washing clothing, building housing, and serving meals. They are driving supply trucks through unsecured areas of Iraq and they are integrators. They are private security officers who openly carry arms responsible for the protection of numerous American officials, military installations, and supply conveys.

The argument most frequently provided in favor of these security officers is that they do not infringe upon the core military function because they are merely providing security similar to private security officers throughout the world. We have private security personnel protecting business in dangerous countries and government buildings within the United States. These security personnel do not infringe upon the central function because they are not infantrymen, but merely security officers.

In order to respond to this argument perhaps the most important task is to discuss briefly what exactly the central function of the military profession is. While some may initially think that it is merely putting oneself in danger for the betterment of the nation-state, this cannot be correct.

It has to be a difference in quality and not merely quantity that sets the military apart. Sir Hackett famously argued that the core function was the management of violence in the service of the state.

It is precisely his or her possibility to engage in combat, or more precisely, the capability to become a lawful combatant that sets the soldier apart. We may not require the security of every private company in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to be guarded by soldiers. It seems reasonable, however, to claim that any person involved in security operations for the US government in an area in which it is reasonable to believe they may become combatants need to be US servicemen and women.

It is the potential to become lawful combatants and the reasonable expectation to be treated as such that separates the profession of arms. Therefore, the military profession needs to insist that any private contractors engaged in security operations that may foreseeable involve combat should be eliminated.

Furthermore, any private contractors in areas like Afghanistan , Iraq , etc. These contractors, however, are only a percentage of the more than 20, serving in Iraq and the hundreds of thousands serving worldwide.

As previously noted we need to consider a more complete cost benefit analysis of outsourcing functions that are not central to the profession of arms e. I cannot provide an investigation of each of these functions but a quick investigation would help illustrate the point. For example, if logistical contractors are continued to be used, then we need to radically alter how those contracts are managed in order to manage our mission effectively.

We do not have sufficient oversight directly managing these contracts. We would need to train with them and we would need to use the same communication and intelligence networks. Furthermore, there would need to be an unambiguous and expeditious way to hold contractors responsible for their actions.

Finally we would need to track them and justify the private contractor personal in the same way that we do for those in the armed forces. In effect, our end strength needs to reflect all the support contracts we need to get the job done so we know that jobs are outsourced because they can do the task done more effectively and efficiently and not merely because the reporting becomes more expedient. More support here. The reports of contractors participating in combat and abuse of prisoners are troubling.

They are even disturbing when we realize the full impacts of these actions. Particular acts of outsourcing can be merely unnecessarily expensive, or worse they can lead to dysfunction. Because of this, however, some of the findings of this paper will not and are not meant to be generalizable.

Additionally, the U. This section provides a working definition of PMSCs, as well as context related to the extent to which they were used at different points in American history. Furthermore, this section is aimed at shedding light on the modern-day configuration of this sophisticated global industry, and debunk some common misconceptions fueled by popular culture. Prior to delving into the working definition used in this paper to discuss PMSCs, it is important to review the literature around the difference and commonalities between PMCs and mercenaries.

Before becoming a sophisticated global industry, freelance mercenaries were fighters, trained to various degrees, who provided military services in exchange for monetary compensation or land ownership. These two characteristics, namely their degree of professionalization and the fact that they are not directly contracted by a government, allow scholars and industry leaders to clearly create separate categories for freelance mercenaries and PMSCs.

However, there are several other characteristics that blur the line between the two entities and call into question the distinction that industry professionals often strive to make. Firstly, both entities are fundamentally profit-driven and, as shown hereafter in Section II, this fact is construed by some as fundamentally problematic.

Since the distinction between freelance mercenaries and PMSCs is so feeble, why is it necessary to differentiate them at all? The most obvious reason relates to the fact that mercenaries are banned by the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, also known as the United Nations Mercenary Convention. As discussed in the previous sub-section, private militias are not a novel phenomenon per se. The U. PMSCs to become sophisticated global industry.

