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Journal of Military Ethics
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The Ethical Implications of the Use of
Private Military Force: Regulatable or
Irreconcilable?
a
Dimitrios Machairas
a
Independent researcher, London, UK
Published online: 08 May 2014.
To cite this article: Dimitrios Machairas (2014) The Ethical Implications of the Use of Private
Military Force: Regulatable or Irreconcilable?, Journal of Military Ethics, 13:1, 49-69, DOI:
10.1080/15027570.2014.908645
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2014.908645
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THE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE
USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE:
REGULATABLE OR IRRECONCILABLE?
Dimitrios Machairas
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Independent researcher, London, UK
This paper attempts to present an examination of the ethical/normative ramifications involved
with the growing use of private military and security companies, provide some original insight, and
probe the question of the degree to which potential regulatory efforts can effectively address the
nature of the moral concerns thereby raised. The implications examined focus mainly on relevant
principles and concepts of the just war tradition and how they relate to the issue of state control
over military action, as well as the ethical/political consequences of public accountability and
democratic control over force. The paper concludes that the use of private military force is currently
still inconsistent with well-established ethical norms to a significant degree, perhaps one that
cannot be easily overcome through legal instruments without a corresponding shift in the ethics of
warfare itself.
KEY WORDS: Privatisation of war, private military companies, private security companies,
just war theory, proper cause, right intention, democratic control over force
Introduction
The rise of the private military services industry was spurred by a combination of factors
involving systemic, geopolitical and ideological changes. A major driver of the privatisation
of security was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bipolar international system, which
deprived certain regions, and especially parts of the developing world, of their geopolitical
importance and hence of the military support that they had been receiving from the two
superpowers. Simultaneously, the demand for security in these regions was maintained by
the presence and operations of non-state actors, as well as the re-emergence of inter- and
intrastate tensions that had been suppressed during the Cold War. This shortage of security
services was compensated by private military companies (PMCs), which absorbed the
significant labour force that had recently been demobilized from national armies, especially
in the USA and Russia (Singer 2003: 64–65, Spearin 2001: 27–28, Wulf 2005: 169–170). At
the same time, it appears that there has been a transformation in the nature of warfare as
conflicts are now arguably less motivated by ideological or religious considerations and
increasingly based on pure profiteering and resource appropriation (Singer 2003: 64–65).
An equally decisive factor has been the general trend of privatisation and outsourcing. The
deliberate broad downsizing of government functions and budgets in many countries, as
well as the oft-claimed ideological victory of the private over the public sector arguably
precipitated by neo-liberal, free-market philosophy, made outsourcing the next logical
Journal of Military Ethics, 2014
Vol. 13, No. 1, 49–69, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2014.908645
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
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D. MACHAIRAS
step, and led to the current, unprecedented degree of privatisation of the military services
industry (Dunne & Surry 2006: 413–416, Singer 2003: 66–70). This paper will attempt to
present an examination of the ethical ramifications involved with this growing use of
private military force that relate to relevant concepts of the just war tradition, to provide
some original insight, and to probe the question of the degree to which potential
regulatory efforts can effectively address the nature of the moral concerns thereby raised. It
will use the term ‘private military company’ to refer to any kind of private military or
security company – excluding from consideration those that provide support of a purely
civilian nature, like medical services, housing, catering, and so on – and will adopt the
definition of PMCs given by Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt (2007: 3) as ‘firms
providing services outside their home states with the potential for use of lethal force, as
well as of training and advice to militaries that substantially affects their war-fighting
capabilities’.1
Proper Cause and Right Intention
One of the most persistent moral objections against the use of private military force is the
claim that PMCs lack a socially acceptable cause for participating in an armed conflict. The
idea is that killing in warfare can only be justified if it involves attachment to a higher
cause, depending, of course, on the morals of the given society or era under consideration.
What is more, PMCs and their employees are considered to be primarily motivated by the
prospect of financial gain, which is exactly the main characteristic of a mercenary as
defined in international humanitarian law. Of course, it is not financial motivation per se
that is morally problematic here, but rather its coincidence with the application of military
force, which normally entails causing harm to others. It should be noted that this objection
can even cover private military personnel that do not actually engage in tactical combat if
the underlying notion of inflicting harm is extended to cover also those who assist others
in doing so, for example by providing training and protection (Pattison 2008: 145). In fact,
such broadening of the concept would not be unfounded, as it already finds an analogous
application in common state law for those consciously complicit in criminal activity.
A counter-argument asserts that the above objection pertains to soldiers serving in
regular armed forces as well. Indeed, most countries, including those making extensive use
of PMCs, like the USA and Britain, have professional standing armies rather than conscriptbased ones, and many of those seeking a military career path may have been induced to
do so by the prospect of securing a stable, well-paid job. Logically, this must be the case
especially in poor countries with high unemployment rates and/or dictatorial regimes.
Furthermore, it can be argued that PMC employees may have been motivated also by
other, morally acceptable considerations like national loyalty, or even by a desire to
commit themselves to a greater cause. However, as Tony Lynch and A. J. Walsh point out, it
is crucial to distinguish between the case where financial gain is only one among a variety
of factors that a person considers before acting, and the case of what they call lucrepaths,
that is, those who have financial remuneration as ‘the sole or the dominant consideration in
their practical deliberations’; it is exactly in virtue of their lucrepathology that these
individuals are differentiated from regular soldiers and ethically condemned (Lynch &
Walsh 2000: 136). Extending this rationale to the level of the PMCs themselves can provide
further credence to the case that private contractors are in this respect distinct from state
militaries, since these companies are essentially profit-seeking organisations and, as such,
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ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE
they are expected to operate with the maximisation of their wealth and profits as their
ultimate goal.
