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The Peace Corp.
Private security companies like Blackwater have thrived in Iraq, where the US military has relied on them for everything from guarding convoys to securing the Green Zone. But these companies recognize that the demand for their services in Iraq will eventually diminish, and Blackwater, for one, is looking for new markets....When Kofi Annan was UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping, he explored the option of hiring the South African private military company Executive Outcomes to aid in the Rwandan refugee crisis. He ultimately decided against the option, declaring that ''the world is not yet ready to privatize peace."
The world still appears to be unready-and representatives of private military companies believe that's shortsighted. ''When traditional peacekeepers can't provide an adequate response because of their home country obligations, there's an alternative that should be openly and frankly discussed. And that's a private professional group," says Chris Taylor, Blackwater's vice president for strategic initiatives....
...When the world's governments and multilateral organizations have proven as ineffectual as they have in Darfur, should they turn to the private sector for help? In the absence of a viable alternative, is the international community's aversion to what some call ''mercenarism" stronger than its will to fight genocide?
From the Boston Globe.
No doubt there are some issues to be addressed but this objection from David Isenberg, senior analyst at the British American Security Information Council, is farcical.
''How do you ensure oversight, compliance with international humanitarian law, follow the rules of warfare, rules of engagement, comply with the Geneva Conventions, and the whole bureaucratic panoply of rules that come into play?"
How indeed. But after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret CIA prisons etc. how can anyone claim that this is an argument against privatization?
Thanks to David Theroux for the pointer.
Addendum: Matt Yglesias has some sensible and surprisingly positive thoughts on the peace corp question. In the comments LaFollette Prog writes "If Doctors Without Borders decides to hire a regiment of Doctors With Heavy Artillery and starts capping some Janjaweed ass, it might improve their fundraising efforts in rural America..."
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on April 27, 2006 at 07:15 AM in Current Affairs, Economics | Permalink
Comments
Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
Alfred Edward Housman
Posted by: deRien at Apr 27, 2006 7:50:14 AM
Just another instance of comparing commercial reality to an imaginary ideal government.
Posted by: michael vassar at Apr 27, 2006 7:57:52 AM
OTOH, Adam Smith, Jane Jacobs, and Machiavelli thought it was a bad idea. That's enough consensus to at least critically examine such proposals before adopting them.
Posted by: michael vassar at Apr 27, 2006 7:59:21 AM
Wow, they actually wrote the entire article without the word "mercenary." There is one "what some call 'mercenarism'"; they skipped the normal word for one that does not appear in my dictionary, but there is a "Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa," so I guess "some" is quite accurate.
I always thought of Machiavelli as having had the last word on mercenaries, which is "no." Maybe the market for mercenary peacekeepers is sufficiently different. Believers in the free market might hope that mercenaries would steal/sell fewer relief supplies and rape fewer refugees than current government-supported peacekeepers.
Posted by: Zubon at Apr 27, 2006 8:19:56 AM
Did Machiavelli really think about peacekeeping troops? I think hiring mercenaries for warfighting is really dangerous, but international peacekeepers have a more tightly constrained role. In particular, the risk that mercenaries pressure the government into fighting more wars is lower when they have to influence five large governments with conflicting interests instead of just one.
It would really suck for the US if private armies gained the lobbying power of say the teachers' unions. Let alone the existing power of defense contractors, who are arguably better off in cold wars, since actual combat could reveal which of their expensive hitech weapons don't work in the field.
Posted by: DK at Apr 27, 2006 8:26:03 AM
Machiavelli was talking about the use of mercs as part of the standing army for the hiring power. "Robbed by their presence during peace, and by their abscence during war" is the phrase I recall. Very, VERY different from a couple of battalions hired for piece work by a major power.
It's a complex problem. First blush, I don't have a problem using them against lawless forces in unconventional warfare situations. I would not want to use them against a major power.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Apr 27, 2006 9:32:48 AM
Sorry, I don't see the farce. It's a legitimate question.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Apr 27, 2006 10:22:31 AM
My understanding was that in Kosovo and now in Iraq there has been some pretty horrific human trafficing/slave problems.
I can easily see someone claim that this is an argument against privatization.
