The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order (24 page)

Given this reality, a state-building strategy based on neomedievalism may prove more effective than current Westphalian models founded on creating governmental institutions. According to Menkhaus, establishing Somalia as a mediated state would involve creating a limited central government that relies on a diverse range of local authorities to execute core functions of government and mediate relations between local communities and the state. This partnership between a weak central government and semiautonomous local authorities might more successfully support stability than conventional Westphalian models of nation building as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, since it harnesses preexisting local authorities to deliver good governance rather than ignoring or disbanding them—the standard practice in contemporary peacekeeping missions.

Le Sage also recommends an essentially neomedieval approach to Somalia. Specifically, he suggests that Western powers and the United Nations not try to enforce a single justice system within Somalia to the detriment of the others, but instead recognize that the “multiplicity of systems has afforded Somalis options in responding to their predicament of state collapse, and each form of justice has its own advantages.”
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Precisely how the centralized government can coexist with prevailing local authorities would be uniquely a matter for Somalis to determine, town by town and district by district. Such a process promises to be messy, but there is precedent for success. The lawless border region of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda has produced years of bloodshed rivaling civil war. Unable to police
its borders fully, the Kenyan government in the late 1990s partnered with coalitions of local NGOs, traditional leaders, and other civic groups to manage and prevent armed conflict through peace and development committees. Following this, public security and rule of law substantially improved, giving the Kenyan government the capacity to extend its authority into its frontier zones with the help of mediated actors. Similarly, governments and peacekeepers alike increasingly use community policing in fragile states to help provide governance in Afghanistan, the Congo, and Liberia. In this way, neomedieval state building harnesses the overlapping authorities and allegiances of local actors to achieve good governance by working toward a common goal.

Historically, the international community dismisses “subnational” political actors and is especially quick to abandon them once a national government is declared, no matter how feeble. However, in areas where neomedievalism is firmly rooted, establishing a Westphalian state may be unattainable, resulting in state-building failure. Too often, well-intentioned peacekeeping missions attempt to create Westphalian states in neomedieval environments that are doomed to fail, since the two conditions are incompatible, as exemplified by the dismal state-building record in Somalia since 1991. Consequently, Menkhaus concludes, “the problem in Somalia is not that state building itself is doomed to fail; it is rather that the type of state that both external and local actors have sought to construct has been unattainable and has as a consequence repeatedly set up Somali political leaders and their external mediators for failure.”
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Somalia’s governance without government creates a durable disorder that may hold valuable insights beyond its borders. While state-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with UN peacekeeping missions around the world, toil in Sisyphean frustration to create Westphalian states where none existed before, an alternative development model based on the realities of neomedievalism might prove more apt. Such a model would recognize the various overlapping authorities and allegiances in a region and work with rather than against them to achieve stability and development. Embracing neomedievalism may be the best way of dealing with weak states and conflict-affected regions.

Both Somalia and Liberia are examples of neomedievalism, albeit highly negative ones. Neomedievalism need not be an adverse condition, but extreme cases help to demonstrate its five characteristics: the technological unification of the world, the regional integration of states, the rise of transnational organizations, the disintegration of states, and the restoration of private international violence. Both cases are stark examples of state disintegration. Tellingly, states did not come to their rescue, as the Westphalian order demands, but nonstates did. The main providers of help are the United Nations, an actor that exemplifies the regional integration of states, and NGOs, actors that are transnational organizations. The main threats to Liberia and Somalia are not states wielding
conventional militaries using “regular” warfare strategies but armed nonstate actors such as LURD and al-Shabaab that engage in neomedieval warfare. Undergirding this entire phenomenon is the power of globalization. In Liberia, it was a force for good. For example, the “CNN effect” focused international attention on the crisis and spurred on a peacekeeping mission there. Conversely, in Somalia, globalization made possible an alliance between al-Shabaab and al-Qaida.

A key difference between Liberia and Somalia is their markets for force. Liberia had a mediated market with military enterprisers that worked in a public-private partnership with its employer, the United States, to build an army for Liberia’s protection. Conversely, Somalia’s free market with mercenaries contributed to instability rather than resolving it. Predatory mercenaries foster ceaseless conflict, worsening security, just like the situation in northern Italy in the high Middle Ages. A future with a free market for force would likely generate more war.

The further back you look, the further forward you can see.

—Winston Churchill

The most powerful man in Tirin Kot, a dusty yet strategic stretch of land in southern Afghanistan, is not the provincial governor or the police chief or the commander of the Afghan army. It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army contracted by the United States to safeguard the vital NATO supply line from Tirin Kot to Kandahar. War has been good to Matiullah; his Afghan PMC has earned millions of dollars—an astronomical sum in a country as impoverished as Afghanistan—fighting the Taliban alongside American Special Forces soldiers.

