Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The state monopoly on collective violence and democratic control over military force
- 3 The transformation of the state and the soldier
- 4 United Kingdom: private financing and the management of security
- 5 United States: shrinking the state, outsourcing the soldier
- 6 Germany: between public–private partnerships and conscription
- 7 Iraq and beyond: contractors on deployed operations
- 8 The future of democratic security: contractorization or cosmopolitanism?
- 9 Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
7 - Iraq and beyond: contractors on deployed operations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The state monopoly on collective violence and democratic control over military force
- 3 The transformation of the state and the soldier
- 4 United Kingdom: private financing and the management of security
- 5 United States: shrinking the state, outsourcing the soldier
- 6 Germany: between public–private partnerships and conscription
- 7 Iraq and beyond: contractors on deployed operations
- 8 The future of democratic security: contractorization or cosmopolitanism?
- 9 Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
While the outsourcing of national defence to private contractors has become widely accepted, the use of private military contractors in deployed military operations has been considered a more controversial issue. Even the UK government has argued that the outsourcing of military functions should not normally happen in ‘non-benign environments’. The reasons for this constraint have been the distinct challenges for the democratic control and accountability of the legitimate use of collective force presented by the deployment of private military contractors in international interventions. Despite these objections, recent operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq have moved private military contractors close to or even into combat zones. Multiple simultaneous interventions have served as primary explanations for the proliferation of private military contracting in deployed operations. However, they alone cannot account for the changes and the differences in UK, US and German policies with regard to private contractors in military operations abroad. Varying ideological positions have played a major part in determining the conceptions of the three governments with regard to the appropriate roles of the state, the armed forces and private military contractors in international security. These positions have ranged from the application of the Neoliberal model of the small state to international affairs, to the reluctance to despatch private military contractors abroad based on Republican conceptions of the legitimate use of collective violence.
Private firms have always provided military surge capacity during major international conflicts, such as during the First and Second World Wars.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security , pp. 194 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010