Why does the military use contractors

While the minimum requirements vary from company to company, most contractors recruited come from the developing world.

In a more pragmatic sense, the diversity in backgrounds of private contractors could have an impact on the values they hold and how they operate in conflict zones. In one instance, Afghan contractors hired to provide convoy security to the U. Another fundamentally problematic issue with PMSCs relates to their ambivalent status under current international humanitarian law IHL.

Firstly, it is important to note there is a general consensus towards considering PMSCs and their employees as non-combatants — civilians. In a conflict, civilians are supposed to be protected by direct attacks for as long as they refrain from taking active part in the conflict.

The distinction between civilians and combatants, especially in the case of PMCs, is not as clear cut as it seems. To begin, while private contractors are generally considered civilians, they often do not respect the norm of refraining from joining the conflict in a combat role. The Blackwater now called Academi incident of in Nisour Square, Baghdad is a revealing example of how murky the distinction between civilians and combatants can be with regards to PMSCs.

On September , some Blackwater contractors allegedly opened fired on civilians in Baghdad, killing seventeen civilians and injuring many others. In fact, in this specific case, Blackwater contractors appear to have violated IHL and could thus be tried for war crimes. Nevertheless, cases like that of Blackwater rightfully rise concerns regarding the lack of appropriate regulations to classify PMCs in conflict zones.

Seeing that PMCs status as civilians is rather ambiguous, could they be classified as combatants? Not exactly. They do not comply with the definition of combatant presented above, which can be considered the most minimal definition allowed within the IHL framework.

First, because they are not formally considered part of the U. It is true, however, that since the Blackwater incident, the U. State Department requires U. Because of their fluidity, thus, they still hold an unclear status within the current IHL framework. Lastly, PMSCs have enraged and horrified the world because of alleged misconduct and gross human rights violations. While this point is inherently intertwined with their unclear status under IHL, I believe it deserve a sub-section in its own rights.

The allegations are not limited to this event. Prior to the incident, PMCs were involved in torturing Iraqis — both civilians and combatants — within the closed walls of the Abu Ghraid prison, in Iraq. Analysts and scholars believe that it is unclear to what extent the practice has stopped since it surfaced in the news.

Thus, such measures would not apply to all PMCs employed by the U. Lastly, in , Congress passed more comprehensive laws, in the form of an amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to subject PMCs to the system of court-martials. The international community has also contributed to the regulatory effort, with mixed results. In , the Montreux document was created as part of a joint initiative between the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The document was meant to establish standards for best practises and behaviours; yet, not only did it not envision any enforcement mechanisms but it also failed to garner significant international support, as it was only signed by forty-nine countries.

However, their efforts have been hindered by a lack of engagement by the whole international community, as well as by inherent problems in monitoring PMCs. Similarly, as shown in Section IV, it can be argued that states like the U. Thus far, this paper has analyzed the rise of PMSCs as well as the negative impacts and inherent issues. Based on the evidence presented in Section I and II, it is clear that, while many issues relevant to PMSCs predated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these two conflicts not only saw an unprecedented reliance by the U.

Because of this, it would be expected by the subsequent administrations, namely the Obama Administration, to sever or at least loosen their connection with PMSCs. That is not the case. In , the U. As such, it is important to remember that PMCs, were and still are used in several different Departments, both at home and abroad. Furthermore, the net amount of dollars that the U. Lastly, a report uncovered how the Department of Defense, under Obama, hired warlords to provide security services.

As such, the Obama Administration, the first distinct administration that took office after the negative impact of PMCs were uncovered in Iraq and Afghanistan, did not disentangle itself this global industry; on the contrary, it seemed to increase its reliance of PMSCs. What can explain that? Thus far this paper has provided an account of the rise of PMSCs in the modern context and, most importantly, justifications as per way they are deemed to be a problematic industry.

Section III explored the recent political context and established that, despite the negative impacts and inherent issues, the Obama Administration still made ample use of PMSCs. This section is dedicated to uncovering why, despite the issues mentioned in Section II, the U. As explored in Section I, the disintegration of the Soviet Union marked the cessation of a perceived ongoing threat to U.

