Private Military and Security Companies: The Global Market for Force

Private security services have evolved over the years, with private military and security companies (PMSCs) now playing significant roles in providing various services, from military support to policing-like functions. The transnational market for force has expanded, offering new opportunities for private delivery and financing of security services. Understand the complexities of privatized security and the implications it carries in the modern era through a comprehensive analysis presented in "Security Studies: An Introduction".

• Private security
• PMSCs
• Global market
• Security services
• Privatization

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1. CHAPTER 23: PRIVATE MILITARY AND CHAPTER 23: PRIVATE MILITARY AND SECURITY COMPANIES SECURITY COMPANIES Private security involves the allocation of security instruments through the market. While privatization of security has occurred for centuries, the space and scope of those activities raise complex questions over control, accountability and the appropriate role of different agents in providing security. The rush to normative judgment about whether the privatization of security was good or bad has impeded analysis of the range of privatization s effects, the tradeoffs associated with private security, and the choices available for its management. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

2. THE TRANSNATIONAL MARKET FOR FORCE THE TRANSNATIONAL MARKET FOR FORCE Global connections, new ideas and political choices have combined to enhance the opportunities for private delivery of and private financing for security services. Since the end of the Cold War, private military & security companies (PMSCs) have proliferated and played larger and different roles than at any time since the foundation of the modern state. It is hard to specify the size of the market but some PMSCs provide services considered core military capabilities in the modern era. As a result, a growing market for force now exists alongside, and intertwined with, state military and police forces. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

3. PMSCS PROVIDE A RANGE OF SERVICES PMSCS PROVIDE A RANGE OF SERVICES PMSCs offer three broad categories of military support: operational support, military advice and training, and logistical support. PMSCs also offer services more similar to policing ranging from site security (armed and unarmed), crime prevention and intelligence. P.W. Singer (2003) disaggregated PMSCs by the relationship of their primary services to the tip of the spear in battlespace . Services closest to the tip of the spear are those on the front lines of battle, typically the most deadly and dangerous [see slide 5]. Avant (2005) distinguishes between the financing and delivery of security services. The shaded boxes in the table in slide 6 (the two outer most rows and columns) refer to decisions to devolve delivery or financing of services to private entities. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

4. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

5. Financing for Security Services FOREIGN NATIONAL FINANCING 2. German troops in the American Revolution PRIVATE FINANCING (FOR PROFIT) PRIVATE (NOT FOR PROFIT) FINANCING 5. WWF financin g park guards in DRC 10. NATIONAL FINANCING MULTI-NATIONAL FINANCING 1. US in WWII 3. The first Gulf War 4. Shell financing Nigerian Forces NATIONAL DELIVERY 6. German 7. Korean troops fighting for the US in Vietnam 8. The first Gulf War 9. Branch group contributin g to Nigerian forces in Sierra Leone 14. Delivery of Security Services troops in the American Revolutio n FOREIGN NATIONAL DELIVERY 11. NATO in 12. Muslim states contributio n to Western military aid in Bosnia 17. MPRI s work for Croatia 13. UN 15. MULTI- NATIONAL DELIVERY Kosovo peacekee ping 16. 18. MPRI s work for Bosnia 19. DSL working for Lonhro in Mozambiqu 20. DSL working for ICRC around DEBORAH AVANT, THE MARKET FOR FORCE (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2005), P.25. MPRI s provision of ROTC Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 PRIVATE (FOR PROFIT) DELIVERY Information Classification: General

6. THE CURRENT MARKET COMPARED THE CURRENT MARKET COMPARED This is not the first market for force. Markets for allocating violence were common before the systems of states came to dominate world politics. Early modern states both delegated control over force to commercial entities and participated in the market as both suppliers and purchasers. Even in the modern system, some states have relied on the private sector- this has particularly been for weapons, but also for logistics support and for a variety of services idiosyncratic to a particular conflict. While market allocation of security was never completely eliminated in the modern era, it was frowned upon. This led private security to be informally organized, secretive, and directed to a specific customer base. Soldiers of fortune operated in the shadows. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

