Privatized Military Industry

Private military industry can be defined as “Legally established enterprises that make a profit by either providing services involving the potential exercise of force in a systematic way and by military means, and/or by the transfer of that potential to clients through training and other practices, such as logistics support, equipment procurement, and intelligence gathering. It is a potential because the mere presence of a PMC can deter aggressors from considering the use of force a viable course of action.
Neither does there have to be an actual or potential military role; a PMC’s involvement may as well be directed towards enhancing the recipient’s military and security capabilities” http://www. privatemilitary. org/forumsandblogs. html Private military firms have three major sectors. Firstly, their main objective is to provide trained professionals so that they can work as a combator and protector, secondly, they are responsible for consultancy services to army, and thirdly, they work as backup service providers. For example, technical support, transportation and logistics.
Private security companies and security contractors are also termed as private military companies, some of them are AQMI Strategy Corp, SkyLink USA, Erinys International, Ronin Worldwide Executive Protection, LLC, Strategic Resources Corporation. In these companies, individuals are employed through a contract; we can say that private military contractors can be called as defense contractors. They provide training to personnel with high tactical and operational skills along with savvy of combating. Certainly, the growth of this industry would result in cost saving as a fact of competition among many companies.

The US army is regarded as one of the best armies in the world. Its professional approach and training give edge upon other armies. Quantity and quality of the US army are incredible having all these technologies and realities according to the most analysts. Presently, in Iraq, there are more than 30,000 private military service porviders are working and this increasing figure represent 10 percent of forergn military working in Iraq and nearly all of them are from America, the UK and South Africa . And intrestingly, the number of private military troops are more important than the British solders.
However, rapidly increasing PMC companies in Iraq are raised fundamental political concerns. Despite all these things, the American government has been intreseted in increasing their military strength by hiring more private military soldiers. In 2005, a major bank roller president disclosed the facts that “There’s consternation in the Pentagon about increasing the permanent size of the Army,” Prince declared. Officials “want to add 30,000 people, and they talked about costs of anywhere from $3. 6 billion to $4 billion to do that. Well, by my math, that comes out to about $135,000 per soldier.
” He added: “We could do it certainly cheaper. ” http://www. counterpunch. org/scahill01252007. html The privatization in this area has also its merits and demerits; like private military businesses may be able to deploy more rapidly and cost effectively, but on the other hand, it raises number of concerns with respect to the hiring issues and loosing the country’s secrets. The major thirst of clients is often at odds with a firm’s views of maximizing profits. Moreover, there may be a conflict among better paying firms and market incentive issues.
To solve these issues, the humanitarian community should make some rules and regulation on behalf of military service providers and there clients and there should be an award winning contest among the best service providers. The military privatization raises more concerns in employees’ selection criteria as well as the accountability. Many members belong from apartheid regimes have found workers in this industry even though the firms are scrupulous in screening their recruits and some how it is very difficult to watch their troops in the field. Besides this, there is no serious penalty for the violation of laws.
Interestingly, workers employed by the U. N and the U. S to provide international police in Haiti, many of them found convicted in arms trade and sex ,and as a matter of fact, it raised more concerns of military service providers. Brooke Shelby Biggs while expressing his opinion stated that “it’s an awful idea. Privatizing tax collection will cost far more than hiring additional I. R. S. agents, raise less revenue and pose obvious risks of abuse. But what’s really amazing is the extent to which this plan is a retreat from modern principles of government.
I used to say that conservatives want to take us back to the 1920’s, but the Bush administration seemingly wants to go back to the 16th century. And privatized tax collection is only part of the great march backward. ” (http://www. afscmeinfocenter. org/privatizationupdate/tax_collection/) Despite, all above-mentioned disadvantages there are some advantages as well, According to Bateman: “There are currently thousands of private military contractors in Iraq and you were just speaking of rules of engagement in regards to Iraqi personnel and US personnel.
Could you speak to, since the private contractors are operating outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice, could you speak to what law or rules of engagement do govern their behaviour and whether there has been any study showing that it is cost-effective to have them in Iraq rather than US military personnel. Thank you. ” http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Private militaroy contracto Furthermore, their skills would improve a lot. Besides, the second best thing would be a reduced cost structure that the state would benefit from. They would have lower costs because of the fact that army professionals would be skilled at a variety of tasks.
Declaring the importance of private corporations of mercenaries in Iraq Bush declared that “Such a corps would function much like our military Reserve. It would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them,” Bush declared. This is precisely what the administration has already done, largely behind the backs of the American people and with little congressional input, with its revolution in military affairs. Bush and his political allies are using taxpayer dollars to run an outsourcing laboratory.
Iraq is its Frankenstein monster”. http://www. counterpunch. org/scahill01252007. html Besides, all these ground beaking realities privitization of military has completely changed the war traind of taday’world . An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists identified that “at least 90 private military companies that have operated in 110 countries worldwide. Indicative perhaps of the changing nature of war, they provide services normally carried out by a national military force, including training, intelligence, logistics, combat and security in conflict zones.
Most are headquartered in the US, Britain and South Africa, though the vast bulk of their services are performed in conflict-ridden areas of Africa. ” This is an area for more study. The expansion of the privatized military industry raised number of issues such as according to PW singer article published in 2003 state that “for privatized peacekeeping, the ensuing dangers include all the problems one has in standard contracting and business outsourcing. The hired firms have incentives to overcharge, pad their personnel lists, hide failures, not perform to their peak capacity…
these are all now transferred into the security realm, where people’s lives are at stake” http://www. thirdworldtraveler. com/New_World_Order/Making_Killing. html Conclusion Lastly, private military service providers are working for profit motives and not for the country. There is no comparison between private military forces and the national military in any respect, because national military troops are working for the nation’s security rather than for money matter purposes.
Furthermore, there should be a proper law that ensures the capabilities and potentials of an individual that who may be drawn into this industry. On the other hand, probationary employment and high salaries that private military companies are offering to their employees could adversely affect the moral and interest of the official military professionals and it might result in more shortages of the official military strength.
However, there is no flaw of using the private solutions – public military ends are not necessarily a harsh thing. Nevertheless, there has something to be pondering by the government while hiring private military professionals because of the nation’s security plans and further movements, and more importantly, a big investment matters in hiring them. It also seems that the bubble of private military may explode if the current wave of work in Iraq ever ends; somehow, it feels that the PMCs are unlikely to vanish any time soon.
References
Making a Killing Private military firms say they are the future of humanitarian intervention in Africa. By Andre Verloy http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/Making_Killing.html Accessed February 9, 2007