Similarly, during the Cold War it was easier for political elites in the U. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became increasingly more politically costly for American elites to motivate their involvement in conflicts in far-away regions.

The use of PMSCs, thus, provided a relatively easy way to avoid public scrutiny while still achieving operational objectives, something that will be further explored in Section II. In essence, both the end of the Cold War and the Mogadishu Syndrome have contributed to making private military companies a growing, thriving industry.

The end of the Cold War, and the demilitarization that followed, created a large pool of highly-skilled professionals that PMSCs gladly tapped in for lucrative purposes. Similarly, the demise of the Soviet threat and the casualties suffered by the U. Today, private military enterprises constitute a multi-billion dollar industry extensively used by developed and developing countries alike.

Agency for International Development. Seeing that the U. Interestingly, in the mainstream media and among the public, the words mercenaries and private military companies are used interchangeably.

Because of this, the public and, at times, the media have tended to romanticize the so-called mercenaries, which in turn has prevented PMSCs regulations to become a legislative priority in the U. As shown hereafter, PMSCs are problematic partly because of intrinsic dynamics, such as the fact that they profit from war, and partly because of weak regulations.

The first and, perhaps, must obvious issue with private military companies relates to the fact that they profit from war. Yet, it is worth asking, is there something inherently bad in profiting from war? The answer, in my opinion, is yes, since earning wages from conflicts generates perverse incentives, as shown hereafter. However, it is important to mention that PMSCs are far from being the only market-driven force benefitting from wars.

The arms industry, for example, is at the core of the industrial military complex and generates several billions of dollars per year. Army, in a sense, stays in business because of the existence of conflicts and threats to American national interest. Another problem directly related to the profit-driven nature of private military enterprises relates to the demographic composition of contractors hired.

Because PMSCs are ultimately market-driven, they are incentivised to hire whomever possess the skill-set necessary to be a contractor. While the minimum requirements vary from company to company, most contractors recruited come from the developing world. In a more pragmatic sense, the diversity in backgrounds of private contractors could have an impact on the values they hold and how they operate in conflict zones. In one instance, Afghan contractors hired to provide convoy security to the U.

Meanwhile, Machiavelli faded into obscurity. He is lionized today, thanks to 20 th -century scholarship, but his views on mercenaries are spurious. People view soldiers like wives and mercenaries as prostitutes, who turn love into a transaction. But every soldier has a little mercenary in him, and vice versa. Troops often reenlist for big bonuses, a transactional practice common in most militaries. For example, the U.

The author has also seen mercenaries refuse jobs on political grounds. The line between soldier and mercenary is fuzzy. The taboo against mercenaries is a recent invention, only a few hundred years old. Mercenaries were long considered an honorable, albeit bloody trade, and only the past years stigmatized them. For much of the past, mercenaries and soldiers were synonymous. Most of military history is privatized, and mercenaries are as old as war itself.

The reason is simple: Renting force is cheaper than owning it. Maintaining a permanent military seems normal today, but it is not.

Why invest in your own expensive standing army when you could just rent one? Put another way, if you could go to war with 5, rented mercenaries or 1, owned soldiers, what would you choose? Especially if your enemy had 5, mercenaries? Some, like Machiavelli, chose their own soldiers, and were duly crushed. Most went with mercenaries. Mercenaries are everywhere in military history, starting with the Bible.

The Old Testament mentions hired warriors several times, and never with reproach. Rome used mercenaries throughout its 1,year reign, and Julius Caesar was saved at Alesia by mounted German mercenaries in his war against Vercingetorix in Gaul. The Middle Ages were a mercenary heyday.

King Henry II of England engaged mercenaries to suppress the great rebellion of —, because their loyalty lay with their paymaster rather than with the ideals of the revolt. In Egypt and Syria, the Mamluk sultanate — was a regime of mercenary slaves who had been converted to Islam. From the late 10 th to the early 15 th centuries, Byzantine emperors surrounded themselves with Norse mercenaries, the Varangian Guard, who were known for their fierce loyalty, prowess with the battle axe, and ability to swill vast tankards of brew.