So if we recognise this qualitative distinction between private contractors and
regular militaries, are we necessarily to conclude that the lack of a just cause or right
intention makes the use of PMCs unethical? Lynch and Walsh assert that such a suggestion
is problematic because (1) the ambiguity of the notion of ‘right intention’ may be seen as
ultimately allowing for only one kind of right intention, that is, ‘patriotic defence of the
nation-state’; (2) it is impossible for all warring parties to share such a prerequisite, since, as
is implied, in the outbreak of any interstate conflict there has to be at least one aggressor;
and (3) the way that modern national militaries are organised and function does not really
allow individual soldiers the freedom to be guided by their own moral judgement when
participating in an armed conflict (Lynch & Walsh 2000: 134). However, as Pattison points
out, this line of defence of PMCs fails to address the essence of the objection to them,
namely, the presence of an inappropriate motive, rather than the absence of an
appropriate one: the use of private military force is considered morally problematic
because PMCs and their employees are primarily driven by the prospect of financial gain –
which is widely considered an unacceptable motive in the context of armed conflict – not
merely because they are lacking in patriotism or any other honourable incentive (Pattison
2008: 146).2
At this point, it can, nevertheless, be argued that motives are not, or should not be
considered, so intrinsically important in the overall conduct of war. Pattison (2008: 147)
draws a clear distinction between motives, which are the underlying reasons driving our
behaviour, and intentions, that is, the specific aims and objectives of our actions, proposing
that the latter are a far more crucial parameter in the discussion of the use of PMCs. He
argues that a private contractor may not be sharing the just cause of the decision-makers
authorising the application of military force, but his intention of carrying out his mission is
much more consequential than his motive for undertaking it in relation to the kind of
concerns that become central for the morality of a war, such as responding to a just cause,
avoiding disproportionate use of force, and discriminating between combatants and noncombatants (147–148). Pattison goes on to note that his point about the moral
insignificance of motives applies to any other reprehensible motive, like bloodlust for
example, the same way it does to that of financial gain, and, similarly, not only to PMCs and
their personnel, but also to those deciding the deployment of force and hiring their
services (148).
Even if we assume that motives are irrelevant to the justice of a war compared to
other, supposedly more serious considerations, intentions can be equally problematic as
there may arise significant divergence between the specific objectives of the client and
those of the private contractors that are hired to fulfil them. PMCs are profit-driven and
ultimately answerable to their shareholders, which means that their pecuniary motive will
most likely supersede any other consideration and affect the quality of their services,
especially in grave situations (Pattison 2008: 148, Schreier & Caparini 2005: 46).3 Unlike
most other commercial situations, the contracts signed with the private military industry
are usually vague, lack elements that are typically essential for their successful fulfilment –
such as well-established, verifiable standards of performance, clearly formulated escape
clauses, and other safeguards and requirements – and, most important, they are not
subject to adequate monitoring and oversight, given the general secrecy around them, and
the complicated and uncertain nature of the environment in which the services in question
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are provided, that is, in the midst of war (Singer 2003: 152–153). These contractual
problems have a direct impact on the battlefield. As Peter Singer explains:
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[PMCs retain] a choice over which contracts to take and can abandon or suspend
operations for any reason, including if they become too dangerous or unprofitable; their
employees, unlike soldiers, can always choose to walk off the job. Such freedom can leave
the military in the lurch, as has occurred several times already in Iraq: during periods of
intense violence, numerous private firms delayed, suspended, or ended their operations,
placing great stress on U.S. troops. (Singer 2005: 124)
It is important to note that such a course of action on the part of a PMC does not seem to
have the negative effects that it would normally have in other business contexts for a
company that chooses to deviate from or unilaterally abrogate a contract. For example,
one of the largest American military service providers, DynCorp, continued to enjoy a
highly profitable relationship with various US agencies, receiving contracts to operate
around the world, even after having given up its mission and broken its contract in the face
of heavy fighting in Liberia in the late 1990s (Spearin 2005: 246). It is logical to assume that
this regulatory and contractual inadequacy contributes to a certain sense of impunity on
behalf of PMCs, which in turn allows a firm the freedom to pursue its own, profitmaximising objectives during the course of a mission, with potentially adverse effects for
the objectives of the client. Clearly, the issue of right intention is equally problematic to
that of proper (or just) cause.
The above discussion of objectives also suggests that Pattison’s distinction between
motives and intentions is perhaps meaningless in terms of a moral evaluation regarding
the use of private force. Contrary to his claim, the presence of a right cause is intrinsically
significant and highly relevant to the justice of a war, and on a more fundamental level
than that of a right intention. As Fred Schreier and Marina Caparini point out, ‘the profit
motive and the inflexibility of contractor personnel also contribute to their lack of
commitment to the overall objectives of the military mission’ (Schreier & Caparini 2005: 46).
PMCs may initially possess the right intention, that is, to fulfil their contractual obligations,
but it is exactly their financial motive that ultimately determines their intentions and
actions in any given situation. What becomes apparent is that the pecuniary motive on the
part of PMCs does not only violate the ethical imperative of just cause in itself, but can also
work to demoralise and delegitimise the just cause and good intentions of the client in the
case of a divergence. In any case, motive has always had a central role in ethics as a basis
for moral judgements. As long as the principle of just cause is still strong in the law of war
– meaning that the reason for participating in armed conflict should be just – and financial
gain is considered unacceptable as a primary motive, the use of private military force will
remain morally problematic.
For sure, there are practical problems regarding the identification and evaluation of
motives. As Sarah Percy (2007b: 17) observes, the objection under discussion regarding
PMCs may appear unwarranted, since it is extremely difficult actually to assess the weight
of financial remuneration in a private actor’s motivation, or prove that it entails bad
behaviour, or that PMCs cannot match the degree to which national military forces are
committed to and motivated by the common good. But, such a conclusive proof as is
implied here may not really be necessary. Profiteering can lead to immoral behaviour in
any context, yet it is considered particularly egregious in the case of armed conflict exactly
because of the potential severity of the consequences, which are typically to be measured
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ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE
in human lives, suffering and destruction, not simply financial losses. The aim of the
currently established norms regarding war is to limit its occurrence, extent and brutality.
The mere fact that the promotion of the financial motive in the conduct of war runs
contrary to this peace-seeking ethos of our era, simply by introducing yet another motive
for which to participate in organised violence, can be deemed sufficient to justify its moral
condemnation.
Overall, it appears that the objection against the privatisation of military force on the
basis of the profit motive of PMCs and their personnel is firm, well-founded and, hence,
very difficult to set aside. Human enquiry has always been preoccupied with the ‘why’ of
natural and social phenomena, so, motives, as the underlying causes of human behaviour,
are central in the study of war, and rightly so. Wars can be caused by greed, and the
international community has been developing prescriptive institutional mechanisms as a
response, especially during the last 100 years. As long as the currently established
normative concepts require states to have a just reason for initiating war, ruling out mere
resource appropriation or any other purely economic motivation, they cannot but stand
critical of the financial motive in the case of the individual actors participating in it as well.
State, Democracy and the Control over Force
A second moral concern over the privatisation of military force revolves around the
principles of state monopoly on violence and of the democratic control of the state defence
and security apparatus. The idea is that the state is the only legitimate authority in the
continuum of political action and organisation with regard to armed force, while its citizenry
should be directly involved in the decision-making processes leading to the use of force, as
well as in its actual application, in virtue of the public’s unassailable right to have a weighty
influence on the policies of the state, especially on issues as grave and consequential as war.
