Private security and military company

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A private security and military company ( PMC for English Private Military Company or Private Military Contractors ) is a commercial enterprise that is commissioned by a state or a company to perform military tasks in war or crisis areas . The spectrum goes from combat missions over inserts with partially closely related to direct combat operations (eg. Passenger , convoy - or bodyguard ) on the advice and training of soldiers through to taking over tasks that only indirectly connected with the military struggle (e.g. transport services, catering, but also airspace surveillance).

In the latter task area, the assignment of which is controversial in research, service companies are also involved that do not provide any fighting personnel themselves. The increasing importance of PMCs was criticized by many observers in the 2010s for political as well as economic reasons.

history

The mercenaries played since the beginning of the 19th century world hardly an issue. It was only with the end of the Cold War that there was a similar development in the form of private security and military companies. The trend towards outsourcing in the private sector, which has been increasingly adopted by government agencies and ultimately also applied to the military, may also have contributed to this development . In addition, since the end of the Second World War, the once state armaments companies have been privatized in many Western countries . The privatization of the “soldier's trade” can be interpreted as a further development of this tendency.

With the global reduction in armies due to the end of the Cold War since around 1990, there was an oversupply of unemployed trained soldiers. The USA and Great Britain streamlined their armed forces. In particular, the disarmament of the previous Soviet military (see also: Disintegration of the Soviet Union ) and other former Eastern Bloc armies left a large number of unemployed soldiers. In Argentina and South Africa , parts of the armies were discredited following political changes in government. Private military companies emerged primarily in the USA, Great Britain, South Africa and Israel .

This contrasts with increasing demand on the client side. With the end of the bloc confrontation and its typical proxy wars, especially in Africa, state actors were hardly interested in avoiding or controlling such disputes. This resulted in a large number of low-intensity domestic conflicts with little international intervention. The emerging lawless area in several failed states (e.g. Somalia ) favored these developments. The lack of military aid from outside forces tried to compensate by numerous parties involved by commissioning mercenary companies. Such companies also turned out to be less corruptible and hardly associated with ethnic, religious or political groups in the country of deployment, in contrast to local companies, militias and mercenary groups.

The great powers, in particular the USA, and other Western states discovered the possibilities of these private companies in the context of the second Gulf War in the early 1990s and much more intensely since the 2001 war on terror that the United States proclaimed , which invaded Iraq and the state military forces binds to a high degree in Afghanistan and is waged in large parts as a house-to-house war that requires a lot of personnel

The United States are 1994-2007 3601 contract bonds with a volume of 300 billion US dollars received twelve US private military companies. The main reason for this seems to be of an economic nature, as the use of private companies, especially for security tasks, is far cheaper than the use of regular military, which can also avoid personnel losses.

Private military companies also support United Nations missions , in particular to provide transport services to third world countries. An example of this is the 1996 deployment of ICI of Oregon in Haiti on behalf of the US State Department .

Situation in Germany

In Germany there are several companies that offer mercenary services worldwide. The company Asgaard German Security Guards from Münsterland became known in 2010 for its supposed Somalia mission. The Federal Association of German Guard and Security Companies estimated in 2009 that around 3,000 German mercenaries were active in the Near and Middle East ; in Africa it should be around 1000. Above all, soldiers who were previously employed as paratroopers, military police or members of the special forces command would be hired. Former police officers from special or mobile task forces or the GSG9 of the federal police are also happy to be hired.

Even with German mercenaries, there is little public attention when they die in action and they do not appear on any official casualty list.

Associations

In April 2001 the International Peace Operations Association ( IPOA ) was founded. It is a business association that represents the interests of its members, including DynCorp and MPRI . The IPOA has created a code of conduct that applies to all members and is also available in German. There is a similar representation of interests specifically for Iraq. According to its own statements, over 40 private security companies (domestic and foreign) are represented in the Private Security Company Association of Iraq .

Mission and business basis

For a long time, private security and military companies were mostly companies from the USA, Great Britain or South Africa. There are now such companies in almost all western countries. Its services include tactical and operational advice, military training, the operation of prisoner-of-war camps, reconnaissance and exploration, as well as technical, logistical and operational support for combat operations. The possibilities described here for the use of civilians for military tasks are used to their full extent primarily by the USA, and to a somewhat lesser extent by the United Kingdom.