Medieval Europe was a hot conflict market, and mercenaries were how wars were fought. Kings, city states, wealthy families, the church—anyone rich enough—could hire an army to wage war for whatever reason they wanted: honor, survival, god, theft, revenge, or amusement.

Even Sir Thomas More, the great humanist and author of Utopia , coining the word, advocated using mercenaries to protect his utopian republic. Popes even hired mercenaries, using them to obliterate enemies and purify infidels. All this led to a medieval world at war.

There are uncanny parallels between medieval mercenaries and modern ones. Professional men of arms filled their ranks, coming from different countries and united by a paycheck. Warfare began to change in the 17 th century, and mercenaries with it. European battles became increasingly violent as armies grew larger and weapons more destructive.

Armies were predominantly made of mercenaries, and the concept of patriotism was unconnected to military service. To meet the rising demand for fighters, mercenaries became industrialized. Clever military enterprisers outfitted whole regiments and leased them to those in need of martial services—the first military industrial complex.

Later he was killed by his client, an occupational hazard. Rental regiments allowed rulers to wage war on an industrial scale without long-term administrative costs, like taking care of wounded veterans or pensions, and this lowered the barrier to entry in war while encouraging ever-larger battles. Mercenaries never had it so good, or civilians so bad.

Things began to change in Nearly a third of the populations of modern Germany and the Czech Republic were wiped out, and it took the region a century to recover. Rogue mercenary units were to blame for much of it, and leaders of all sides tacitly agreed to put the free market for force out of business by monopolizing it. That is, public armies should replace private ones, costs be damned. The Peace of Westphalia changed a lot of other things too. All the continental great powers were party to this peace deal that redrew the map of Europe and rewrote the rules of power.

Prior to this, Europe was run by medieval rules, which is to say, no rules. Things were messy. All kinds of political actors—popes, kings, city-states, wealthy families, among others—made overlapping claims of authority to the same slices of land and serfs. This led to a thriving market for force. Unconstrained political rivalries, heaps of money, and abundant private armies for hire turned medieval Europe into a war zone like the Middle East today.

The 14 th -century Italian writer Franco Sacchetti tells a story that captures what a world awash with mercenaries looks like:. Two Franciscan monks encounter a mercenary captain near his fortress. Shocked by such insolence, the monks demand explanation. And as I live by war, so you live by alms. Machiavelli had a point that private warfare turns warriors into beasts and citizens into cowards.

The city was continuously at war with someone: Pisa — , the pope — and Milan —, —, —, and It takes both supply and demand to grow a market, not just supply, as Machiavelli implies. Out-of-work mercenaries also marauded between contracts, preying on the countryside while artificially generating demand for their protection services. This inevitably led to racketeering. An army of mercenaries would encircle a city and demand a huge ransom in exchange for not sacking it.

Desperate, the residents scavenged every last coin and treasure, handing it over to the extortionists. From this medieval din, one kind of political actor emerged as sheriff in —states. Mercenaries could existentially threaten states, so they were outlawed. So powerful was this taboo against mercenarism that it still haunts us today, as evidenced by reactions to the Nisour versus Haditha killings. Over time, states monopolized the market for force with their national armies, and this created another opportunity: domination.

Their old nonstate rivals were defenseless, without access to mercenaries or a standing army of their own. Old medieval powerhouses such as the church, city-states like Florence, and elite aristocratic families had no choice but kowtow to state rulers.

Without mercenaries, nonstate actors had no way to challenge state ascendancy. The relationship between force, power, and world order is stark. Those who control the means of violence get to make the rules that others must follow, or die. The consolidation of state power was gradual, spanning 2 centuries, and gave rise to a world order that should look familiar to readers. It has many features, but the key one is this: Only nation-states are sovereign, and everyone else is subordinate.