7. WHY THE CURRENT MARKET? WHY THE CURRENT MARKET? The growth of the market was tied to supply and demand. In the 1990s, supply factors came from local (the end of apartheid in South Africa) and international (the end of the Cold War) phenomena that caused militaries to be downsized in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Military downsizing led to a flood of experienced personnel available for contracting. There was also increasing demand for military skills on the private market from: Western states that had downsized their militaries; countries seeking to upgrade and Westernize their militaries as a way of demonstrating credentials for entry into Western institutions; rulers of weak states no longer propped up by superpower patrons; nonstate actors in the territories of weak or failed states. This shift in supply and demand was tied to globalization and it was boosted by the neoliberal frame through which many viewed private alternatives as superior to public provision of services. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

8. THREE TRADEOFFS THREE TRADEOFFS 1. Individual states can sometimes enhance the capacity of their forces, and thereby increase functional control. But the market undermines the collective monopoly of the state over violence in world politics, and thus a central feature of the sovereign system. States face increasing dilemmas about whether to hire private security and how best to regulate the export of security services. An extensive market alternative for military services changes the options available to states for conducting foreign and security policies. Market alternatives advantages executives relative to legislatures, reduces transparency, reduces the mobilization required to send public forces abroad, and gives the private sector a greater role in formulating and implementing policy. The market option has made it easier to undertake policies that do not have widespread support in a polity. Russian President Putin s Wagner operations are an extreme example. Privatization also shifts power over violence outside the bounds of state machinery. This diffusion of power should produce a greater variety of actors who have influence over the use of force and hence competing institutions with overlapping jurisdictions over force. 2. 3. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

9. THE FUTURE: CHANGED STATES THE FUTURE: CHANGED STATES AND MARKETS MARKETS The privatization of security does not so much transfer power from one institution (the state) to another (the market) so much as pose challenges to the way both states and markets have functioned in the modern system. The market for force has loosened the ties between states and force and undermined states collective monopoly on violence in the international system. This has not made states, per se, less important, but opened the way for changes in the roles states and other actors play in controlling force in world politics. AND Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

10. ESSAY / EXAM QUESTIONS ESSAY / EXAM QUESTIONS Why is private security important for the control of force? Illustrate with three examples. How is today s market for force similar to markets in the past? How is it different? Why is private security so prevalent today? Can private security be controlled? By whom? Does the privatization of security undermine state control of violence? Can the privatization of security enhance state control of violence? Does the privatization of security chart new ways by which violence might be collectively controlled? How does private security affect the ability to contain the use of force within political process and social norms? Using material from the chapter predict what the market for force is likely to look like in 10 years. Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General

11. WEBSITES AND AUDIO WEBSITES AND AUDIO- -VISUAL RESOURCES VISUAL RESOURCES Feature films on private security Blood Diamond (2006): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/ https://www.yout ube.com/watch?v=yknIZsvQjG4 Private Warriors (2005): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warrior s/ Why We Fight (2005): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcuStxJHv4c War Inc. (2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkkgY5d_Q-k State of Play (2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KU0Vu991XE The Whistleblower (2011): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E56OYUV7BWw War Dogs (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwh9c_E3dJk Private Security Monitor an academically curated and annotated guide to data, analysis and regulation of the private security market all over the world: http://psm.du.edu/ A less curated website for private security personnel as well as those that study the industry: http://www.privatemilitary.org/ The International Code of Conduct Association (for private security providers): https://icoca.ch/ The Program Support Office manages operational contractor support for the United States Department of Defense: http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/ps/index.html Force Provision (documentary, 2007): Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-1lXgPukk Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5u3WDaN7b0 Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoSuP3V7f1I Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeiOvPotXQg Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsHs5slYSnU Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxuXXx7fP8w Part 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLE40-mzUY Part 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db0UT6ZwWkE Part 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K0Y3e4lai4 Security Studies: An Introduction. 4th Edition. Paul D. Williams and Matt McDonald. Routledge 2023. Paperback ISBN - 9781032162737 Information Classification: General