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Making a Killing: How Private Armies Became a $120 Billion Global Industry
In Nigeria, corporate commandos exchange fire with local rebels attacking an oil platform. In Afghanistan, private bodyguards help to foil yet another assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai. In Colombia, a contracted pilot comes under fire from guerrillas while spraying coca fields with pesticides. On the border between Iraq and Iran, privately owned Apache helicopters deliver US special forces to a covert operation. This is a snapshot of a working day in the burgeoning world of private military companies, arguably the fastest-growing industry in the global economy. The sector is now worth up to $120bn annually with operations in at least 50 countries, according to Peter Singer, a security analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"The rate of growth in the security industry has been phenomenal," says Deborah Avant, a professor of political science at UCLA. The single largest spur to this boom is the conflict in Iraq.
The workings of this industry have come under intense scrutiny this week in the angry aftermath of the killing of Iraqi civilians by the US-owned Blackwater corporation in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has demanded the North Carolina-based company is withdrawn. But with Blackwater responsible for the protection of hundreds of senior US and Iraqi officials, from the US ambassador to visiting congressional delegations, there is certainty in diplomatic and military circles that this will not happen.
The origins of these shadow armies trace back to the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, Bob Ayers, a security expert with Chatham House in London, explains: "In the good old days of the Cold War there were two superpowers who kept a lid on everything in their respective parts of the world."
He likens the collapse of the Soviet Union to "taking the lid off a pressure cooker". What we have seen since, he says, is the rise of international dissident groups, ultranationalists and multiple threats to global security.
The new era also saw a significant reduction in the size of the standing armies, at the same time as a rise in global insecurity which increased both the availability of military expertise and the demand for it. It was a business opportunity that could not be ignored.
Now the mercenary trade comes with its own business jargon. Guns for hire come under the umbrella term of privatised military firms, with their own acronym PMFs. The industry itself has done everything it can to shed the "mercenary" tag and most companies avoid the term "military" in preference for "security". "The term mercenary is not accurate," says Mr Ayers, who argues that military personnel in defensive roles should be distinguished from soldiers of fortune.
There is nothing new about soldiers for hire, the private companies simply represent the trade in a new form. "Organised as business entities and structured along corporate lines, they mark the corporate evolution of the mercenary trade," according to Mr Singer, who was among the first to plot the worldwide explosion in the use of private military firms.
In many ways it mirrors broader trends in the world economy as countries switch from manufacturing to services and outsource functions once thought to be the preserve of the state. Iraq has become a testing ground for this burgeoning industry, creating staggering financial opportunities and equally immense ethical dilemmas.
None of the estimated 48,000 private military operatives in Iraq has been convicted of a crime and no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed by private military forces, because the US does not keep records.
According to some estimates, more than 800 private military employees have been killed in the war so far, and as many as 3,300 wounded.
These numbers are greater than the losses suffered by any single US army division and larger than the casualties suffered by the rest of the coalition put together.
A high-ranking US military commander in Iraq said: "These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people."
In Abu Ghraib, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators were reportedly private contractors.
Private soldiers are involved in all stages of war, from training and war-gaming before the invasion to delivering supplies. Camp Doha in Kuwait, the launch-pad for the invasion, was built by private contractors.
It is not just the military that has turned to the private sector, humanitarian agencies are dependent on PMFs in almost every war zone from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Which raises the next market the industry would like to see opened: peacekeeping. And the lobbying has already begun.
© 2007 The Independent
27 Comments so far
Show AllAn Iraqi report from a few days ago said "Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant...
"In video shot shortly after the episode, the child appeared to have burned to the mother's body after the car caught fire, according to an official who saw it." (NY Times, Sept. 19, 2007).
Security? Bullshit! This is what these savages do.
"Which raises the next market the industry would like to see opened: peacekeeping. And the lobbying has already begun."
Well, now, let's see. As I understand it, I can kill for profit, or not kill for profit. The main thing is the profit. The rest is immaterial.
Read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" for the blueprint for this industry.