States guaranteed their supremacy through their national armies, since nonstate actors have no capacity to oppose them. In fact, the monopoly of force is the very definition of the modern state. Only they get to wage war, make international law, and govern. The Westphalian Order spread across the globe through European colonization, and today we have internalized it as timeless and universal, even though it is less than years old. Mercenaries did not disappear immediately. States outlawed their use, unless they were the client, and soon mercenaries became a state-sponsored affair, such as the large private armies of the Dutch or British East India companies.

But eventually mercenaries were banned. The last time a state used a mercenary army was in , during the Crimean War. By the 20 th century, the market for force was defunct. Mercenaries did not go extinct but were driven underground. Lone soldiers of fortune bounced between geopolitical hot spots and were secretly hired by rebel groups, weak governments, multinational corporations and states.

The decolonization that followed World War II offered rich opportunities for these private warriors, especially in Africa. Some of their exploits are captured in novels and films. Fiction can be a safer truth-teller than nonfiction when it comes to clandestine activities. The mid-century surge in underground private warfare prompted Geneva Protocols I and II in that banned mercenaries.

The primary objection is that they were warriors without a state, fighting for money rather than national ideology.

The most widely accepted definition of a mercenary in international law comes from Article 47 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which states:. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war. A mercenary is any person who: a. However, this law is almost unusable.

The characterization of a mercenary is so restrictive yet imprecise that anyone can wiggle out of it. In the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War with it. To the Westphalian thinker, it symbolized the everlasting triumph of the liberal-democratic state over all others, and the Darwinian resolution of world order.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was more than just the end of the Cold War; it marked the beginning of the end of the Westphalian Order, too. Rather than the utopia Fukuyama expected, state sovereignty began eroding everywhere.

Some states lost control of their territory, as in the conflicts in the Balkans, Indonesia, and Sudan. Other states, such as Liberia and Somalia, failed altogether. Unconventional wars spiked, and conventional ones dropped to nearly zero. Armed nonstate actors began taking over, just like in the Middle Ages. Examples include separatist groups in northern Mali, warlords in eastern Congo, and violent extremists in Yemen.

Drug cartels captured states for their own purposes. Some wanted to topple the Westphalian Order altogether. Al Qaeda and its imitators seek to replace states with a global caliphate, governed under sharia law. One of the first things the so-called Islamic State did after it established the caliphate was bulldoze the border between Iraq and Syria, also known as the Sykes-Picot Line. There is no clearer challenge to the reign of states.

As state power declines, private force rises. The relationship is causal. Without a global sheriff, mercenaries are free to roam the world again, in the light of day. The first public mercenary organization emerged in South Africa, ominously called Executive Outcomes, and fought across the continent. It was involved in mercenary actions in Equatorial Guinea in , Somalia in , and Nigeria in Other mercenary firms got their start in the years after the Berlin Wall.

No longer in the shadows, they were multinational corporations, such as the medieval Free Companies, and some were even traded on Wall Street. Their reappearance signals the decline of the Westphalian Order and a slow return to the disorder of the age before. The s were only a prelude for what was to come. What truly revitalized the ancient mercenary trade was the chum-slick of American war contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. One would assume failing states needing strong militaries would defibrillate mercenarism, but it was a superpower seeking political top-cover that resurrected the industry.

Like everything else in those wars, it was not planned. It just happened. The United States contracted out its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For every American Soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, there was at least one contractor—a ratio or greater. At the height of these wars, contractors comprised over 50 percent of the U. By comparison, only 10 percent of the force was contracted in World War II.

About 15 percent were mercenaries, but do not let the small numbers fool you. Contractors did most of the bleeding, too. In , contractor deaths represented only 4 percent of all fatalities. Ultimately, contractors are disposable people, like mercenaries in the past. Contracting has become a new American way of war, and trendlines indicate the United States may outsource 80 to 90 percent of its future wars.