As will be shown, the use of PMCs can undermine both of these imperatives.
The origins of the modern norm of the state monopoly on physical force can be
traced back to the seventeenth century, and the emergence of the state-centric
international system and the social contract theory, according to which citizens forfeit their
natural right to employ force in exchange for the protection of their individual and collective
safety by the sovereign.4 The use of armed force becomes the exclusive right of the state,
which assumes the responsibility to preserve peace and stability within its territory, as well
as limit organised conflict across national borders. Indeed, in Max Weber’s (1964: 154)
popular conception this right constitutes a prerequisite to and defining characteristic of the
state: an entity is a ‘state’ if and insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim
on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in the enforcement of its order. The norm
has generally aimed at the containment of armed conflict globally, and contributed to the
delegitimisation of mercenarism and the creation of citizen armies.5
The Social Contract
The growth of the private military industry problematises the issue of the control over force
first by challenging established notions regarding state monopoly. According to the
international ethics of war, the initiation of armed conflict is morally justified only if it is
authorised by a legitimate body, and as mentioned above, the state has since Westphalia
been considered the only such legitimate authority, along with certain intergovernmental
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D. MACHAIRAS
institutions that have emerged after the end of the Second World War, like the UN Security
Council. Singer has argued that when a state employs PMCs, the implications for the notion
of the social contract are significant. The state practically revokes its responsibility to
provide public national defence. The citizens now enjoy security based on the coincidence
of the firms’ financial interests with the employer’s objectives, not by right of their
allegiance to a state, as was traditionally conceived. Hence, the justification for the loyalty
of citizens to the state, as well as the latter’s legitimacy, is weakened. Overall, this situation
promotes the relevance of the market and economic interests to the field of high politics,
and can undermine public respect for governmental authority (Singer 2003: 226). On the
other hand, Pattison (2010: 436) makes an analogy between the common practice of the
formation of military alliances – which essentially places part of each state’s capability to
defend itself with external actors without weakening its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens
– with the hiring of PMCs in order to support the view that a state need not be the sole
provider of protection in the first place, but can act as an intermediary delegating its
function to private actors while preserving its legitimacy, as long as it ensures the
successful provision of security to its citizens.
However, Pattison’s point that the state chooses on its own will to outsource
components of its military functions and that it may do so successfully misses a key aspect
of the rationale behind the link of the state monopoly of force to the concept of the social
contract: individual rights are ceded and replaced by a single centralised authority largely
so that there is a quantitative limitation on the occurrence of armed violence. The hiring of
PMCs works in the opposite direction simply by increasing the number and type of actors
allowed to carry and use arms, and enhancing, by implication, the facility of both public
and private actors to seek the application of armed force for the promotion of their
interests. This is not the case with alliances among states, which arguably have, more often
than not, an intrinsic deterrent purpose and effect that limits the occurrence of war, and
where all aspects of military practice remain in the hands of public, centralised systems,
and there is no quantitative proliferation of access to military force by non-state actors.
Furthermore, possible international legislative attempts aiming at ensuring that only states
and state-based institutions are allowed to employ PMCs would essentially contradict the
claim that a state does not need to be the sole provider of security to its citizens. If the
effectiveness of the whole process of providing security is the criterion on which to judge
whether the state violates its side of the social contract or not, then the same, it can be
argued, should apply in the case of an oil company that operates in some weak state, for
example, seeking to provide security for itself, with the added benefit that public resources
are not committed towards private ends. In other words, if states need not be the exclusive
suppliers of military force, then they need not be the sole consumers either.
Legitimate Authority
Besides the above problem with the theoretical construct of the social contract, the hiring
of private contractors has raised ethical concerns regarding the overall control of force.
Central in this respect is the aforementioned principle of legitimate authority. Although the
principle has been challenged by the war in Iraq and cases of humanitarian crises,6 it is still
widely held that the use of military force must be authorised by a legitimate body. It has
been suggested that its literal application to the issue of PMCs apparently does not reveal
any major ethical problems, since it is states, not the firms themselves, that typically
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ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE
authorise the use of force (Pattison 2008: 151). But on a closer examination, there seem to
be several morally challenging aspects that should be of concern.
First, as has been mentioned, states and state-based institutions are not the exclusive
consumers of private military services; non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and
commercial companies have also employed private contractors for security purposes.
This may be morally inconsequential when the services take place in a stable environment,
say, some office complex in the middle of New York, yet it entails serious ramifications in
the context of a conflict zone. Consider the case of an oil company hiring a PMC to protect
one of its installations in a country torn by civil war or facing some form of armed
insurrection, which obviously would involve a significant probability of military engagement with local forces. Here, we would have private actors both authorising and
undertaking the use of force in the middle of a conflict, based on purely financial motives
and interests, and possibly in ignorance of, indifference to, or even active opposition to
public considerations of the justice of the war or conflict situation in question. If this takes
place in a state governed by an undemocratic regime, it is even likely that the insurgents
might consider the hiring company’s presence and operations there completely illegitimate. A similar situation actually arose in Colombia in 1997, when a PMC contracted by
British Petroleum (BP) to protect its pipelines purportedly trained a Colombian military unit
linked to past atrocities in counter-insurgency tactics, and provided it with information on
environmentalists, community leaders and other local civilians who were against BP’s
project, which led to kidnappings, torture and murders committed by the state military
(Singer 2003: 221). Apparently, PMCs have worked for a wide range of clients, including
rebel groups, drug cartels and prior to 9/11, two jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda
(Schreier & Caparini 2005: 68, Singer 2004: 9). Clearly, the employment of PMCs under the
current legal regime enables non-state actors to authorise the use of force in pursuit of
their own interests and agendas, possibly even in ways that are inherently immoral, and
certainly contrary to the principle of legitimate authority.
