The Impact of PMSC on the Role of Today's Military
| Autor | Andrés Macías |
| Cargo | Docente investigador, Universidad Externado de Colombia |
| Páginas | 221-238 |
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OPERA, No 12
1 Docente investigador, Universidad Externado de Colombia. mpt892@hotmail.com
2 “Contrary to popular perceptions, not only governments (and not only African governments) but also interna-
tional organizations, s, humanitarian agencies, members of the international media and s contract private
security services” (Holmqvist, 2005: 6).
3 At an international level, the initiatives that have tried to regulate s include the Montreux Document, the
International Code of Conduct (), and the Draft of a possible Convention on Private Military and Security
Companies (s) for consideration and action by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations.
“e U.S. cannot go to war without con-
tractors” (Avant, 2005: 115).
Dean of the Army War College
INTRODUCTION
Reliance on private organizations to pro-
vide security and military services to states,
international organizations, and multina-
tional corporations (Avant, 2009, 104) has
presented an increasing trend in recent years
and has risen very quickly in the aftermath of
the Cold War2. During the last decade of the
past century, more than one hundred private
military and security companies () were
known to have operations in over one hundred
countries around the world and represented
an estimate of $55.6 billion US in total an-
nual revenues already by 1990 (Holmqvist,
2005: 1-7). “Recent estimates show that the
security market is worth about US 100-165
billion per year, and that it has been growing
at an annual rate of 7–8 per cent” (Florquin,
2011: 103).
These s have become important
tools to return order and stability to conict-
aected scenarios by assisting the work of na-
tional and multinational security forces even
in peace operations (Avant, 2005: 8). Small
Arms Survey recently published a study on
the booming business of this phenomenon of
the privatization of security in 70 countries.
at research found that the total personnel
employed today by private security compa-
nies “exceeds the number of police ocers at
the global level” (Florquin, 2011: 101): while
s employed 19,545,308 individuals, the
number of police ocers was only 10,799,059
(p. 106). Yet, holding these companies and
their employees accountable for their actions
and omissions in peace and war times repre-
sents an even greater challenge since regulation
over them is still scarce, and, as of today, it is
not legally binding3.
T I PMSC
R T’ M
A M
Seguridad, conflicto y gobernabilidad local
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After the news of 17 innocent civilians
killed by Blackwater employees in Nissour
Square, Bagdad, became public, policy makers
and academics began to pay closer attention
to the expansion of the private military and
security industry. Various studies have tried
to evaluate the implications that the presence
of these has had in countries such as
Iraq, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sierra Leone,
Angola, Haiti, and Colombia, among others.
Most of the academic research available on the
topic has focused on the importance of regu-
lating this private industry, on the potential
risks that their activities pose to the protection
of Human Rights, and on whether the use of
force by s challenges the modern State’s
monopoly of the legitimate use of violence.
However, not much research has concentra-
ted on the direct impact that the use of s
may have on the military force and on the
military institution. is paper will try to ad-
dress this gap from a theoretical point of view,
highlighting the impact of the use of s on
the role of today’s military.
e proliferation and diversication of
private military and security companies is a
process that will not slow down. erefore, it
is crucial to understand how and in which ways
it aects and may continue to aect the role of
the military force. e purpose of this paper
is to determine the impact of the use of s
on military institutions and on the provision
of security and defense services. It analyzes
three specic domains where the role of today’s
military may be more directly aected: the
exercise of the monopoly of the use of violence,
the professionalization of the military, and the
process of enrollment of new recruits.
It is important to emphasize that these
domains are not the only roles that the military
should play or the only realms on which the
use of s may have some kind of impact.
On the contrary, the essence of the military
force has always been to help preserve political
stability, to secure national sovereignty, and
to protect the state from external aggression.
Wendy Hunter, in a study regarding soldiers
and states in Latin America, went even fur-
ther and identied four other functions and
missions that a current military body should
engage in: “(1) conventional defense of terri-
torial integrity; (2) international peacekee-
ping; (3) internal security, which includes
counterinsurgency and drug interdiction; and
(4) civic action and development functions”
(Hunter, 1996: 4). However, for the purpose
of this study, a special focus will be given to the
three domains mentioned earlier because they
embrace some of the vital and current tasks
assumed by the military institution regarding
its provision of security and defense services to
the state and to the civilian community.
is analysis requires a review of the lite-
rature regarding the concept of the monopoly
of the legitimate use of force and the role of
the military in the consolidation of modern
democratic states, as well as a review of the
eect of s on the theory and balance of
civil-military relations. In this sense, the gene-
ral objectives of this paper are to broaden the
research on the impact of the privatization of
security in the evolution of the modern state
and to highlight from a theoretical perspective
how turning to private armed groups to pro-
vide security and military services aects the
current role of the public military profession.
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