The companies are not directly involved in the command organization of their client, but only bound by their contract. However, reputable companies adhere to applicable ethical principles (e.g. IPOA Code of Conduct).

legal framework

Private security and military companies are not military associations ; their employees are considered civilians within the meaning of the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols as long as they do not take part directly in military operations . If they do so anyway, they can be convicted under national criminal law. If they receive a combat mission, the persons involved are only considered combatants if they are under the organized command of regular armed forces, are integrated into them and the respective opposing side has been officially informed about their participation in the combat. Without this inclusion, they apply in accordance with Additional Protocol I to III. Geneva Convention as mercenaries when taking part in combat operations. However, the boundaries between security missions and combat operations are often fluid.

Advantages for the client

State clients

The use of military companies offers states the advantage of provoking less diplomatic involvement and disguising their own losses. Clients claim that using military companies is cheaper than using your own armed forces. However, this is controversial among experts, since the expensive training is still the responsibility of national armies, while the soldiers who subsequently migrated to PMC receive many times their previous pay . Their use or that of other service providers for non-combat tasks makes it possible to assign soldiers who have become free to the combat troops and thus to build up a greater effectiveness of the regular army. Some high-tech weapons, location and communication systems would require considerable training for military operating and maintenance personnel. For this reason, some armaments companies on behalf of the state assign technicians to work in conjunction with the military.

If employees of security companies are killed, wounded or long-term harm, there is not as much domestic political pressure on a government as if this fate happened to its own soldiers or even conscripts .

The unclear legal position of security companies can also be viewed by the client as an advantage of private security companies. Their employees operate in a gray area of ​​international martial law to which regular soldiers are bound. That is why it is a common accusation against states that use private military companies that they are deliberately circumventing international martial law. For example, some private fighters who were deployed in Iraq on behalf of the US State Department in 2007 were protected from both international martial law and criminal prosecution in both countries by their employment contracts and agreements between the US and Iraq. This mainly affected Blackwater employees .

Furthermore, restrictions on the number of troops can be circumvented with the help of PMCs. If the parliament of the client country or the government of the target country stipulates a maximum contingent of troops that may be in the country, this number can be exceeded unnoticed by the use of private military companies.

For governments that believe a coup by their own military is possible, PMCs offer an opportunity to limit the power of the national military and still remain capable of military action.

PMCs are officially banned in Russia . In 2018, however, hundreds of active and former members of PMCs sued the International Criminal Court for recognition of their rights and thus against the government, which officially denied the existence of such companies.

Private sector clients

Business enterprises often do not themselves have the necessary staff and equipment to carry out security tasks that go beyond protecting their own facilities in a largely peaceful environment. These skills are offered by private security companies. The use of security companies also enables the use of military clout to an extent that is criminally relevant ( bodily harm , homicide , use of war weapons), but does not fall back directly on the client and his employees when other companies are used.

Fields of activity

PMCs can be divided into different fields of activity. Some of these fields of activity are listed and explained here, sorted according to the distance to the battle.

Almost all such companies offer so-called psy ops . These are "psychological operations" aimed at influencing a population group through specifically manipulated information. This group is supposed to be induced to take certain actions. It doesn't necessarily have to be Third World countries: Before the second Gulf War, a Kuwaiti nurse reported on Iraqi mercenaries who tore premature babies out of incubators in the hospital in Kuwait City and left them to die on the floor. This eyewitness played a role in the US Congress' decision in favor of the war. In retrospect, however, it turned out that the story was staged by an advertising agency. The "nurse" was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington.

Psy ops can be summarized in the category of secret service methods . But also classic secret service methods are carried out by PMCs. It is known that Academi (formerly Blackwater ) provided operational teams for the CIA . Even Monsanto , Barclays and the German Bank are among the customers that 2008 and 2009 intelligence services of Academi took advantage. Military reconnaissance also falls under secret service methods . One example of this is the company FSG , which among other things specializes in tactical reconnaissance using special cameras on small aircraft.

Further field of activity of PMCs are the military advice of customers and the appearance as an agent for the procurement of armaments sgütern .