Secondly, even if the international community does develop a regulatory regime that
allows only states and state-based institutions to hire the services of PMCs – a decision
that, as has been mentioned above, would be logically arbitrary, and would also most likely
contradict established principles of free-market economics – the use of private force would
still pose problems for the notion of legitimate authority in two respects. One such
problem would be the case of states of dubious legitimacy in terms of public support, or
even outright authoritarian ones. Such governments are officially recognised as legitimate
authorities by the international system. Even when their legal status is challenged due to
extensive human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, and so on, it usually takes a long
time and a coincidence of political circumstances for the international community to
respond; in the meantime, such criminal regimes would be able to ‘lawfully’ employ PMCs
to assist them against their domestic opponents. In fact, Sandline International, a nowdefunct major private military firm, seriously contemplated working for President Mobutu
of Zaire in the 1990s, despite his regime’s evident corruption and aggressiveness, and in
the end refrained from closing the deal based not on moral grounds, but on the pragmatic
concern that Mobutu was apparently going to lose the civil war there, as the company
chief executive officer’s own autobiography revealed (Singer 2003: 225). Similarly, Executive
Outcomes (also now defunct) apparently had contacted the Mobutu government for work,
too, even though the latter was supporting hostile acts against Angola, the company’s then
employer, and explored the possibility of being contracted by the Rwandan Hutu
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D. MACHAIRAS
government to provide support against the pro-Tutsi RPF rebel group (Cullen 2000: 39,
Singer 2003: 225). These cases illustrate that even if a PMC is committed to working only
for formally legitimate authorities, it can easily end up, knowingly or not, assisting
murderous regimes. Any state finding itself entangled in such a development – militarily
helping a morally culpable regime – would suffer significant damage to its domestic and
international public image, and is thus less likely to reach decisions lightly; PMCs, on the
other hand, can possibly avoid serious repercussions due to the limited attention that their
operations normally draw.7
The other respect in which the use of private force exclusively by states might be
claimed to be inconsistent with the principle of legitimate authority is related to the
possible side effects for states that actually enjoy an unquestionable public legitimacy. As
the previous discussion on the social contract indicated, the state’s contracting of private
actors for security and defence introduces perhaps too much of a market element in its
relationship with its citizens, and may undermine its legitimacy in the public’s eye. So far,
there has been little scientific insight regarding public opinion on PMCs. One piece of
academic research drawing on an experiment-based survey revealed that US citizens felt
equally saddened and angered by the deaths of Americans in Iraq regardless of whether
the casualties involved regular soldiers or private contractors, although they did tend to
see soldiers as motivated by patriotism more than private contractors. Indeed, the more
information they received on PMCs, the more likely they were to see the latter as
motivated by financial gain (Avant & Sigelman 2008: 31–32). The study also indicated that
the nationality and status of the casualties (whether soldier or private contractor) had
minimal effect on public consent and support for the US involvement in Iraq, or on
evaluations of how well the situation there was progressing (32, 35). However, the authors
also point out that there is a general lack of information on private contractor casualties,
and a lack of transparency regarding the effect of private security on US foreign policy,
suggesting that ‘if the level of transparency surrounding the level of private security were
to increase, the American public would not shrug off the development but engage more
actively in debate about it’ (27).8 On the other hand, a November 2012 study by the UK’s
Ministry of Defence, which explored ways of influencing public support of military
endeavours, suggested, among other things, an increased use of ‘private security
contractors’, explaining that both the media and the public appear less casualty-averse
when it comes to contractors, compared to the country’s ‘own forces’ (Quinn 2013).9 This
rationale is also indicative of the potential dangers to the public’s control over force, which
will be discussed later. In any case, it appears that with the current, inadequate degree of
academic grasp of this particular issue, only hypotheses can be formed regarding the
possible impact of the use of PMCs on the legitimacy of a hiring state in which the general
public is well informed about the nature, extent and possible consequences of the use of
private military force.
Nevertheless, it can be intuitively and logically argued that at least some citizens
might exhibit a reduced level of respect and loyalty to their state, in the same way that
considerable parts of societies across the world have felt frustrated and neglected by their
governments when other essential state functions, like the provision of health services, for
example, were extensively privatised. The legitimacy of a state is conditioned by its
capacity to provide services that have been normatively established to constitute its main
responsibilities exactly because they are considered essential for human well-being, and it
was traditionally understood that it is better that they are made available centrally by a
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ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE
collective institution rather than left to be sought individually by each member of a
community. If all these basic services become privatised, then, at best, the state’s role is
reduced to being an intermediary that simply decides which private company will provide
a certain service to the public. According to Elke Krahmann (2009: 15), there has been a
clear transformation of the norm, involving ‘a change in the ideal role of the state from
monopoly provider of security to a manager of the legal context in which public and
private actors may legitimately employ armed force’. Taking this development to the
extreme, it might eventually seem that there remains no reason for the state to levy taxes
and, consequently, no reason for it to exist; the very notion of the state becomes obsolete.
Obviously, we are far from witnessing such a development, yet the point to be made here
is that the growing use of PMCs can reinforce the momentum of the current privatisation
trend, which could theoretically lead to the ultimate abandonment of the idea of the state
as a constructive form of social and political organisation.
On a more specific level, it is generally believed that the existence of citizen or
professional armies contributes to the development and maintenance of beneficial
communal ties among citizens, and to an enhanced identification with national interests,
which in turn also increases the legitimacy of the state as the political manifestation of
these communal bonds. On the contrary, the use of PMCs transforms communal defence
from a collective responsibility based on common good and shared pride to a pragmatic
necessity arising from market-based competition and individualistic concerns over one’s
safety (Pattison 2010: 437–438). As a response to these objections, three possible
counterarguments can be identified: (1) many private contractors are nationals of the
hiring country, hence, communal identity is not weakened; (2) PMCs can actually
strengthen communal ties by assisting in a defensive war, or by providing security in
weak states where the military may not have the interest or the ability to do so effectively;
and (3) it is preferable to use private contractors, and especially non-citizens, precisely so
that the risk to the lives of fellow compatriots is minimised, particularly for operations that
are not vital to national interests, like humanitarian interventions or any other mission
aiming at simply supporting foreigners.
These responses, however, are not very convincing. To begin with, (1) and (3) are
mutually contradicting, in as much as the alleged benefits of PMCs cannot exist at the same
time: if the employment of private contractors of the same nationality as the client state
preserves communal identity, then it also weakens communal ties by putting fellow citizens
at risk, and vice versa. Furthermore, (1) may in fact not be true, since many states actually
end up using mainly foreign private contractors because PMCs prefer to hire local personnel
when possible, in order to minimise costs and legal obstacles. In Iraq, for example, 113,000
of the approximately 180,000 contractors were Iraqis (Brooks & Chorey 2008: 119). The
second response simply shows that the use of private force may occasionally affect
communal ties positively, ignoring the fact that PMCs can also potentially help a state
pursue interventionist policies abroad or an unpopular government to stay in power, and
does not really disprove the claim that it may be preferable even for a weak state to protect
itself with its regular forces rather than use PMCs, since this would probably have a greater
positive impact in terms of domestic cohesion (Pattison 2010: 439).10 The third response, on
the other hand, may seem valid from a purely pragmatic perspective. But as Pattison
correctly points out, it disagrees with a universal moral understanding that assigns equal
worth to the lives of all human beings, by implying that the death of a non-citizen is morally
less objectionable than that of a citizen (Pattison 2010: 439–440).
