Corporate Warriors: Rise of the Privatized Military Industry

Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)
by P. W. Singer

Book Description:

In the groundbreaking new book, "Corporate Warriors," Brookings Institution security analyst P. W. Singer explores one of the most interesting, but little understood developments in modern warfare. Over the last decade, a global trade in hired military services has emerged. Known as "privatized military firms" (PMFs), these new businesses range from small consulting firms, who sell the advice of retired generals, to transnational corporations that lease out wings of fighter jets or battalions of commandos.

Such firms number in the hundreds, have an estimated annual revenue of over $100 billion, and presently operate in over fifty countries, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. From recent events in Latin America (where a CMS intelligence-gathering plane was recently lost to Colombian rebels) to the Middle East (the Vinnell firm, which trains the Saudi military, was just struck in the May 2003 Riyadh terrorist bombings), these firms appear in all the world's hotspots and headlines again and again. Yet, until now, no book has opened up this powerful new industry to the public eye.

Even the world's most powerful military has become one of the prime clients of the industry. From 1994-2002, the U.S. Defense Department entered into over 3,000 contracts with U.S.-based firms, estimated at a contract value of more than $300 billion. PMFs, such as Vice President Cheney's old Halliburton and its Brown & Root division now provide the logistics of every major U.S. military deployment. Other firms have even taken over the ROTC programs at over two hundred American universities. That is, private employees now train the U.S. military leaders of tomorrow. With the recent purchase of MPRI (a PMF based in Virginia) by the Fortune-500 corporation L-3, many Americans unknowingly own slices of the industry in their 401-K stock portfolios.

Perhaps no example better illustrates the industry's growing activity than the recent war against Iraq. Private military employees handled everything from feeding and housing U.S. troops to maintaining sophisticated weapons systems like the B-2 stealth bomber, the F-117 stealth fighter, Global Hawk UAV, U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, and numerous Navy ships.

Indeed, the ratio of private contractors to U.S. military personnel in the Gulf was roughly 1 to 10 (10 times the ratio during the 1991 war). The Economist magazine even termed the conflict "the first privatised war." Private firms will likely play similar roles in the ensuing occupation period. One recent example is the controversial Dyncorp firm, whose employees were implicated in the sex and arms trade in the Balkans, being hired to train the post-Saddam police force.

"Corporate Warriors" provides the first comprehensive analysis of the private military industry. The book traces the firms' historic roots in the mercenary outfits of the past and the more recent underlying causes that led to their emergence at the end of the Cold War. He then examines how the industry is structured and these novel businesses operate. In a series of detailed company portraits, Singer then describes the three sectors within the industry. Military provider firms, like Executive Outcomes (a South African company, made up of ex-Apartheid fighters), offer direct, tactical military assistance, including serving in front-line combat. Military consulting firms, like MPRI, draw primarily on retired senior officers to provide strategic and training expertise for clients who are looking for a step up in their military capabilities. Finally, military support firms, like Halliburton-Brown & Root, carry out multi-billion contracts that provide logistics, intelligence, and maintenance services to armed forces, allowing them to concentrate their own energies on combat.

Singer then explores the many implications of this industry, ranging from their impact on arms races to their possible roles in international peacekeeping. He analyzes how the hopes for economy and efficiency can duel with the risks that come from outsourcing the most essential of government functions, that of national security. The privatization of military services allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the way that war is carried out. However, the mix of the profit motive with the fog of war raises a series of troubling questions -for international relations, for ethics, for management, for civil-military relations, for international law, for human rights, and, ultimately, for democracy. In other words, when it comes to military responsibilities, private companies' good may not always be to the public good.

"Corporate Warriors" is a hard-hitting analysis that provides a fascinating first look inside this exciting, but potentially dangerous new industry. Easily accessible and highly informative, it provides a critical but balanced look at the businesses behind the headlines. With the continued expansion and growth of this industry in the coming years, "Corporate Warriors" will be the essential sourcebook for understanding how the private military industry works and how governments must respond. In the words of one leading expert, it is a "must read" for anyone who cares about politics and warfare.
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Editorial Review - From Publishers Weekly:

A security analyst at the Brookings Institution, Singer raises disturbing new issues in this comprehensive analysis of a post-Cold War phenomenon: private companies offering specialized military services for hire. These organizations are nothing like the mercenary formations that flourished in post-independence Africa, whose behavior there earned them the nickname les affreux: "the frightful ones."