At the same time, George W. Bush is an exceedingly bad President. Most people making the argument against privatization think the probability is very, very low that we could get another President this bad. Empirically, though, the odds only appear to be 43:1.
Posted by: slh at Apr 27, 2006 11:27:43 AM
How indeed. But after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret CIA prisons etc. how can anyone claim that this is an argument against privatization?
The failure of public services in relatively few cases is not a legitimate argument in favour of privatizing the service, as the experience with water services shows. And don't forget that Russian proverb (maybe there's also an equivalent English one, but I don't know it) -- "gold said: I'll buy everything; the sword said: I'll take everything". The Fuggers lent Charles V the money he needed to become emperor, but when he assumed imperial power he neglected to pay back.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Apr 27, 2006 11:31:09 AM
To Bernard: Yes, how to encourage compliance with international law is a legitimate question (as I said in the post). The question, however, applies to governments just as much as it applies to private entities.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 27, 2006 11:42:26 AM
I'm curious about the legal status of private soldiers in war, as opposed to unlawful combattants or regular soldiers. This breaks down into two questions:
a. Do private soldiers have any protections under the Geneva convention? If they're captured, can they be executed as unlawful combattants?
b. If Al Qaida starts paying their private soldiers, do we have to start treating them as real soldiers and obeying the Geneva convention with respect to their treatment?
Posted by: albatross at Apr 27, 2006 11:56:04 AM
You probably can “ensure oversight, compliance with international humanitarian law, follow the rules of warfare, rules of engagement, and comply with the Geneva Conventions”, etc... However, it is more costly to hire private peacekeepers as the 'national service/honor factor benefit is reduced. Moreover, when a hostage situation takes place, a civilian is a civilian and creates more public furor/political pressure than a soldier - as society is more accepting of the idea that he/she (the soldier) is subject to such risks by the enemy. The state's mandate is derived from the people. Opposition to the peacekeeping operations translates into opposition/retaliation against the entire state - an overwhelming undertaking. In contrast, opposition to the activity of a private firm would simply subject its assets in that country to attack/sabotage.
Posted by: Anonymous at Apr 27, 2006 12:01:01 PM
BBC:
In the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, US army investigators discovered that contractors were involved in more than a third of the proven incidents.
None of them has been prosecuted. Not quite civilians nor soldiers, they fall under a legal grey area.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Apr 27, 2006 12:28:26 PM
Pros/Cons
Pros. Since the force would be commercial entity then they would be more compelled to follow the "rules governing war" than conscripts. Soldiers who don't follow the rules get fired. Homemade stuff usually has a greater overall cost than store bought. Have a problem, need help, hire the A-Team.
Cons. Machevelli wrote for the Prince, which is to say if you want to run a principality you should do this. He analysis was the virtue of Mercs to the Prince and to the state. With this entities outside the state could have armies. This allows anyone with money to hire an army. Bill Gates could have a foreign policy. This has happened before in History, as a close example, the Roman Republic/Empire.
What's stopping Dole or United Foods from hiring an army and setting up some banana republic in Central America, as they once did by "hiring" the US Army?
(Excuse my excessive use of quotes)
Posted by: Kevin at Apr 27, 2006 12:42:51 PM
Yaping about the Geneva Conventions would be more interesting if anybody but the US ever followed any of them.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at Apr 27, 2006 1:04:33 PM
Would they raise funds through advertisements? How much private demand is there for charitable peacekeeping efforts?
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Apr 27, 2006 2:17:54 PM
A lot of concerns here center around the fear that contractors would not do what their country of origin wants them to do. Here's a proposal that might take care of such concerns:
Private peacekeepers can only operate with the permission of their host government. The overall decision of whether to fight in Darfur is still made by the same people. Only once that decision is made does the process differ from traditional peacekeeping: the private-run company does all the tactical stuff, and can raise funds from sources other than its government of origin.
Albatross writes:
> Do private soldiers have any protections
> under the Geneva convention?