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An issue that could also be brought up here is the moral significance of communal
identity. This may be subject to change or indeed to replacement by that of ideologies like
globalism and cosmopolitanism.11 It may initially appear that communal identity pertains
only to relatively small communities and that its importance diminishes as the size of the
community increases, but this is not necessarily true. Regardless of the level of social
organisation (village, state, supranational union, etc.), communal identity remains relevant
to the cohesion of the social unit in question. Even if humanity achieves an unprecedented
degree of global assimilation and the term ‘global community’ acquires in the future a more
‘tangible’ referent, equally global communal ties will be necessary to hold it together.
Indeed, it can be argued, for example, that the EU has thus far failed to attain the envisioned
level of political integration exactly because it still lacks a sufficient level of communal
bonding. The use of PMCs appears to undermine communal identity – no matter the size of
the community, I maintain – primarily, as has been discussed, because of their profit motive
and the idea that there is something ethically vital with the members of a society
contributing to its protection collectively, out of a spirit of shared belonging and pride.
The Effects on State Authority and Control over Force
So, what is the impact of the private military industry on the state monopoly on violence
and the degree of its control over force in general? Obviously, the state no longer enjoys
that monopoly, since international institutions, NGOs, multinational corporations and other
non-state actors can employ PMCs for the armed protection of their operations in conflict
zones. Observers have argued that this has not had a significant effect on the overall
control of force. Avant (2004: 156) claims that although the privatisation of security alters
the way that the power over the control of force is allocated within states by augmenting
the relevance of market mechanisms and spreading control to a larger range of actors,
these changes do not really impair the state’s control of violence so much as introduce
new trade-offs in terms of the political processes deciding over the use of force. Similarly,
Sarah Percy argues that home states have managed to maintain a tight relationship with
the private military industry. In the USA, American PMCs that seek to provide services to
foreign nationals are required by the Arms Export Control Act of 1968 to be registered with
and licensed by the State Department, which practically means that they only accept
assignments approved by the US government. In the UK, the government is typically
notified before British-based firms agree on a contract and has occasionally stopped
operations that it did not endorse, despite the more informal regulatory regime compared
to the USA (Percy 2007a: 234). As the author puts it, ‘we may disapprove of the way in
which the Western state uses private force, but its control over the political decision to use
private force seems undisputed’ (235).
Assuming for the time being that the state still keeps the political decision-making
processes that lead to the application of military force under its control, what remains to be
examined is whether this is also the case with the application of force itself, that is, the
actual execution of a mission. As the previous discussion on causes and motives showed,
the hiring state has in fact little control over how the contract is going to be carried out,
and PMCs enjoy a freedom of action that ranges from decisions on the appropriate tactics,
weapons and number of personnel to the complete abandonment of a mission. In addition
to the inadequate contractual regime, what has allowed such a liberty is the fact that
private contractors have not been part of the regular military chain of command and,
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hence, are only required to report to their corporate bosses (Schreier & Caparini 2005: 46–
47). In the USA, private contractors are not integrated into the human capital strategic
plans of the Department of Defense, and military command officials arguably have little
knowledge of the overall number of contractors deployed in their area of operation,
since contracts can be awarded by a variety of governmental agencies, which inhibits the
synchronisation of contractor activity with that of regular forces (US General Accounting
Office 2003: 3, 18, 31–33). In Iraq, where precise routes and times for contractor convoys
are rarely provided by PMC personnel, this lack of awareness and coordination has led to
absurd circumstances like in Najaf, where private contractors defended the headquarters of
the Coalition Provisional Authority, with the military officials learning of the attack only
hours later (47). Another significant practical problem in terms of operational flexibility
comes from the uncertainty and unexpectedness inherent in warfare. As new situations
arise and mission requirements change, military commanders may end up having to
rewrite or renegotiate contracts literally in the heat of battle or, even worse, prepare for the
possibility that PMC personnel may ultimately decide to leave the battle space (48).12 All
these problems create a picture of somewhat limited state control over the actual
implementation of a military mission, in as much as there is some corporate field manager
to whom private soldiers report and whose (financially motivated) decisions outweigh any
previously undertaken commitments or client’s objectives.
On a more theoretical level, states cannot really force PMC personnel to abide by
their contractual obligations ‘to the end’, that is, even in the face of probable death.
Regular soldiers sign up to their country’s military in the knowledge that they can be
required to make the ultimate sacrifice during battle, and are bound by an obligation to
carry out their duty that is based on a state–soldier relationship with deep political, social
and anthropological foundations. A private military contractor, on the other hand, may also
accept the risks involved in his or her possible participation in armed combat, but the
contract that he or she signs is a financial agreement and, as such, does not morally require
him or her to stay loyal to any authority or higher cause, let alone sacrifice his or her life.
This difference is crucial in warfare: a military cannot operate effectively unless it is able to
rely on the willingness of its armed personnel to carry out their mission even in the face of
certain death. Hence, the employment of private force may undermine the ability of a state
to fight just wars, since private contractors cannot be demanded to make such a sacrifice
(Pattison 2010: 440–442). At this point, it can be argued that the eventual abolition of
obligatory sacrifice might actually bring benefits that offset the above problem in as much
as it would save the lives of so many soldiers who are often sacrificed in futile operations,
and would impair the capacity to wage unjust wars as well. Pattison’s response to this is
that those states that might embark on an unjust war will most likely not have any moral
reservations in violating such a rule and ordering their soldiers to their death or executing
those that do not obey in order to acquire a military advantage over an opponent who
would refrain from doing the same; hence, abandoning the idea of obligatory sacrifice
would undermine the effectiveness of states fighting just wars without yielding any real
benefits (Pattison 2010: 442). Nonetheless, a more valid defence of the use of private force
in this particular issue might be the fact that wars are perhaps rarely so clear-cut in terms
of judging with which side morality lies, and external, neutral observers may hold widely
differing views. In many conflicts, both parties are convinced of having a just cause, and so
both may avoid demanding excessive sacrifice from their militaries. In such cases where
both warring parties also use private force extensively, the benefits of the minimisation of
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sacrifice in terms of human lives would come at no cost since neither party can take
advantage of the other’s weakened effectiveness, and perhaps many unnecessary deaths
can be avoided. The problem in such situations is that these benefits would obviously
diminish as well, since states will not be requiring unjustified sacrifice in the first place. In
any case, the main question in the discussion of sacrifice is whether the use of private force
undermines the effectiveness of the military and, therefore, reduces the state’s control over
the evolution of a war; and, it appears this is the case regardless of the morality of the war,
although the issue does become ethically more poignant and consequential when a state
using private force is defending against unjust aggression.