Certainly, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater International, thinks it should. In , he pushed replacing all American troops in Afghanistan with contractors—in other words, privatizing the war in Afghanistan with percent mercenaries. In it, he lambasts senior military leadership. How did we get here? It has it all: the best troops, training, technology, equipment, and resources. But it does not have the will, and this is why it turns to military contractors.

Contracting enables bloodless wars, at least from the perspective of the client. Like super technology, mercenaries are a crutch for a nation that wants to fight but does not wish to bleed. This happened not by design but rather by accident. There was an unanticipated collision between American domestic politics and the all-volunteer military, a source of national pride. The U. This left policymakers with three terrible options.

First, they could withdraw and concede defeat in disgrace. Second, they could reinstate a national draft to fill the ranks, like during the Vietnam War.

This would be political suicide. Third, they could use contractors to fill the ranks, relying on them mostly for nonlethal tasks. Unsurprisingly, policymakers chose contractors. Few realize that most of the contractors who fight in U. To keep costs down, military companies hire personnel from the developing world where military labor is cheap, making these firms densely international.

Central Command in Of these, only 20, were American. Most of these contractors were unarmed and performing nonmilitary jobs, therefore not mercenaries. There were 2, armed contractors, of whom were Americans and 1, whom were foreigners. When I was in the industry, I worked alongside ex—special forces troops from places like the Philippines, Colombia, and South Africa.

We did the same missions, but they got developing world wages and I did not. Mercenaries are just like T-shirts; they are cheaper in developing countries. Call it the globalization of private force. What is significant for the future of the industry is that these foreigners have gained valuable trade knowledge that can be exported around the world, in search of new clients once the United States does not renew its contract.

This spreads mercenarism. Today, most of the private military companies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan are local and less picky than their U. The United States is partly to blame. Army hired eight civilian trucking firms to transport supplies to bases in Afghanistan, and also required the companies to provide their own security. In some ways this arrangement worked well; it effectively supplied most U. However, a U.

The congressional report, titled Warlord, Inc. That same year a U. Senate report confirmed the localization of the industry. Problematically, the only local organizations in conflict-affected states capable of providing private security are warlords, militias, and insurgents who swell the ranks of the marketplace. Bagram Air Base, a strategic U.

The Afghanistan company Navin also supplied a guard force of men and armed convoy escorts to the air base and is owned by former mujahideen commander Lutfullah. A now-defunct American company called U. Protection and Investigations partnered with Northern Alliance military commanders like General Din Mohammad Jurat to provide protection to former militia members.

This model of force provision did not exist before the United States arrived. In some cases, these native mercenary groups have restored order yet undermined the very institutions the Americans sought to build—a public police force, a national army, provincial administrations—elements of a Westphalian state.

For example, Commando Security is a company that escorts convoys between Kandahar and Helmand Province to the west. Not surprisingly, both the Bush and Obama administrations opted for contractors. Today, 75 percent of U. Only about 10 percent of these contractors are armed, but this matters not. The greater point is that America is waging a war largely via contractors, and U.

If this trend continues, we might see 80 or 90 percent of the force contracted in future wars. Contracting is big business, too. About 45 percent of those contracts were for services, including private military contractors. This means that contractors are making the ultimate sacrifice. Today, more contractors are killed in combat than soldiers —a stunning turnaround from the start of the wars Iraq and Afghanistan, when fewer than 10 percent of casualties were contractors.

By , more contractors were dying than troops. Private military companies are multinational corporations that recruit globally. When I worked in the industry, my colleagues came from almost every continent. According to a recent Pentagon report, just over 33 percent of private military contractors in Afghanistan are U. What happens to these subs when the big contractor goes home?

In some notable, alarming cases, they go into business for themselves, breeding mercenary market s in the wake of a U. For example, a U. The investigation found evidence that they were linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery, and anti-coalition activities. Giving birth to such markets is just one of the many ways that contractors encourage dangerous policy making.