Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars

Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars
Author: Seden Akcinaroglu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2020-09-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0197520812

Since the 1990s, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have intervened in civil wars around the globe. International, legally registered corporate actors have assisted governments with a myriad of tasks including combat support, logistics, army and police training, intelligence analysis, and guard services. However, reports that such contractors have been responsible for human rights abuses have spurred the need to evaluate the industry's impact on conflicts. Are these contractors effective in curbing violence or does emphasis on profit and lack of accountability get in the way? And how can governments improve PMSCs' commitment to contractual obligations, including adherence to international humanitarian laws? This book identifies two market forces that impact PMSCs' military effectiveness: local or conflict-level competition and global or industry-level competition. Specifically, Seden Akcinaroglu and Elizabeth Radziszewski challenge the assumption that interventions by profit-driven coporations are likely to destabilize areas engaged in war, and provide data that private contractors do contribute to conflict termination under certain circumstances. They argue that competitive market pressure creates a strong monitoring system and that the company's corporate structure and external competitive environment in a given conflict help to explain the variance in accountability to clients. Including an analysis of data on international PMSCs' interventions in civil wars from 1990-2008, Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski show the impact of competition on companies' contribution to the termination of different types of civil wars.

Private Military and Security Companies

Private Military and Security Companies
Author: Thomas Jäger
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2009-04-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3531903136

Private Sicherheits- und Militärunternehmen erleben seit den 1990er Jahren einen außerordentlichen Boom und sind derzeit eines der spannendsten Phänomene in den internationalen Beziehungen. Die Palette der von ihnen angebotenen Dienstleistungen ist groß. Sie reichen von logistischer Unterstützung über Aufklärung bis hin zu Kampfeinsätzen. Zu ihren Kunden zählen Regierungen, Wirtschaftsunternehmen, internationale Organisationen, NGOs, humanitäre Organisationen sowie Privatpersonen. Gegenwärtig lässt sich an den Auseinandersetzungen im Irak sowohl die Aktualität wie auch die Brisanz ihres Einsatzes illustrieren, gibt es doch Anzeichen dafür, dass Beschäftigte solcher Unternehmen u.a. in die Folterung von Gefangenen verwickelt sind. Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes aus der Feder nationaler wie internationaler Expertinnen und Experten beschreiben und analysieren verschiedene Typen von privaten Sicherheits- und Militärunternehmens, ihre Dienstleistungen und die Umstände, die ihren Boom befördert haben. Sie diskutieren die Vor- wie auch die Nachteile ihres Einsatzes und beschreiben Instrumente, die die Tätigkeit dieser Unternehmen stärker reglementieren und kontrollieren könnten.

Mercenaries and War

Mercenaries and War
Author: National Defense University Press
Publisher:
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2019-12-18
Genre: Mercenary troops
ISBN: 9781678665234

Mercenaries are more powerful than experts realize, a grave oversight. Those who assume they are cheap imitations of national armed forces invite disaster because for-profit warriors are a wholly different genus and species of fighter. Private military companies such as the Wagner Group are more like heavily armed multinational corporations than the Marine Corps. Their employees are recruited from different countries, and profitability is everything. Patriotism is unimportant, and sometimes a liability. Unsurprisingly, mercenaries do not fight conventionally, and traditional war strategies used against them may backfire.

The Modern Mercenary

The Modern Mercenary
Author: Sean McFate
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190621087

Sean McFate lays bare the opaque world of private military contractors, explaining the economic structure of the industry and showing in detail how firms operate on the ground. As a former paratrooper and private military contractor, McFate provides an unparalleled perspective into the nuts and bolts of the industry, as well as a sobering prognosis for the future of war.

Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars

Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars
Author: Seden Akcinaroglu
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN: 9780197520833

Whether they train police forces in Afghanistan or provide military assistance to governments in Africa that are battling rebel groups, private military and security companies (PMSCs), or corporations that provide security and military services for profit, have been present in numerous conflicts around the globe. In 1984 only one international PMSC intervened in a civil war; in 1989 there were 15 international PMSCs present in conflict zones, while from 2003 to 2019 over 120 of such companies provided services during the Iraq war. Why do international PMSCs sometimes help with conflict termination while in other cases their intervention is associated with prolonged wars? And in what ways does market competition affect PMSCs' military effectiveness?

Mercenaries

Mercenaries
Author: Abdel-Fatau Musah
Publisher: Pluto Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780745314716

Second volume of Deutscher prize-winning trilogy on the future of IR, tracing the defining characteristics of 'foreign encounters' over time.

The Morality of Private War

The Morality of Private War
Author: James Pattison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2014
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199639701

The private military industry has been growing rapidly since the end of the Cold War. The Morality of Private War uses normative political theory to assess the leading moral arguments for and against the use of private military and security companies.

State and Societal Challenges in the Horn of Africa

State and Societal Challenges in the Horn of Africa
Author: Collectif
Publisher: Centro de Estudos Internacionais
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2017-08-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9898862475

This book brings to fruition the research done during the CEA-ISCTE project ‘’Monitoring Conflicts in the Horn of Africa’’, reference PTDC/AFR/100460/2008. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) provided funding for this project. The chapters are based on first-hand data collected through fieldwork in the region’s countries between 4 January 2010 and 3 June 2013. The project’s team members and consultants debated their final research findings in a one-day Conference at ISCTE-IUL on 29 April 2013. The following authors contributed to the project’s final publication: Alexandra M. Dias, Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, Aleksi Ylönen, Ana Elisa Cascão, Elsa González Aimé, Manuel João Ramos, Patrick Ferras, Pedro Barge Cunha and Ricardo Real P. Sousa.

Public War, Private Fight? The United States and Private Military Companies

Public War, Private Fight? The United States and Private Military Companies
Author: Deborah C. Kidwell
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2011-03-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1257122355

"The United States has long utilized private military contractors to augment regular military forces in support of its national foreign policy and security needs. Commonly referred to as Private Military Companies (PMCs), contractors employ and manage civilian personnel from the private sector in areas of active military operations. Frequently, regular troops become dependent on the services contractors provide a situation that may negatively impact military effectiveness. Since 1991, contractor support on and off the battlefield has become increasingly more visible, varied, and commonplace. Given the current manpower and resource limitations of the national military, the US will likely continue its extensive use of PMCs in support of military operations. This work addresses historical precedents and trends in American logistics, the current scope of contractor involvement in support of regular military forces, and the challenges posed as traditional military institutions integrate increasing numbers of civilian workers and privately owned assets into the battlespace. These problems increase the risk to US personnel and can induce budget overruns rather than savings, disrupt civil-military relations, and have detrimental consequences for the American economy and society. The work concludes by proposing a useful rubric to evaluate this new American way of war. This work considers PMCs and their interdependence with regular and reserve military units in a broad sense. It derives from unclassified material widely available; understandably, these sources limit the analysis. Lessons learned from the Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) theaters may alter findings. However, this study endeavors to frame the continuing dialog concerning the appropriate use of PMCs to support regular troops."--Abstract from DTIC web site.

The Market for Force

The Market for Force
Author: Deborah D. Avant
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2005-07-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781139446549

The legitimate use of force is generally presumed to be the realm of the state. However, the flourishing role of the private sector in security over the last twenty years has brought this into question. In this book Deborah Avant examines the privatization of security and its impact on the control of force. She describes the growth of private security companies, explains how the industry works, and describes its range of customers – including states, non-government organisations and commercial transnational corporations. She charts the inevitable trade-offs that the market for force imposes on the states, firms and people wishing to control it, suggests a new way to think about the control of force, and offers a model of institutional analysis that draws on both economic and sociological reasoning. The book contains case studies drawn from the US and Europe as well as Africa and the Middle East.