Moreover, states rely on the notion of sacrifice and the aforementioned soldier–state
relationship not only in fighting wars but also in deciding to wage them. As in the example
of a humanitarian intervention, private contractors might be unwilling to undertake an
otherwise just military operation if they consider it not lucrative enough for the risk
involved, unlike regular soldiers, who can be compelled to fight under any circumstances.
A state that relies heavily on PMCs will in such cases have difficulty counting on them to
stay on their mission in calamitous situations, or even amassing the necessary military force
in the first place, and, hence, might not resolve to wage a just war that it wishes to wage
(Pattison 2010: 442–443), since these practical considerations are known beforehand and
are part of the decision-making and planning processes preceding the exercise of military
force. Overall, it appears that the use of PMCs weakens the ability of the state both to
decide upon and wage war, by adding agents to the war effort the actions of whom it
cannot control by authority to the same degree as those of its regular soldiers.
There are also other factors further indicating the diminishing authority and control
of the state over the use of force. One is the increasing assumption by PMCs of the
responsibility to evaluate, plan and develop not only the fundamentals of the organisation
of national armed forces themselves – such as restructuring, leadership training, and
strategic, operational and tactical doctrine – but also the mechanisms by which their very
own activities are to be sought, regulated and assessed by client states (Leander 2006: 91–
93). Highly indicative is the fact that 42 per cent of the procurement specialists of the
Contracting Center of Excellence – the Army Contracting Agency’s body responsible for
overseeing procurements – were found to be contractors themselves, according to a
review of the US Government Accountability Office (Barnes 2013: 211). This could lead to
the promotion of corporate norms at the expense of public ones: in the words of Anna
Leander (2006: 93–94), ‘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’. In
some countries, like Saudi Arabia, PMCs ‘virtually run the armed forces’, being so deeply
involved in the security apparatus that the notion of national sovereignty may be put into
question (O’Brien 1998: 95). Another indicator is the proliferation of small arms and light
weapons to which the growing legitimisation of PMCs contributes. In Afghanistan, for
example, where only the government, foreign militaries and embassies are allowed to
import weapons, these firms usually end up hiring already-armed local staff without
checking the source of their weapons, or buy arms for their employees on the black
market; in Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea, they have even acted as arms brokers
(Krahmann 2009: 24, Schmeidl 2008: 14).
Furthermore, weak states, where PMCs are typically deployed, see their authority
particularly challenged, since, exactly as their status implies, they cannot adequately
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enforce local laws to control the operations of these firms or punish misconduct
(Krahmann 2009: 25). In Bosnia, PMC personnel involved in sex crimes and trafficking of
girls as young as 12 were whisked away from the country and never prosecuted, while the
employees who had uncovered the scandal were fired (Barnett & Hughes 2001, Capps
2002). In Iraq, in the oft-cited Nisour Square incident, employees of the firm Blackwater
(now renamed Academi) escorting an American diplomatic convoy killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
Although a military report concluded that the contractors had used excessive force in
an indiscriminate manner and all of the deaths were unjustified, the contractors were
protected by Order 17, the Coalition Provisional Authority rule issued in 2004, which stated
that in fulfilling their contracts, private security personnel are not subject to Iraqi law
(Hemingway 2007, Risen & Mazzetti 2009b).13 It should be noted that top executives of the
firm had subsequently sought to bribe Iraqi officials in order to silence protests, while the
charges brought against the Blackwater security guards in the USA were eventually
dismissed by the court (MacAskill 2009, Risen & Mazzetti 2009b). In Nigeria, PMCs and
transnational corporations have cooperated with and assisted corrupt elements of the
national police, while in Afghanistan, PMCs have acted as an independent police force
supplanting local agencies, setting up roadblocks and checkpoints, disturbing residents,
and giving an overall impression to the local population that they might be deliberately
contributing to a state of insecurity and fear in order to justify their presence there
(Krahmann 2009: 26, Schmeidl 2008: 27).
As the discussion above suggests, the ever-expanding use of private force reduces
the state’s authority and level of control over organised violence, running contrary to the
existing norms, and undermines the ethical imperative of limiting the occurrence and
effects of war. The extent to which the fading authority of the state also entails a
corresponding diminishing public one is to be examined next.
The Effects on Public Authority and Control over Force
Even if PMCs were under the tight control of the state, it is doubtful whether that would
be unconditionally advantageous. A major ethical concern regarding the use of private
force concerns the arguable reduction of the relevance of the public in the political
processes whereby governments decide to go to war. One dimension of this problem
revolves around the idea of democratic peace, one important version of which posits that
democracies, characterised by constitutionalism, liberal ideals, transparency and public
consent, will, in principle, pursue a more restrained foreign policy and develop a better
understanding, trust and closer ties within and between these self-same democracies.14
As has been pointed out, there is a general lack of transparency regarding the use of
private force. Only limited information reaches the public or even parliaments, because of
the regulatory inadequacies and the sensitive nature of the matter. This means that by
hiring private contractors, governments are able to evade potentially undesirable inputs
and objections from various political actors, quench public debate, minimise the political
costs that accompany war casualties and take military action that may otherwise not have
adequate public support to sustain it, eroding constitutionalism, and possibly undercutting
the trust that is shared with the citizenries of other democracies (Avant & Sigelman 2008:
38–41).15 In other words, the use of PMCs makes it easier for a state to go to war, by
reducing public oversight of the democratic processes pertaining to such a decision, and,
for the same reason, makes it also far less politically complicated and costly to maintain
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and prolong an unpopular war. By implication, a central aspect of democratic civil–military
relations, that is, the public’s sense of duty and responsibility towards their country and its
defence, is replaced by a financially motivated relationship that does not require any form
of loyalty to the community at large on the part of PMCs. The contemplation of the
morality of this latter kind of relationship, no matter the justice of a potential war cause,
has left the authors of a green paper ordered by the British parliament to examine possible
options for regulation of PMCs ‘uneasy’:
To encourage such activity seems contrary both to our values and to the way in which we
order society. In a democracy it seems natural that the state should be defended by its
own citizens since it is their state. And it is not an accident that the business of fighting
for money often brings in unattractive characters. (UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
2002: 18)
This lack of transparency around the use of private force also opens up opportunities for
democratic governments to engage in covert military action and foreign policy without
facing domestic or international protest. In the USA, for example, Congress has the
authority to oversee official policy but not private entities, so PMCs are not required by law
to respond to any questions from the legislature or the press, and it can often be arranged
that they are paid by third parties or through off-budget funds, or that they are chartered
in extraterritorial accounts to avoid even that feeble restriction whereby the Congress is
notified of signed contracts of more than $50 million (Singer 2003: 214). Thus, such firms
can and purportedly have undertaken covert operations for governments (Singer 2003: 48,
Zarate 1998: 148). David J. Francis (1999: 323) has argued that PMCs that have been
deployed in Africa were ‘privately approved by Western governments and international
financial institutions’, and that ‘when Western governments are unwilling to intervene in a
domestic conflict, mercenary armies are covertly supported to do their “dirty” jobs’. PMCs
may also cooperate with state intelligence agencies, augmenting their ability to act
clandestinely, and, in fact, one of the few contractors to have been brought to trial for
misconduct during the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq was actually working for the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has been widely known to employ private contractors
(Avant & Sigelman 2008: 37).16 Indeed, as Singer points out, some sectors of the private
military industry have now even eliminated the need for secret agencies to set up the
‘front companies’ of the past (Singer 2003: 48). Certainly, the potential value of secrecy in
policymaking is a matter of debate, yet any tool that enhances the ability of the executive
branch to circumvent the system of democratic checks and balances should give rise to
concern, if only for its ethical implications. Many unsavoury or completely illegitimate
practices have often been kept secret from the public under the excuse of national
security, only to be later proven as serving narrow interests rather than the common good.