Today's corporate war-making agencies are bought and sold by Fortune 500 firms. Even some UN peacekeeping experts, Singer reports, advocate their use on grounds of economy and efficiency. Governments see in them a means of saving money-and sometimes a way to use low-profile force to solve awkward, potentially embarrassing situations that develop on the fringes of policy.

Singer describes three categories of privatized military systems. "Provider firms" (the best known being the now reorganized Executive Outcomes) offer direct, tactical military assistance ranging from training programs and staff services to front-line combat. "Consulting firms," like the U.S.-based Military Professional Resources Inc., draw primarily on retired senior officers to provide strategic and administrative expertise on a contract basis. The ties of such groups to their country of origin, Singer finds, can be expected to weaken as markets become more cosmopolitan. Finally, the overlooked "support firms," like Brown & Root, provide logistic and maintenance services to armed forces preferring (or constrained by budgetary factors) to concentrate their own energies on combat.

Singer takes pains to establish the improvements in capability and effectiveness privatization allows, ranging from saving money to reducing human suffering by ending small-scale conflicts. He is, however, far more concerned with privatization's negative implications. Technical issues, like contract problems, may lead to an operation ending without regard to a military rationale.

A much bigger problem is the risk of states losing control of military policy to militaries outside the state systems, responsible only to their clients, managers, and stockholders, Singer emphasizes. So far, private military organizations have behaved cautiously, but there is no guarantee will continue. Nor can the moralities of business firms be necessarily expected to accommodate such niceties as the laws of war. Singer recommends increased oversight as a first step in regulation, an eminently reasonable response to a still imperfectly understood development in war making.

Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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An intelligent, groundbreaking, & highly controversial book, September 11, 2003 - Reviewer: Storm Cunningham from Arlington, VA United States

Most folks will automatically assume this is a book about the latest generation of mercenaries. While that's certainly an aspect of this industry, there's a far more surprising side to this story: Their role in the restoration of peace, and in the reconstruction of wartorn countries.

Thus, private military firms (PMF's) are actually one of the 8 sectors of restorative development, often referred to as the global "restoration economy", which currently accounts for about $2 trillion annually. [Restorative development is defined as "socioeconomic revitalization based on restoration of the natural and built environments".]

This shouldn't be so surprising, given that most of them come from engineering or construction roots. But, why the dichotomy of good and evil? It's simple, really:

When PMF's are used to advance "new development" (such as exploiting someone else's natural resources, which often requires a "regime change"), they are often operating on "the dark side". When they are advancing "restorative development", they are usually the "good guys". The same dynamic can be found in the ordinary (non-PMF) civil engineering community.

Corporate Warriors does a wonderful job of documenting this fast-growing, highly profitable "ancient" industry, which is experiencing a rebirth as a major global force after 3 centuries of slumber.
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Contemporary Warfare, Expanding Markets, August 24, 2003 - Reviewer: Jim Albert from New York, NY

Corporate Warriors is an exceptionally well written, well sourced book that will forever alter the way you view the present and future of American foriegn policy and of contemporary war on a global scale. It is a very balanced assesment of the privitization of war, which both exposes some very frightening aspects of the deal-making surrounding it's major players, yet demystifies other components and makes the case for a responsible, accountable use of these corporations. The lingering questions that one is left with at the end of its reading resonate with essential issues concerning globalized capitalism, namely its insatiable demand for the expansion and reinvention of its markets. Here, violence becomes a commodity and market economics come head to head with the social contract and moral conflicts unimagined just a few decades past.
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Essential for our times, June 22, 2003 - Reviewer: W. Clifton Holmes from Washington, DC

Singer's categorizations of military assistance organizations confer clarity in a fragmented, heterogenous field of activity. When one thinks of quintessential 'government-provided' services, one thinks of education, prisons, policing, and the military. While privatization in the first three such areas has been studied extensively, Singer has provided here an essential overview and analysis of how privatization has unfolded, to a much greater extent than we may realize, in the military sphere. 5 stars- as readable as it is insightful.
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A fascinating look at the dark underbelly of the military, June 11, 2003 -
Reviewer: Joshua A Steinitz from San Francisco, CA USA

Singer is renowned as an expert in the privatization of the military, and has appeared regularly on major news programs like CNN, CNBC, and Nightline. He documents how private companies have taken on an increasingly large role in military operations and support, both on the battlefield and in logistical and support roles, and his study raises serious questions about the conflicts of interest that may occur when military operations become enmeshed in politics and profit motives.