"Don't do anything without your government's approval" might take care of this concern too. If private peacekeepers can only operate with the OK of their host government, then they would seem to deserve the same treatment as soldiers who were micromanaged (rather than merely macromanaged) by their host government.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Apr 27, 2006 2:20:01 PM
So far those who have weighed in on human rights, Geneva Convention concerns and so on seem to assume that the commanding authority (government) will want those rights upheld and that the problem lies only in monitoring the mercenaries sufficiently. In reality I believe that the worst danger lies in the government trying to use such forces to escape from the restrictions its own forces are bound by, and delegating violations and atrocities to the mercenaries it employs. After all, government can simply blame any reported problems on these contractors.
That said, my problem lies more with governments than mercenaries per se; given a sufficiently principled employer I think they can be a good idea.
Posted by: bbartlog at Apr 27, 2006 4:04:41 PM
Yes, how to encourage compliance with international law is a legitimate question (as I said in the post). The question, however, applies to governments just as much as it applies to private entities.
Sure. But it seems to me that it is inherently easier to enforce compliance on a government military force than on mercenaries. First, the regular soldiers are subject to a well-established set of laws governing their conduct, with rules of court-martial, etc. Mercenary operations are much more loosely controlled. Second, even if the government wants to enforce the rules on mercenaries there are questions about its ability to do so. Isn't part of the reason they have not been prosecuted the lack of clarity as to jurisdiction?
So yes, the question is worth asking in both cases, but that doesn't mean the issue is not an argument against privatization.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Apr 27, 2006 4:14:53 PM
Maybe it's just my crazy Communist sympathies, but I sense a lot of hand-waving about "government" versus "private action" in the comments here, and in the previous thread.
I guess I view the behavior of individuals who belong to organizations as a somewhat complex matter, and not something that can be reduced to "Individuals who are paid by corporations have good incentives, while individuals who are paid by taxpayers have bad incentives" (although this is surely sometimes and maybe even often the case). And so I am not a libertarian.
Posted by: Barbar at Apr 27, 2006 4:23:01 PM
I think this boils down to two issues:
1) Would mercenaries be more willing to take on risky missions that would otherwise be politically unpopular (e.g. humanitarian missions in Africa)?
2) Would mercenaries be more likely to commit human rights violations than regular troops?
I think the answer to 1) is probably yes. As for 2), it depends crucially on the set of institutions that are in place and whether legal and jurisdictional issues are clear. As I understand it, mercenaries are not accorded the same protection as regular troops under international law, so a mercenary in Iraq, for instance, can be prosecuted for any violation of Iraqi law by Iraqi authorities while a U.S. soldier generally cannot (ultimately this would be determined by treaty obligations). On the other hand, it is less clear to me whether a mercenary can be prosecuted by court martial.
Ideally, there would be some certification process where mercenary companies with a record of rights violations could not do business with the U.S. or other rights-respecting countries. Whether this would deliver superior results from the top-down system in place in the Pentagon is an open question.
Posted by: Mark at Apr 27, 2006 7:49:23 PM
There was actually a very interesting documentary, called Shadow Company, on mercenaries/private military companies that recently screened at the Independent Film Festival of Boston.
Official Site: http://www.shadowcompanythemovie.com/
Posted by: mineavatar at Apr 27, 2006 8:34:42 PM
I would think that if some rich entity or corporation wanted a Private army, it would not be "mercenairies"
It would be people loyal to their employer. They have pay, benifits package, and retirement accounts. They believe in the "products" of the entity.
That would be a whole lot more troublesome than any mere mercenary.
Posted by: kyle8 at Apr 27, 2006 9:11:43 PM
Kyle8, you’re describing a form of nationalism based on pay (corporatism?). This illustrates my point. Why pay for this extra level of allegiance that the state can extract for free, based on the individual's ties to homeland/fatherland/motherland (birthplace, parents family etc...).
Posted by: Anonymous at Apr 27, 2006 11:17:00 PM
What are you talking about, it's easy to keep a mercenary force from committing atrocities. You simply write it into the contract. If they commit atrocities, they don't get paid. Fair and simple.
Sure, you may have to pay them more because of it, but maybe they'll use non-lethal weaponry that a government can't or won't invest in, like millimeter-wave emitters or sonic weapons.
Posted by: Xmas at Apr 28, 2006 8:41:45 AM
