Week 8: A Clarifying Point...

A Clarifying Point...

Making the case against private military companies

The essence of this post is to offer some clarification on the point I was attempting to make this week in class regarding the use of private military companies by states for the application of force. I intend for this to be a short post overall, but I think the significance of this debate is certainly worth exploring further.

The choice to use private military companies can be made by states for a wide range of reasons ranging from as relatively noble as an attempt to conserve resources, but still provide similar functions (defenses) for its regular forces in the field, to less scrupulous activities like circumventing laws and ensuring personal loyalty to the client. There are two particular factors that are important to look at when examining the impact of PMCs: legal accountability and the monopoly on power.

Although the West is not immune, many other states, arguably most, suffer from high deficits of resources, political integrity or both. In such nations where the rule of law is strained by the forces of official corruption and/or economic deprivation, the monopoly on power is much more tenuous. While utilizing a PMC in lieu of regular forces, which may be too weak or otherwise preoccupied, may seem like a bright idea at the onset, it ultimately serves only to weaken the power of the state. This is so because, when used domestically (as is the case with most countries) the out-sourcing of enforcement demonstrates to the people that the government itself does not maintain a sufficient monopoly on power. Moreover, it weakens norms of national identity and pride that are created by maintain a uniformed, national force that is, at the very least, nominally loyal to the sovereign (be that a person, the people or a constitution) versus the client-of-the-day. Those loyalty issues may also exist in official forces, certainly in cash-strapped ones, but the idea that the government is the only official enforcement body of the law is equally as important as the enforcement itself. The idea is that troops, or security contractors (read: mercenaries), may enforce a monopoly on power, but only positive societal norms encourage a population to believe in it.

With regards to legal accountability, the lines can get quite blurry. The way I see it is that armed conflict (unlike office-based contractors that support other government services) requires strict control of all parties involved in order to maintain the relative (again, relative) rule of the law of armed conflict. In national armies this is maintained by the authority of commanders whom are empowered by national, military and international laws. This allows for the relative maintenance of good order and discipline, as well as compliance with the law. The blurring of those lines by foggy chains of accountability and command that inherently come with the territory of employing mercenaries or private security contractors not only weakens the enforcement of such laws by preventing corrective action, but also weakens the laws for all parties by allowing that lag in enforcement in the first place. The more a law is violated without correction, or the more immune certain parties appear, the weaker the law gets and as a cyclical consequence, the more it is violated. The blurring of legal accountability serves to weaken the authority of the commander, the rule of the laws of war and ultimately opens up opportunities for violation, most likely by parties with murky loyalties or accountability.

In these ways, private security contractors are significantly differentiated from non-combat oriented contractors working for the government. The latter provides crucial services that enhance government support for the population, whereas the former may also do so, but in most countries and in too many cases, such organizations only serve to weaken the rule of law. While in the most ideal of circumstances, some private military companies may do good work, because many others do not, it remains crucial to establish and maintain international norms against such behaviors.

Lastly, an important note in the interests of personal safety: mercenaries tend to not be protected by international humanitarian law in the same ways that national armies are. This opens up room for even the most well-intentioned private security organizations to put their people at extreme risk if they are ever captured performing even relatively benign logistical or defensive work. While this risk may seem lesser than that of death, it is not something to take lightly.