Another major field is the training of soldiers, police officers and private individuals. The company Academi (formerly Blackwater ) operates in North Carolina, for example, which - by its own account - largest private shooting range of the US, the police and individuals have been trained in various courses at the turn of the millennium already NAVY Seals, Special Forces. In 2003 a selection of possible courses could be found on the website of the former British PMC Sandline International , which has since been deleted : The courses were divided into the categories of skills training (e.g. "sniper", "small boat work", "intelligence courses "etc.), operational training (e.g .:" counter-terrorism "," pilot and aircrew "," police "etc.), humanitarian operations ( e.g .:" refugee management "," convoy protection " , "hostage negotiation" etc.) and terrain training ("jungle warfare", "desert warfare" and "urban warfare").

The most prominent field of activity of PMCs, however, is the provision of mercenaries or security forces and armaments . These are then used in the target areas, for example for personal , convoy or property protection , but also for direct combat operations with military opponents. Mercenaries of the company Executive Outcomes were commissioned from 1995 to 1997 to fight the rebel army RUF with the regular army of Sierra Leone . Among other things, the company's own combat helicopters were used.

The division between mercenaries and security guards is often blurred. For example, in April 2004, eight Blackwater workers were deployed to protect the headquarters of the Iraqi Transitional Authority in Najaf . During a demonstration in front of the building, they were caught in a fire fight with a local militia , which resulted in 20-30 dead and 200 injured.

PMCs can be divided into Military & Security Support Firms (logistics & reconnaissance), Military & Security Consultant Firms (Consulting & Training), Security Provider Firms (property and personal protection: defensive, but considerable risk involved in the combat ) according to their distance from the fighting to become) and Military Provider Firms (direct intervention in the fighting). It can be seen that the companies have a more differentiated range of offers and generate more sales the further they are from the battlefield.

Economical meaning

It is difficult to quantify the size of this industry. In 2006, the US Department of Defense signed 48 percent of its private company contracts for equipment and supplies, 13.5 percent for military research, and 38.5 percent (or $ 113.4 billion) for "other services." According to the peace research institute Sipri , the majority of companies with which contracts for “other services” have been concluded are military service providers. In the UK, the total military services market in 2005 was valued at £ 4 billion. The next largest markets are the Federal Republic of Germany (2.1 billion euros) and Australia (1.1 billion euros).

In fiscal year 2006, the top three recipients of US Department of Defense contracts in the “other services” category were: KBR (formerly Halliburton ) with nearly $ 6 billion for logistics and facility management and security; Northrop Grumman with 4.2 Billions of dollars for IT services, the support, maintenance and repair of technical systems, building support, training and logistics as well as L-3 Communications with almost 3.6 billion dollars for IT, the support, maintenance and repair of technical systems and training. The world's largest arms company, Boeing , only ranks twelfth with an order volume of just under $ 1.1 billion. DynCorp is the only company among the 30 largest recipients of orders from the Ministry of Defense that explicitly provides "armed services". Your total order volume is just over 1.4 billion dollars. Most of the companies mainly take on tasks in connection with technical devices, most of which take place in areas that are spatially and logistically distant from the fighting force. However, the largest contractor, KBR, provides large-scale direct services to US forces in Iraq. Typically, however, combat missions to private companies in the United States are given by the State Department, not the Department of Defense. This is the basis on which the controversial military company Blackwater Worldwide operates in Iraq. In 2006, Blackwater had $ 593 million in revenue from contracts with the US government.

staff

Gurkha in personal security , Afghan province of Nangarhar , 2008

The staff of private military companies consists for the most part of former soldiers, especially special units. Senior officers or secret service employees are also switching to PMCs. To a small extent, civilians or reservists are also hired . Recruitment is done through direct or indirect recruitment. Primarily, the staff is poached from regular armies or hired after the end of service.

The main motivation for this is to be found in the high earnings. (In 2004 a mercenary who worked for Blackwater in Iraq received $ 600-800 a day) Together with a short contract period, a mercenary with PMCs can earn a lot of money in a short time, while the commitment with regular armies is binding over a longer period of time is.