In the context of armed conflict, where, naturally, the consequences of any kind of
wrongdoing are severe and usually affect not only the combatants, but also noncombatants and the international community at large, the participation of PMCs in
clandestine operations can significantly increase the threat to democratic ideals.
PMCs can also offer governments a way to conduct foreign policy by proxy and
pursue agendas often distinctly different from those officially declared, while maintaining
plausible deniability. In 1995, American private military trainers supposedly hired by the
Croatian army to teach democratic civil–military relations, were rumoured to have actually
helped them prepare their offensive, Operation Storm, in violation of the UN general arms
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embargo in Yugoslavia, which the USA officially supported. When the Hague tribunal later
sought to prosecute three Croatian generals for war crimes committed during that
operation, the USA refused to cooperate with investigators and supported the Croatian
case before the tribunal (Avant 2000: 2, Leander 2006: 107).17 Similarly, French intelligence
used a mining company as a cover for mercenary forces who fought against the
democratically elected government in Congo-Brazzaville in 1997, in direct contrast to the
efforts of the UN to intervene to prevent the subversion of the government (Francis 1999:
334). That same year, in the notorious Arms to Sierra Leone Affair, the British government
knowingly allowed a PMC to break the UN arms embargo by providing arms and training
in the African country, in order to help restore a regime there that would be more
amenable to its political and economic interests (Francis 1999: 334). In weak or illegitimate
states, on the other hand, it is even more likely that the hiring of private force is not
intended to serve domestic or international security in the first place. PMCs present illiberal
regimes with additional power in foreign endeavours, and an indifferent or even
unscrupulous ally against internal opponents. The South African apartheid regime, for
example, had used mercenaries extensively in the 1980s to covertly destabilise its
neighbours, and later on even Nelson Mandela’s government had approved Executive
Outcomes’ contracts abroad, and allowed the firm to recruit many of its former enemies in
the apartheid-era special forces units that had been used to subvert neighbouring
countries and forestall domestic opposition (Zarate 1998: 93, 102, 132, n. 349). In Sierra
Leone, Angola and Papua New Guinea, PMCs have been employed to fight in civil wars.
While national armies are logically expected to display at least some level of restraint in
using military force against fellow compatriots, or even disobey orders, PMCs will, in
principle, be more committed to the interests of their clients, devoid of any strong sense of
consideration of or duty towards the community in which they operate.
To recapitulate, an examination of the effects of the private military industry on the
control over force indicates that, at least de facto, state authority is gradually fading when it
comes to the use of armed force. The so-called state monopoly over organised violence no
longer exists, as non-state actors can legitimately employ PMCs to protect and promote
their interests within a vague and loose legal regime that allows considerable freedom of
action both to the firms themselves and to their clients. Even when PMCs operate
seemingly in close connection to a hiring or host state, a number of ethical concerns are
raised. Military decisions, especially on the tactical level, are made on the spot by persons
whose primary loyalty lies with individual and corporate financial interests, often contrary
to state objectives, and key functions of national defence are privatised, ultimately
diminishing the control over the processes by which a government decides on and applies
the use of military force. At the same time, public authority is undermined either indirectly
through this transfer of control from collective to private entities, or directly through the
collaboration of the latter two in ways that pose a clear threat to democratic ideals.
Conclusion: Is Regulation Enough?
This paper has examined the ethical implications of the use of private military force in
order to shed some additional light on the nature of the moral concerns involved and to
probe the question of the extent to which these concerns can be successfully dealt with by
regulation. First, the mercenary motive poses for PMCs and their personnel a significant
moral challenge, which cannot be easily bypassed. It provides the decisive factor that
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determines both their intentions and their actions at any given time, and may lead them
even to join an unmistakably unjust cause or abandon their mission when fighting for a
just one. The issue of motive is of a purely moral nature and, thus, perhaps impossible to
deal with through regulation or a change in practice without a dramatic shift in the
corresponding norm towards the legitimisation of the profit motive in the context of war.
Another serious implication of the growth of the private military industry involves
the gradual diffusion of control over the use of force among a wider range of actors, with
adverse effects in terms of state legitimacy and cohesion, democratic accountability and
the common good, as it appears that whichever degree of control over force passes into
the hands of private actors is ultimately taken away from the public. In this respect, it is
unlikely that potential legal responses by the international community would succeed in
eliminating the fundamental moral concerns regarding the control over force. For example,
a possible prohibition of non-state actors from employing PMCs would be surprisingly
contradictory to the currently dominant economic philosophy and what many see as the
global privatisation trend, and would likely meet the market’s strong opposition especially
given the state’s decreasing willingness in terms of security provision. It would also change
nothing in the ability of illiberal and illegitimate regimes to empower themselves further by
hiring PMCs in addition to their own means.