Like the
condottieri
of old, Matiullah has a monopoly of force so great that he eclipses the authority of the provincial government. He appoints public officials and doles out government largesse to further his business interests. Also like the mercenaries of the Middle Ages, he is suspected of playing a double game with his employer. NATO commanders appear to ignore reports that he schemes with drug smugglers and the Taliban insurgents he is contracted to combat. It is concurrently difficult for NATO to win with and without him.

Matiullah is not alone. According to Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, Matiullah is one of at least twenty-three indigenous PMCs working in the area without government license or oversight. Major General Nick Carter, commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan in 2010, believes that Afghan PMCs deliberately prolong the fighting for profit: “It would be my expectation that people might create their own demand. It is essential that these highways move freely without extortion and racketeering.”
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Both Hanif Atmar and Carter said they would like to disband Matiullah’s private army but cannot control him, making a volatile situation worse.

Private armies are back and not likely to go away. Over the past centuries, rulers first encouraged, then delegitimized, and finally all but eliminated mercenarism. Now it is returning. Since the end of the Cold War, private military actors have reappeared in force, some as military enterprisers and others reminiscent
of medieval mercenaries. The future of private warfare seems bright, while the future of war looks perilous.

Four mutually reinforcing trends are emerging in the market for force. The first is the industry’s resilience. This multibillion-dollar industry will not simply evaporate once the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. Instead, it will seek new clientele, leading to the second industry trend of globalization. New customers and companies for private military services are appearing around the world, and the industry is evolving beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. Third, as the industry goes global, it is concurrently indigenizing, or “going native,” as Matiullah Khan’s private army illustrates. Warlords and others have adopted the PMC model to make a living, and international clients are buying, including the United States. Fourth, the industry is beginning to bifurcate. As Liberia and Somalia demonstrate, the market is developing in two different directions at once; the first is toward a mediated market with military enterprisers, and the second is toward a free market with mercenaries. The trajectory that dominates the market in the coming years is significant, because it will influence stability, as it did in the Middle Ages.

The private military industry is here to stay. Multibillion-dollar industries do not quickly disappear, and now that the United States has helped legitimize its existence by employing PMCs for more than a decade, others will likely follow suit. Moreover, it will be difficult to curb the industry’s growth, as it morphs from an American-based one into something more international.

Currently, many of the big PMCs are headquartered in the United States, and their leadership is American. But, like all multinational corporations, PMCs maintain offices around the world. Should one government, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, impose strict regulations on their trade, they would move offshore. For example, Dubai is a favorite hub for the industry owing to its proximity to markets (i.e., the Middle East and Africa) and its business-friendly laws. This means that as long as there are customers and business safe havens, the industry can evolve more or less unfettered.

Two additional factors are driving the industry’s permanence. The first is the internal demographics of giants such as DynCorp, MPRI, Aegis, Triple Canopy, and their peers. Like the medieval free companies, the individuals who staff these large PMCs are mostly international, drawn from nearly every continent. Only a minority of DynCorp employees in Liberia were American. In 2010, the United States conducted a census of private security personnel hired by its military in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, 18,869 individuals worked for PMCs;
of these, only 197 were US citizens. Similarly, in Iraq, only 1,017 of the 11,628 contractors were Americans.
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The majority of PMC employees are not from the company’s country of origin. After working in the industry for several years, these individuals have learned valuable trade knowledge and gained professional connections around the world, and they have the ability to go into business for themselves. If large PMCs downsize, workers in this new class can establish their own PMCs back home, wherever that might be. A decade of PMCs at war has created a new labor pool of
condottieri
.

The second driver is the myriad subcontractors that spin off big PMCs. Global firms such as ArmorGroup typically create or hire local security companies to assist them in fulfilling contracts overseas. Like the international personnel above, these subcontractors, or “subs,” have learned the trade craft of the private military industry and will seek out their own clients in those regions, effectively spawning a native market for force in fragile regions, a dangerous prospect. Little is known about these local PMCs in places such as Afghanistan, because NATO generally only monitors the performance of prime contractors, and there is little, if any, vetting or oversight of subs. This has allowed subcontractors to propagate without much scrutiny.

The new international labor pool of private military talent combined with indigenous subcontractors-turned-independent means that the industry is unlikely to dissolve once the United States leaves Afghanistan and other conflict zones. On the contrary, these factors are expanding the industry horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, the industry is laterally growing and globalizing as other international actors follow the US example. Vertically, the industry is indigenizing as native PMCs emerge and mimic their larger international cousins. This effectively offers a spectrum of PMC choices, from local to global, to potential consumers. These concurrent phenomena are examined below.

As the conflict markets in Iraq and Afghanistan dry up, the private military industry is going global in search of new opportunities. Two influences are driving this trend. On the supply side, PMCs are seeking new markets and developing innovative services or face bankruptcy. On the demand side, potential customers are emboldened by the US example of using these firms. The superpower’s use of PMCs has fostered their legitimacy and has introduced a new norm in international relations that private force is once again acceptable in war. These factors are causing the industry to go global, well beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, in search of new conflicts, as supply naturally seeks demand and vice versa.

