Advances in Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems

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"The Privatisation of Defence and Security: Risks and Opportunities (p. 63-64)

Nikolaos Tzifakis

Introduction

Over the past years, several states and international organisations have increasingly been entrusting private agencies with tasks such as training, restructuring and modernising armies and police forces; gathering and analysing intelligence; securing military communications; operating technologically advanced military systems; providing military transportation and protecting strategic targets; clearing minefields; and interrogating prisoners. Meanwhile, an ever-increasing number of non-governmental organisations, multinational corporations and individuals are turning to private companies for security services.

The contractor enterprises are either private military companies that participate in actions such as military operations, stabilisation and post-conflict reconstruction of societies and security sector reform,1 or private security companies specialising in the provision of assets and personal protection services.2 The use of coercive force by private agencies is not a novelty. The phenomenon is as ancient as warfare itself (Shearer, 1998, p. 69).

The involvement of mercenaries in armed conflicts has been recorded from the times of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece to our days (Singer, 2001/02, p. 190; Fredland, 2004, p. 206). The Westphalian state as the sole agent of the right to use violence is an exception in history, which in fact existed for a considerable amount of time only in the West.3 The process by which sovereign states expanded and established themselves on a global scale (whose key feature was their monopoly in their territory on the legitimate use of force) was essentially accomplished as late as the twentieth century.

However, the transnational and corporate nature of the current private security sector, as opposed to the freelance and unorganised mercenaries of the past, is unprecedented.5 Although the sector of private military and security companies is extremely diverse (encompassing both local, smallsized enterprises and multinational giants listed on international stock exchanges) (Singer 2003; Cilliers, 2002, p. 146), its overall growth since the end of the Cold War is impressive.

The turnover of private security companies alone rose in 2007 to $165 billion. G4S, the largest private security company in the world, operates in more than 110 countries and has more than 585,000 employees. In 2008, G4S had an annual turnover of £6 billion. 6 MPRI, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications specialising in the provision of military training services, operates in the United States and 40 countries overseas.

MPRI officials have bragged about the fact that their company can muster more (retired) generals than the American army actually has in its service (Leander, 2005a, p. 609). In states as different as the United States, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and India, the number of private security contractors is much higher than the number of employees in the respective state security agencies (Abrahamsen & Williams, 2009, p. 2). An assessment of the activities of private military and security companies would consider both several actions successfully accomplished and important weaknesses and failures."