Furthermore, it seems that, in general, tighter regulation of private military force
could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, current inadequacies may present a
highly problematic state of affairs, whereby PMCs enjoy limited legal and public
accountability, relative impunity, and significant flexibility of options. It is still doubtful
whether governments indeed wish to implement more stringent regulatory regimes. For
example, one of the newest major international attempts to clarify the legal status of and
further regulate the operations of PMCs, the Montreux Document on Pertinent International
Legal Obligations and Good Practices for States Related to Operations of Private Military and
Security Companies during Armed Conflict (Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
2008), ended up with the 17 signatory states merely reaffirming the supposed applicability
of the existing international humanitarian law and calling for voluntary ‘good practices’ on
behalf of PMCs, essentially refusing to give in to pressures for stronger regulation
(Krahmann 2009: I, 1). This may indicate that governments are actually unwilling to
develop regulation that would perhaps deprive them of whatever political and economic
advantages they see in the use of private force. Such a prospect would present the other
side of the problem of stronger regulation: even if states do assume a closer legal control
of the operations of PMCs, that kind of enhanced cooperation would further legitimise the
private military industry contrary to the existing norm of state monopoly, and might
actually provide to governments inclined to use PMCs in ways that undermine public
authority more opportunities to do so.
As with other services, for which regulatory modifications first legalised their private
provision and then contributed to a demise of the quality of their public counterpart in
many cases, it is likely that any change would actually increase the legitimacy of the private
military industry without ensuring that the wider public is benefited. In any case, the
growing use of private military force clearly challenges the ethical standard that sees the
profit motive as largely incompatible with warfare, and makes an already tragic and chaotic
aspect of human life even more perplexing and certainly less transparent. It appears that it
is inconsistent with well-established norms to a significant degree, perhaps to a degree
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCE
that cannot be easily overcome by legal instruments without a corresponding shift in the
ethics of warfare itself.
NOTES
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
As the authors point out, this definition bypasses the ambiguity of the terms ‘defensive/
offensive’ and ‘passive/active’ – which are often invoked by PMCs in the defence of their
legitimacy – and offers a more precise reflection of the kind of services that matter the
most from an ethical and legal perspective, by focusing on firms that provide their
services in the context of an armed conflict, as opposed to those operating in a stable
environment. See also the related analysis by David Barnes (2013) in this journal, which is
especially concerned with the use of private security companies in counter-insurgency
contexts.
As Pattison explains, the financial motive is generally considered problematic because it is
individualistic and may in extreme cases be reflecting a complete lack of moral inhibitions
in one’s conduct. He brings the example of private military contractors who provide their
services to drug cartels, terrorists or war criminal dictators. It is worth pointing out that
Uwe Steinhoff (2014) discusses the relationship between cause and intention in another
article in this same issue of Journal of Military Ethics.
Avant (2006: 336) cites difficulties even with logistics in Iraq when supply companies
occasionally failed to show up due to a reluctance to expose themselves to danger.
‘Natural’ here refers to the natural state of human existence, as opposed to human
organisation in civil societies.
Thomson (1994: 84–88) explains that concern that the actions of individual or groups of
citizens could draw states into war prompted rulers to promote the principle of state
control over violence and outlaw the use of mercenaries.
Tesón (2005: 17–18) argues that the moral legitimacy of UN organs and the Security
Council is seriously undermined by the fact that some of its members are actually
illegitimate by common democratic standards. In any case, the war in Iraq demonstrated
that (1) a war may be declared by a legitimate state authority, but still lack international
legitimacy, which raises the question of which of these two levels of political organisation
the principle of legitimate authority should primarily apply to, and (2) there may be two
facets of the concept of legitimacy: one that refers to its legal aspect in the context of
state and international law, and one that involves purely moral considerations, which
ultimately manifest themselves in the form of general public opinion; these two aspects
may be mutually conflicting, as in the case, for instance, where a person’s individual
disapproval of the war in Iraq as inherently immoral would most likely persist even if
there had been a Security Council authorisation. If we also consider the examples of
Rwanda and Kosovo, it appears that the use of military force may be widely considered
morally justified in terms of public approval and humanitarian principles long before it
becomes lawful by the approval of legal or political authorities. These cases highlight the
complexity of the question of the moral significance of the principle of legitimate
authority.
A study examining the New York Times’ news coverage of the US military versus private
contractors stated that ‘the only times when private security personnel amounted to
more than a blip on the media’s radar screen were when sensational events occurred
that involved PSC [private security company] employees’, and overall revealed an
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8.
9.
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10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
‘overwhelming lack of coverage for private security forces in Iraq’ (Avant & Sigelman 2008:
25, 27).
Quote on p. 39; also see note no. 7.
The study was obtained by The Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act. Note that
the phrase ‘own forces’ used by the study’s authors perhaps hints at the increasing
recruitment of third-country nationals by PMCs, and sheds an interesting light on the
question of whether the military sees contractors in general as truly part of the war effort
in terms of emotional inclusion and identification.
A similar argument is also in Percy (2007b: 20).
Pattison (2010: 438) raises this question to assert that the moral concern regarding the
effect of PMCs on communal identity remains valid even if we assume that the latter has
only some, not an absolute, moral value, but stops short of explaining why this is the case.
It is perhaps ludicrous that some commanders do not actually possess copies of all the
contracts in effect on their base (US General Accounting Office 2003: 34), which in a way
mirrors the overall inability of US Congress and relevant state agencies to track contracts
and contractor personnel, at the height of the country’s entanglement in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and of its reliance on the use of private contractors (US Government
Accountability Office 2009: 1, 26).
The immunity granted by Order 17 was revoked in late 2008.
See Kant (1983: 113) on the importance of public consent; see Benoit (1996: 654–655) for
the claim that democracies are less likely to go to war; see Lipson (2003: 75–82) on
constitutionalism and the claim that democracies will rarely fight each other.
The authors’ claim refers to the case of the USA, but this logically applies to any
democratic country.
See also Risen and Mazzetti (2009a) for Blackwater-CIA ties.
See also O’Brien (1998: 91) regarding the danger of the ‘proxyization’ (sic) of US foreign
policy.
REFERENCES
Avant, Deborah. (2000) Privatizing Military Training, Foreign Policy in Focus, 5(17), pp. 1–3,
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Dimitrios Machairas is an independent researcher and writer in the field of international
affairs, defence and security. He holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College
London, and a BA in International Relations. His main areas of interest include the use
of private military force, cyber warfare, nuclear proliferation and other geopolitical,
geostrategic, ethical and philosophical aspects of international security.
Correspondence address: Flat 20, 602A Holloway Road, London N19 3PH, UK. Email
address: [email protected]
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