PMCs that offer the provision of mercenaries often have a large database of mercenaries and a comparatively small number of permanent employees. The mercenaries are then only employed for the duration of their deployment. The company MRPI example, had 2003 800 employees and had a database of 12,500 mercenaries. This was surpassed by Blackwater in 2007 with a database of 21,000 mercenaries.

rating

Private security and military companies are repeatedly criticized for their lack of government control, which is seen as inadequate compared to the military . In contrast to the conventional military's potential for violence, which is limited by political control, ( wartime ) law and the hierarchy of command, these companies' ties to accountability and behavioral norms are unregulated. The use of militarily armed private individuals also contradicts the state's monopoly on the use of force , one of the most important foundations of the modern constitutional state . It is true that such companies exercise violence with state permission, provided that they act on behalf of the state, but state agencies have considerably fewer possibilities to manage and control this exercise of violence than would be the case with the police and the military.

In addition, private security and military companies have an economic interest in continuing the war. Since they are often associated with traditional armaments companies, there is a risk that they will use the immediate opportunities available during their deployment as well as the lobbying and financial strength of the military-industrial complex to prolong the respective conflict.

The employees of the newer private military companies correspond neither to the classic image of the mercenary as a hired foreigner who drives profit, nor that of the typical unarmed civilian. Their classification under international law according to the additional protocols to the Geneva Convention , especially their combatant status , is therefore controversial. The Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, adopted in 1989 by the General Assembly of the United Nations , is only applicable to a limited extent to these companies, so that there are regulatory loopholes from an international law perspective. A first attempt on an intergovernmental basis to specify the legal status of private security and military companies is the Montreux document , which was passed by 17 countries in September 2008 , which is, however, not a binding international treaty .

The private-sector nature of security and military companies also poses a threat to clients, especially government ones, as a military company, unlike a military unit, can go bankrupt. In addition, the economic meaning of privatization in doubt can be drawn, as market-based laws are applicable only in part to the industry: It is not in this state contracts to a free market, but a monopsony ( monopoly on the demand side) and an oligopoly with few specialized companies on the supply side. In addition, it is particularly difficult for clients in the particularly sensitive military and security sector to change private partners for long-term contracts, which in turn makes it easier for them to subsequently increase prices. In 2005, for example, the US Court of Auditors criticized Halliburton for making subsequent claims of $ 1.2 billion for a logistics contract in Iraq without providing adequate reasons. In May 2007, due to insufficient data, the US Court of Auditors found itself unable to answer in a study whether the privatization of maintenance and repair tasks since 2001 had resulted in cost savings or higher expenses for the Department of Defense.

Another critical aspect is the dependency into which a state becomes subject to excessive use of PMCs. For example, the United States has outsourced entire military functions.