I heard yesterday that these private contractors and their families also receive veteran's benefits. Does anyone know if this is true?
Ye gods! Wouldn't surprise me.
Gail: Actually I read an article some months ago (I don't remember where) about privately contracted mercenaries like this. One "advantage" to this was the very fact that the U.S. government DOESN'T have to cover any kind of benefits. It's up to the private companies to cover any benefits if their "employees" suffer any kind of trauma or injuries. And of course, as the trend goes for all private companies nowadays, benefits are scarce because that affects the profit line. It's a great deal for both the U.S. government officials and the mercenary company - no pesky legal oversight, no keeping track of annoying statistics of exactly how many people are killed, no obligation to take care of traumatized or injured soldiers or "employees", and they get a big chunk of our tax dollars. I smell profit!
cheencheen September 21st, 2007 5:27 pm
Thanks for sharing that. One never knows with this administration!
China can hire these guys too.
Keep in mind: it's America's failing/flaining economy that provides the cannon fodder for these businesses. Wouldn't we rather have these mercenaries die than to support them on welfare? We've already answered that question, haven't we?
Truly terrifying. What we have here is a standing army which has no formal allegiance to or command structure respecting the elected national representatives. As a private corp., there is no oversight and FOI requests don't apply to proprietary interests. Good-by Posse Comitatus. National guardsman may balk at rounding up people into detention centers; do you think these guys would?
Mussolini considered fascism the unification of state and corporate command and control structures. If defense and military force is the ancient and traditional purview of the state, what do we have here? Were the brown-shirts ever given quasi-legitimacy by the state before the final putsch?
Does anyone know if Blackwater in New Orleans were deputized and given arrest or detention powers? How do you bring grievance of abuse or wrongful transgressions of constitutional rights against Blackwater operatives during their policing duties? Customer Care?
This would be nice to know since they would certainly be used to police during the next state of emergency(hurricane, terrorist act, civil riots, etc.)
What you realy need to worry about is when these private US sponsored, tax payer supported killers return home and get requrited by your local law enforcement! Imagine usa, Black Water patrolling your nieghborhoods looking for Bush designated Terrorist!
Hmmmm, we have concentration camps (courtesy of KBR & Halliburton no-bid contracts); the last vestiges of our civil rights and Constitutional guarantees are being legislated out of existence as we sit here; the Congress has re-invented thought crime and Cheney/Bush has established the thought police; any of us can be picked up and disappeared at the whim of the government; we now have a paramilitary force that has no allegiance save to their paymasters, who have received $120 Bn+ of our tax money from Cheney/BushCo. They have the latest in weapons technology, crowd control technology, and shiny black helicopters, too.
There doesn't seem to be anything left except a black op (aka false flag op) to hit the go button and turn us into a Nazi Germany clone. Have I left anything out?
cheencheen September 21st, 2007 5:27 pm wrote:
"... It's up to the private companies to cover any benefits if their "employees" suffer any kind of trauma or injuries. And of course, as the trend goes for all private companies nowadays, benefits are scarce because that affects the profit line. It's a great deal for both the U.S. government officials and the mercenary company - no pesky legal oversight, no keeping track of annoying statistics of exactly how many people are killed, no obligation to take care of traumatized or injured soldiers or "employees", and they get a big chunk of our tax dollars. I smell profit!"
I used to joke that the republican motto was "We could do so much good for America if that pesky Constitution didn't keep getting in the way." I can't help but think this way of running the government fit's that bill. Outsource everything, and if the Constitution doesn't fit, obscure it in mumbo-jumbo arguments, obtuseness and just keep adding on the offenses to the point that people are overwhelmed.
IRENEUS, I understand when the Blackwater troops were in New Orleans, they wore badges similar to Federal Marshalls. The state police questioned their authority, but then left them alone.
When the General who was in charge of the National Gaurd arrived, he was seen on TV yelling at some Blackwater troops to stop pointing their weapons at people. I don't believe they arrested anyone, they just killed a few people. It seems as if the local and state police feared them. They were dressed in regular army combat clothing, but didn't wear helmets. They more resembled Rambo style troops. A fun rough and ready bunch, the type you would want on your side in a serious Saturday night bar fight during the full moon.