The debate around the legitimacy of combat operations by PMSCs is especially poignant because it is this very feature that still makes them appealing to Washington and problematic as a military measure. In fact, establishing whether PMCs are deployed in a combat capacity is significant because such mission can be — and have been — authorised without the oversight of Congress. In the case of the Iraq war, the political elite capitalised on the fact that total transparency and direct authorisation from Congress were not necessary to authorise a surge in private militias.

Bush also benefitted from the fact that little to no information was disclosed to the public at the time of the surge. President Obama, who inherited the wars, in a sense, had no choice but to reply of PMCs to try achieving military objectives while still respecting the wishes of his electorate. The first involves the nature of the right involved in the each profession.

While medical treatment may be a right, it is at best a right that can be limited at times, either by my inability to provide care or the rights of others. The exercise of triage is perhaps the best example that even if I have a right to healthcare, that right has limits that are frequently reached by the ability of others to provide that care. The types of rights that a non-combatant possesses e.

Perhaps more importantly, however, is the role the former professionals would take on without the existence of the profession itself. The point of the medical profession is to restore health, an intrinsically valuable activity. Therefore, the role of individual doctors would still be noble without the existence of the profession. They would dedicate their days to some activity necessary to try to help people become healthier.

A woman with CPR training struggling to save a victim on the side of the road may not be a medical professional, but her actions are clearly morally praiseworthy. The point of the military profession, however, is warfare, a job that often involves both the intentional deaths of combatants as well as the deaths of countless innocents. These are actions that if they have any value at all must have some great extrinsic worth, because they by themselves great tragedies.

For war, as Walzer reminds us, is worse than Hell, for in Hell at least in Hell there is total and complete discrimination. In war, however, we are the architects as well as the inhabitants of a land where the innocent suffer along with the guilty. Therefore, the nobility of soldiers, if there is any at all, must be found something other than their direct actions. The place that is most frequently cited is the war itself or the greater cause.

The problem with this justification is that soldiers would only be involved in noble actions when their cause was just. When their cause was unjust, they would not merely be ignoble; they would be some of the most contemptible criminals. If we can see even the slightest hint of dignity in Rommel fighting the worst of wars in the best of ways, it is due solely to the possible nobility of the military profession itself. The profession of arms exists for the protection of the state and in its noblest times the protection of the rights of others as well.

If we are to serve a state we cannot choose our wars. If soldiers are as responsible for the sins of our state as they are for their sins on the battlefield than the mere possibility of an unjust war would appear to make joining the military an immoral decision. We would have to even condemn career soldiers who fight in just wars, for the choice they have control over, joining the military, is nonetheless immoral.

The choice they do not, and cannot practically speaking, have control over is what wars their country will fight. Even this accident of a just war cannot retroactively make their choice to join the military praiseworthy or even acceptable. This is why the possible degradation of the military profession is so problematic. The line between noble calling and immoral occupation is not a fine one but it is supported only by the existence of the profession of arms.

If the state ever hires contractors to fight its wars the way they do to build their tanks, then they would become much like the man who joins a revolution, morally culpable for not jus in bello but jus ad bellum as well. A profession in the most robust sense of the term can only exist if it is solely responsible for the execution of its core function as well as the training and discipline of those members who fail to live up to the higher ideals that the profession demands.

Although the actions of one or two isolated individuals outside the profession do not undermine the profession, the members within the military can no longer call themselves part of the profession of arms if they become only a piece of the battle plan.

Now some may object that the use of contractors in war conducting security and minor hostilities is as devastating to the profession as I have argued. They may note that professional soldiers have often fought alongside mercenaries; in fact professional officers were often put in charge of them in the 18th and 19th centuries.

If we continue to use military contractors in security roles in which they could see combat, however, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma that gets more and more problematic as their numbers increase. We are left with two options. First, we could broaden the scope of the profession of arms to include these PMFs by making training and punishment consistent, and bring them within the unified chain of command.

We could become, in effect, like our 18th and 19th century brethren. There are, however, several reasons why this seems like a bad idea. We would have to create a new training regiment, a new accountability system, and integrate these contractors into a unified chain of command.