See also

literature

  • Henry Naeve / Matthias Fischer / Johanna Fournier / Janosch Pastewka: Private military companies. History, Constitutionality, International Regulation and Current Legal Issues , Northern Business School Series of Applied Science, edited by Reimund Homann (Volume 3), BoD, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-4029-6
  • Thomas Eppacher: Private security and military companies. Essence, work and abilities, LIT, 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-50456-2
  • Daniel Heck: Limits to the privatization of military tasks. An investigation of the state commissioning of private military companies based on the constitutional orders of Germany and the United States of America as well as international law, Nomos, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8329-5951-7
  • Laurent Joachim: The Use of “Private Military Companies” in Modern Conflict, A New Tool for “New Wars” ?, LIT, 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10665-0
  • Doug Brooks / Shawn Lee Rathgeber: The Industry Role in Regulating Private Security Companies , in: Human Security Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 3, Canadian Consortium on Human Security, University of British Columbia, March 2008.
  • Christian Genz: The privatization of security and the state: An investigation using the example of the USA, Colombia and Sierra Leone , Verlag Dr. Kovac, April 2009, ISBN 3-8300-4354-6 .
  • Simon Chesterman / Chia Lehnardt: From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies , Oxford University Press, June 2007, ISBN 0-19-922848-5 .
  • Carsten Michels / Benjamin Teutmeyer: Private Military Firms in International Security Policy: Approaches to Classification, in: Thomas Jäger (Ed.): The Complexity of Wars, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 97–124.
  • Christian Schaller: Private security and military companies in armed conflicts. Conditions of use under international law and control options . In: SWP study . September 2005, ISSN  1611-6372 ( PDF; 306 kB )
  • Giampiero Spinelli, Contractor, Mursia Editore 2009 ISBN 978-88-425-4390-9
  • Stephan Maninger: Soldiers of Misfortune - The Demise of National Armies as Core Contributing Factor in the Rise of Private Security Companies in Kümmel, Gerhard and Jäger, Thomas (Eds.) Private Security and Military Companies: Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects , VS Publishing house for social sciences, Wiesbaden, 2006
  • Dario N. Azzellini , Boris Chancellor, Boris: The company war. Paramilitaries, warlords and private armies as actors in the new order of war . Association A., Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-935936-17-6 , Free download: PDF
  • Rolf Uesseler : War as a service - private military companies are destroying democracy. Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin; March 2006; ISBN 3-86153-385-5 .
  • Peter W. Singer: Die Kriegs-AGs - On the rise of private military companies. Verlag Zweausendeins, Frankfurt am Main; February 2006. ISBN 3-86150-758-7 .
  • Chia Lehnardt: Private military companies and responsibility under international law: An investigation from a humanitarian, international law and human rights perspective . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011. ISBN 978-3-16-150764-9 .
  • Sam Perlo-Freeman and Elisabeth Sköns: The private military service industry . SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security 1/2008. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Stockholm, September 2008. pdf
  • Jennifer K. Elsea: Private Security Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Legal Issues (PDF; 359 kB) , Congressional Research Service (USA), January 7, 2010
  • Reimund Homann: Corporate Soldiers: The delegation of warfare to private companies . Tectum-Verlag, 1st edition (March 30, 2010), ISBN 3-8288-2090-5
  • Stefan Prunner: Private Military Enterprises at the End of the 20th Century , University of Vienna (2009) (online as PDF; 691 kB)
  • Florian Schmitz: The Security Contractor in Frei, Alban and Mangold, Hannes (Ed.) The staff of postmodernism. Inventory of an epoch , transcript, Bielefeld, 2015. ISBN 978-3-8376-3303-0 .
  • Amy E. Eckert: Outsourcing War. The Just War Tradition in the Age of Military Privatization . Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York State, USA 2016, ISBN 978-1-5017-0357-7 .
  • Ruf, Werner: Private military companies . In: Ruf, Werner (ed.): Political economy of violence . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden 2003

Web links

Commons : Private security contractors  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ War of Attrition: US Army Manual for Modern Combat in Built-Up Areas [1] April 17, 2017, accessed on March 10, 2018
  2. ^ A b German mercenaries: Violence for money . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on November 29, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Code of conduct for member companies in German  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / ipoaworld.org  
  4. ↑ Code of Conduct
  5. ↑ For the legal framework see: Dario Azzellini: Die neue Söldner. In: Kritische Justiz, issue 3/2008, special issue 40 years KJ ( PDF )
  6. ↑ Dario Azzellini: Military Enterprise in Iraq - the private side of the war. In: EXPRESSION. The IMI magazine. April 2004. ( PDF )
  7. ↑ The Russian military appealed to an international court to hold the organizers of PMCs accountable , Novaya Gazeta, November 19, 2018
  8. ^ Ruf, Werner: Private military companies . In: Ruf, Werner (ed.): Political economy of violence . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 77 .
  9. ↑ Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater's Black Ops. In: The National. The National, September 15, 2010, accessed May 30, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Jeremy Scahill & Matthew Cole: Inside Erik Prince's Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Air Force. In: The Intercept_. April 11, 2016, accessed May 30, 2019 .
  11. ^ Ruf, Werner: Private military companies . In: Ruf, Werner (ed.): Political economy of violence . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 329 .
  12. ↑ Scahill, Jeremy: Blackwater: The Rise of the Most Powerful Private Army in the World . Munich 2008, p. 134 ff .
  13. ^ Janatschek, Sabine: The representation of private military and security companies in the media. Blackwater crisis communication . In: Henrike Viehrig (Ed.): Security and Media . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften | GWV Fachverlage GmbH, W, Wiesbaden 2009, p. 38 f .
  14. ^ Ruf, Werner: Private military companies . In: Ruf, Werner (ed.): Political economy of violence . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 87 .