Another case of Cheney/Bush turning everything over to private contractors, i.e., the corporatocracy and corporatizers - - give the neo-cons an inch and they'll take over the highway!
The next phase in Cheney's perceived shock doctrine strategy perhaps is the collapse of the dollar. Then the unleashing of the hounds. When people cannot pay their bills, the scoundrels will merely move in and seize property as booty.
In my new book, "America's Suicidal Statecraft" (available at Amazon) I wrote:
Proposed US defence expenditure for fiscal 2006 is $419.3 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Defence. That is nearly five percent larger than in fiscal 2005. It is 41% higher than the defence budget of 2001. It is the highest defence expenditure of any country and greater than the total GDP of most member countries of the United Nations. In 2007, it is scheduled to go still higher – to well over $600 billion, without all the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A further $400 to 500 billion will go on veterans' support and interest on defence debts. An analysis by the Congressional Research Service early in May 2006, estimated that the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would cost $811 billion – far more than the inflation adjusted cost of the Vietnam War of $549 billion. "The costs are exceeding even the worst-case scenarios," the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee said. The signs seem to become clearer every day that overall defence costs are becoming more and more out of line with what the financial and economic pillars on which they rest can reasonably be asked to support.
Even so, defence spending was and probably will be higher even than the amounts disclosed or predicted. Much of the logistical spending is outside the defence budget, as also much of the research and consultancy work and expenditures associated with, for example, NASA. In addition, there are private security forces which are in effect mercenaries for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This not only conceals total defence expenditures but creates a danger from private "armies" less subject to government disciplines and control than traditional forces. In other words, it does not reduce government but establishes a dangerous substitute for government.
My book "Operation Equalizer" dramatises some of the dangers.
George C. Brown. What I have always heard is: give then an inch and they'll take the yardstick an beat you with it.
Also another "seminal" book on Blackwater and the industry:
"Blackwater" by Jeremy Scahill
sierra
Is this George W. Bush's SS sqaud? How soon will we have to say "Heil W". Sick, sick, sick. Democracy NOW!
IMAGINE USA: That is my nightmare, too.
LIBERTAS FUGIT: I would add to your list the incentive to get natural authoritarian students to RAT on their liberal, left-leaning professors; and the use of media to create such a hypnotic seige over what might have been thoughtful minds as to render the population oblivious to what is actually taking place, happening to them... like a future vanishing before their eyes thanks to the invisible ink of a massive dark side orchestrated deception of epoch proportions.
The belief in sin, the long-standing agenda on the part of the church-state to turn people against their bodies and natural instincts is such as to produce in many a schizophrenic state. They HATE life because they have been taught to NOT trust their own bodies and their NATURAL needs. I have a contact who is a bona fide trance medium, and a few years ago these words came through him, "A great many want oblivion, an end to it all." This is that ever-growing "camp" of upwards of 50 million who have been seduced by the End Times dark fantasy that tells them it's God's will that they will be lifted out of this morass, this tough planet that orchestrates a basis for refining ego and the lower drives into the potential state of Divine at-onement. Because this planet has been under the rule of self-serving forces (the most aggressive, or "well-born" running systems and designing philosophies to suit their own agendas for centuries) most cannot conceive of any other way to live or be. Out of this time of unbelievable suffering, where both the seems and the seams of our world are coming asunder, NEW types of behavior will be born. Many see signs that this has already begun, although America, the nation that's led the world in worshiping weapons and is drunk on its own deluded beliefs of past glory is LAST to get it... we see the greatest resistance to the trends that would heal the earth and lift humanity to its next level of evolutionary intention. The GREAT TURNING... is inevitable.
A ridiculous thought just crossed my mind...how about spending $120 billion for peace??? I know, that would be asking for far too much.