These changes would be so dramatic from the way contractors currently operate that I wonder if there would be any benefit to continue outsourcing these functions. Furthermore, there is the very real possibility of damage to the morale of our troops when the contractors they are fighting alongside have better equipment and get paid significantly better.

There are even more severe consequences, however, if we let PMFs operate independently of the military professionals within our nations military. We have similar issues of moral and retention. In addition, the negative consequence of the breakdown in a cohesive battle plan when you have in essence two groups fighting along side each other using separate communications systems are even troubling.

We have fractured our training, our accountability, and our ethical codes. I do not believe that the crisis has yet reached the point where talk of the military profession is meaningless, but I know that we cannot fight alongside and independently of large numbers of mercenaries for extended periods of time without becoming mercenaries ourselves, not because of the effect that their actions will have on ours, but merely because their existence destroys the ability for the profession to exist at all.

If we ever reach such a point, our uniforms, our medals, and even our codes of honor truly will become nothing more than anachronistic window dressing. Some may offer a final objection by pointing to a similar situation of acceptable outsourcing within the medical profession.

If a doctor retires from his job as a surgeon, she may join a private firm that the hospital hires to make policy decisions about future patient care. Surely this action is acceptable because she is after all, still a doctor. There are, however, two important differences between these two cases. The most important difference involves the key traits of the two professions, in this case accountability and chain of command. In the case of the Doctor, she is still considered a doctor for discipline purposes by both the Medical Boards and the laws of the state when she is acting within the core function of the medical profession.

In other words, she is still held accountable as a doctor when she makes decisions about patient care. The same, however, cannot be said for the former Marine. He clearly is not held accountable for his actions as a combatant under UCMJ. Furthermore, the former Marine no longer operates as part of a unified chain of command in service of the state, another key component of the military profession.

The doctor is in the very real sense still a doctor while working for the consulting firm; the Marine, however, can no longer be a Marine while working for a PMF. Furthermore, even if this was not the case, there is no requirement that the PMFs hire only former members of the US or Commonwealth forces. While Blackwater USA , the company for which the four men killed in Fallujah worked, started out employing only former members of the US Armed Forces, primarily former members of Special Forces, a booming market has forced it to look to other labor sources as well.

In the post-Vietnam era, the military profession went through what some considered a crisis. The justification for the war was questionable and victory denied, but it was the lack of military professionalism of a handful of servicemen and women more than any other factor that caused the American military to rededicate itself to the profession of arms. Today the profession may not yet be in crisis, but it and its nobility are at the very least in danger of being sold to the lowest bidder.

It may, therefore, be hard to draw a sharp line between these two categories. For instance, one could make the argument that a Hospital or Military outsourcing its cafeteria has professional implications since both professions care about the physical well-being of their soldiers and patients.

Nonetheless, that difference seems important enough to merit treating them as separate types of arguments. A law firm outsourcing its file maintenance duties to temps should not be merely as problematic as if they were outsourcing their legal counsel to those not admitted to the bar, regardless of how competent and educated in the law those they hire may be.

Second Edition. Berkley Books, New York , This effort comes as a result of attempts to progress slow-moving peace negotiations with the Taliban. On this front, progress has been slow, potentially motivating the Trump administration to pursue alternative methods of warfare to increase incentive for the Taliban to negotiate. Prince, in an interview with Military Times, argues that implementation of PMSCs in Afghanistan would significantly reduce the costs of warfare in the region and increase the efficacy of military action.

Prince also addresses the concerns over compliance with international law, stating that measures will be in place to ensure that no unlawful military activity would be conducted by the contractors. The increased use of private militias has obscured and weakened international law.

Under the International Convention Under the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries , the use and recruitment of mercenaries is legally forbidden. The resolution, however, was ratified by only 35 countries. State interest in mercenaries attributes to notoriously flawed international law; one permeated in impunity and perforated in injustice. These dynamic structures create legal loopholes replete with poor records and human rights violations.

The allure of private military contractors lies not in their claimed efficiency and cost effectiveness, but political anonymity.

Consequently, PMSCs and their corresponding actions in international conflicts are rendered nearly invisible.