Contractors And War

The U.S. military is no longer based on a Cold War self-sufficient model. Today's armed forces are a third smaller than they were during the Cold War, and yet are expected to do as much if not more than they did during those years. As a result, a transformation is occurring in the way the U.S. government expects the military to conduct operations—with much of that transformation contingent on the use of contractors to deliver support to the armed forces during military campaigns and afterwards. Contractors and War explains the reasons behind this transformation and evaluates how the private sector will shape and be shaped by future operations. The authors are drawn from a range of policy, legislative, military, legal, and academic backgrounds. They lay out the philosophical arguments supporting the use of contractors in combat and stabilization operations and present a spectrum of arguments that support and criticize emergent private sector roles. The book provides fresh policy guidance to those who will research, direct, and carry out future deployments.

Provides a behind-the-scenes look at America's civilian contractors in Iraq, following the activities of workers for MPRI and Crescent Security, two contracting firms who provide protection for diplomats, move convoys of precious materials, and help rebuild the infrastructure of the wartorn nation.

This book develops a new approach to the analysis of civil-military relations by focusing on the effectiveness of the armed forces in fulfilling roles & missions, and on their efficiency in terms of cost. The approach is applied to the United States using official documents and interviews with policy-makers. In addition to analyzing the impact of defense reform initiatives over the past thirty years, the book includes the recent phenomenon of "contracting-out" security that has resulted in greater numbers of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military personnel. While the book demonstrates that democratic civilian control of the military in the U.S. is not at issue, it reveals that there is little public control over Private Security Contractors due to a combination of the current restricted interpretation of what is an "inherently governmental function" and limited legal authority. This is despite the fact that PSCs have taken on roles and missions that were previously the responsibility of the uniformed military. Further, despite numerous efforts to redress the problem, current political and institutional barriers to reform are not likely to be overcome soon.

This book explores the ethical implications of using armed contractors, taking a consequentialist approach to this multidisciplinary debate. While privatization is not a new concept for the US military, the public debate on military privatization is limited to legal, financial, and pragmatic concerns. A critical assessment of the ethical dimensions of military privatization in general is missing. More specifically, in light of the increased reliance upon armed contractors, it must be asked whether it is morally permissible for governments to employ them at all. To this end, this book explores four areas that highlight the ethical implications of using armed contractors: how armed contractors are distinct from soldiers and mercenaries; the commodification of force; the belligerent equality of combatants; and the impact of armed contractors on the professional military. While some take an absolutist position, wanting to bar the use of private military altogether, this book reveals how these absolutist arguments are problematic and highlights that there are circumstances where turning to private force may be the only option. Recognising that outsourcing force will continue, this book thus proposes some changes to account for the problems of commodification, belligerent equality, and the challenge to the military profession. This book will be of interest to students of private security, military studies, ethics, security studies, and IR in general.

The conduct of armed conflict is increasingly being outsourced to private military and security companies, whose legal position remains unclear. This book identifies and analyses the human rights and humanitarian law framework applicable to these companies, examining how they can be held to account and how victims can obtain remedies.

WASHINGTON — The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR..." (James Risen, New York Times, June 17, 2008) This book by that very Army official provides an eye-opening firsthand account of how the US Government hands over your tax dollars to support contractors like KBR and Halliburton, rather than supporting the troops. This authoritative and well-documented record of the LOGCAP contract in Iraq and Afghanistan is at the same time a study of US participation in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the workings of government agencies and Congress. The first chapter sets the scene, briefly narrating the author's work on behalf of US military efforts, especially in Iraq. Subsequent chapters illustrate specific issues in contractor relations that resulted in unsafe conditions for the troops and blew millions of taxpayer dollars. Loyal and hard-working government officials and employees who tried to keep things on track were turned away and those who sought to rein in the free-for-all were sacked. The author reveals problems with KBR's provision of transportation, electricity, food and water. Other chapters are more analytic and evaluate Army logistics, Congressional oversight and the question of whether letting contracts for this kind of support is appropriate at all--the kind of problems that concern military policy leaders, defense analysts, public policy analysts and scholars in these areas, as well as the citizens in whose name this is all done.

This book addresses the ambiguities of the growing use of private security contractors and provides guidance as to how our expectations about regulating this expanding ‘service’ industry will have to be adjusted. In the warzones of Iraq and Afghanistan many of those who carry weapons are not legally combatants, nor are they protected civilians. They are contracted by governments, businesses, and NGOs to provide armed security. Often mistaken as members of armed forces, they are instead part of a new protean proxy force that works alongside the military in a multitude of shifting roles, and overseen by a matrix of contracts and regulations. This book analyzes the growing industry of these private military and security companies (PMSCs) used in warzones and other high risk areas. PMSCs are the result of a unique combination of circumstances, including a change in the idea of soldiering, insurance industry analyses that require security contractors, and a need for governments to distance themselves from potentially criminal conduct. The book argues that PMSCs are a unique type of organization, combining attributes from worlds of the military, business, and humanitarian organizations. This makes them particularly resistant to oversight. The legal status of these companies and those they employ is also hard to ascertain, which weakens the multiple regulatory tools available. PMSCs also fall between the cracks in ethical debates about their use, seeming to be both justifiable and objectionable. This transformation in military operations is a seemingly irreversible product of more general changes in the relationship between the individual citizen and the state. This book will be of much interest to students of private security companies, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR in general. Kateri Carmola is the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College in Vermont. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

An electrifying thriller – the first in a blistering series for readers of Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Daniel Silva. Tom Locke is an elite warrior working for Apollo Outcomes, one of the world’s most successful private contracting firms. Pulled out of a mission in Libya, he is tapped for an unusual and risky assignment: a top secret black op in Ukraine. Given one week to rescue an oligarch’s family and pull off a spectacular assault, he soon realises his mission has repercussions for this imperiled Eastern European nation and the world. What Locke doesn’t know is that the operation comes with a dangerous complication: his enigmatic and ambitious boss, Brad Winters. One misstep could cost Locke – and the region – everything. Written by an army veteran with deep military expertise, Shadow War is an explosive and unputdownable thriller. Praise for Shadow War ‘I was blown away’ Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author ‘Ex-mercenary Sean McFate has produced a first novel that's assured, authentic, timely, gritty, and most of all real’ C.J. Box, New York Times Best-selling Author of Badlands and Off the Grid ‘Shadow War has pace like a catapult, sudden and fierce, and it will hit readers straight between the eyes’ Ted Bell, author of Patriot

Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq examines the controversial role of military contractors in the reconstruction of Iraq. When 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was launched in March 2003, few, if any, of the Coalition's political leaders could have envisaged that within a few months the number of private contractors engaged to keep the troops supplied would exceed their actual combat strength. This alternative 'army' was not only to become the largest assemblage of contractors in living memory to accompany a military force into a war zone, but was also responsible for a fundamental transformation of how military logistics were delivered. This book explains how and why the US and UK governments became so dependent upon military contractors during the war in Iraq. It also examines the ramifications this new dependency will have on future military operations, as the conflict in Iraq has shown that private contractors are now indispensable to the attainment of both the military and political objectives of war. Finally, the book discusses what advantages and disadvantages these companies have brought to the reconstruction of Iraq, and what lessons need to be learned from this experience. This book will be of great interest to students of military and strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and international security, and as well as policymakers and military professionals. Christopher Kinsey is a lecturer in international security at King's College London, Defence Studies Department, at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham. His previous publications include Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Routledge: 2006)