General Petraeus tells us the surge is working, and I believe him. It's just the question "Working for whom?' that gets all the discussion going. The "Mission Accomplished" statement by George Bush was also true. Again the question "What was the Mission?" is where the debate began.
I believe both questions were best answered by an "insider" who should know: James A Baker, former Secretary of State, and the man who led the Bush Florida election challenge in 2000.
On 10/5/2006 in an interview with Terri Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air", Mr. Baker made the following statement: "I've been in four Administrations , The Ford, two Reagan , and Bush. In every one of those Administrations we had a written policy that we would go to war to defend secure access to the energy reserves of the Persian Gulf."
So, that's it!
In the "war to defend (sic) secure access", the "Mission Accomplished" is that we've removed the people controlling the oil, and "The Surge is working" is we're dividing the country into smaller groups who are easier to control. In a couple years some bribable "leaders" can be installed who will do as they are told.
This ain't rocket science. What's happening in Iraq is good ole fashion "Murder in the commission of an armed robbery" or as the bumpersticker says "Bombing for a Bribable Bureaucracy". Some folks think it's worth it, some folks don't.
The folks who think it's worth it have re-defined "democracy" to mean that the folks with the most Money get to be the deciders. And they are actively forcing their "democracy" on Iraq (and the rest of the world, including the United States of America).
I count myself along with the vast majority of Iraqis and the majority of Americans who don't think it's worth it. But then, we're the Americans who believe the word "democracy" means that it's one person-one vote, regardless of how much money you have.
So the days are filled with confusing speeches about "democracy". You gotta pay attention to who's speaking to try to figure out which "democracy" they're talking about. But you know, it works real good for drawing attention away from that "armed robbery" that's still going on.
Vera Gottlieb "A ridiculous thought just crossed my mind…how about spending $120 billion for peace??? I know, that would be asking for far too much."
I wrote an article a couple of years ago pointing out what converting several hundred billions worth of "swords and spears" into "plowshares and pruning hooks" could do for the world and perhaps bring about peace. (I thought I could give you the link, but I don't remember the title anymore.)
Most of the world's people are just trying to keep a non-leaking roof over their family's head, decent food and water for them, medical care when they are sick, and the right to walk about and play without getting shot, abducted, or stepping on a cluster bomb.
We could be using a tithe of our war spending to help with housing, food, water, shelter and medical care for perhaps a majority of the world's poor. A secure people aren't likely to make war, they'd rather enjoy what they have and pass it on to their children.
America could be seen as a benefactor instead of an ogre of aggression and hypocritical terrorism.
Don't hold your breath.
libertas fugit September 22nd, 2007 2:33 pm
It will only work if people can make money off of it. I'm sorry that sound cynical but those are the values that have been bought into by most Americans.
You'd have my vote LIBERTAS FUGIT, but I'd raise the ante to two trillion. Imagine the good it could do. How much is our National debt now? Is it severn trillion, and most went to wage wars or purchase weapons.
These private 'security' firms are connected at the hip to the massive, and growing, army of corporate union-busting firms here at home. Vance Security, owned by x-president Ford's son-in-law, is a regular at picket lines across the nation. They are made up of human scum, long criminal records, etc., and (just like Blackwater in Iraq), are shuffled out of the area wherever there is a prominent crime committed. I saw this occur at the Pittston Mine strike in '90 and in Mansfield, Oh at the AK strike a couple yrs later.
Blackwell, as was pointed out earlier, was used, to very bad result, in New Orleans. They have major US oporations base on the west coast and in Chicago.
One step that needs to take place, that will help this ooutrageous situation, would be passage of the Employee Free Chice Act (EFCA). It would outlaw the use of these criminal thugs in labor disputes and give workers the right to organize without interference from corporations. EFCA passed both the house and Senate, but (as with every piece of pro-peace legislation thus far), was filibustered by the GOP.
We need to find ways to shine the light of day on this criminal enterprise. Most Americans have absolutely no idea that this is going on in Iraq (and at home), and would be repulsed if they did. The corporate media is covering for their corpoate brothers in crime.