Now that the United States has opened the Pandora’s box of mercenarism, private warriors of all stripes are coming out of the shadows to engage in for-profit warfare. Some are military enterprisers like Wallenstein during the Thirty Years War and DynCorp in Liberia, building armies for clients’ use. Others are like the mercenaries of medieval Italy or the PMCs in Somalia, offering private armies and navies to those willing to pay. Both reflect a clear regression to the status quo ante of the Middle Ages, when states did not have the monopoly of force and conflict was a commodity.

Like the market in the Middle Ages, this means that the industry will chase conflict, whether it is in fourteenth-century Italy or twenty-first-century Africa, because that is where their profits lie. The rise of a free market for force should be expected, since conflict-affected countries possess the necessary conditions for profit: unconstrained political rivalries, ample resources, tyrannical rulers and cowed populations, the proliferation of militias and mercenaries, and little or no rule of law. In the abstract, it is natural that supply should seek demand and vice versa, yet in reality, introducing an industry vested in conflict into the most conflict-prone regions in the world is vexing, given the possible consequences for the people who live there.

Examples already exist of this trend. Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi hired mercenaries from across Africa to brutally suppress the popular revolt against him, as England’s King Henry II did in the twelfth century, albeit more successfully. Like a military enterpriser during the Thirty Years War, the emir of Abu Dhabi paid the PMC Reflex Responses $529 million to build a small army of eight hundred foreign troops to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and other infrastructure from terrorist attacks, and put down internal rebellions. In West Africa, both sides in Côte d’Ivoire’s civil war in 2011 used mercenaries, mostly from Liberia, who have committed mass atrocities against civilians reminiscent of Hawkwood’s destruction of Cesena in 1377.
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These modern military enterprisers and mercenaries demonstrate that the Westphalian norm against private military forces is eroding and contract warfare is on the rise.

In the coming years, the market will likely become more competitive and expand. Supply of military services probably will diversify as PMCs develop in China, Russia, and elsewhere that have skilled ex-soldiers with access to weapons and an entrepreneurial spirit. For example, large PMCs in Afghanistan will leave behind local subcontractor PMCs following the US withdrawal, perpetuating the market long after NATO has left. No one should assume that the private military industry will remain a singularity of the United States or Western Europe. As the marketplace becomes more crowded, these new PMCs will look to distinguish themselves from their competitors by offering greater combat-oriented services and working for the highest bidder, with scant regard for human rights or international law.

As demonstrated by the
condottieri
, private military supply can create its own demand, either by offering new capabilities previously unavailable or through extortion. Clientele will also diversify as new consumers emerge from the growing cast of neomedieval characters on the world stage: strong states conducting military operations overseas yet not wanting their own “boots on the ground,” weak states augmenting their forces, tyrannical governments seeking regime security, UN missions requiring additional peacekeepers, multinational corporations and shipping lines safeguarding their assets, NGOs protecting their humanitarian workers, opposition groups seeking regime change, international criminal organizations craving additional muscle, and the whims of super-rich individuals. As in the Middle Ages, if one actor in a conflict zone hires a PMC, the others may be forced to do the same in a security dilemma, laterally escalating the conflict and widening the market for force in an explosive situation. Contract warfare responds to the demands of the marketplace rather than political dealings.

The current size and scope of the embryonic free market for force remain unknown. Even the approximate number of private military personnel and where they are operating are undetermined, because the firms are notoriously secretive, and no independent organization credibly tracks this information. What is known is meager and generally limited to US employment in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan watchdog agency of the US Congress, of the thirty thousand armed contractors operating in the Iraq War, only about a third worked directly for the US government, while the rest served other clients: foreign governments, NGOs, multinational corporations, and international organizations.
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This may be the slow beginning of a wider neomedieval market for force. Already, the US military is highly privatized, with contractors making up half of its force structure in theaters of war, and short of a national draft, the country can no longer fight a sustained war without private sector involvement. Many of the security contracts are buried within larger contracts, such as reconstruction projects or aid programs that require security. Reconstruction contractors working for USAID have, in turn, subcontracted with PMCs for protection. In Afghanistan, the situation is more pronounced. Experts estimate that the true number of armed contractors is approximately seventy thousand. Most of these armed civilians work for non-US firms and non-US clients, evidence that the market for force in Afghanistan is expanding beyond the ambit of US security operations.
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Conflict markets such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa are attracting new PMCs from around the world, signaling market growth. Chinese PMCs such as Shandong Huawei Security Group seek to protect oil and mining infrastructure in Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. China already has one of the largest domestic
private security industries in the world, with more than 4 million authorized private security personnel. It is unclear when the first PMC was created in China, although in 2004, a Ningbo businessman is alleged to have created a company with personnel drawn from China’s special forces community and the paramilitary People’s Armed Police.
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China’s entry into the global market is none too late, according to Hu Xiangyun, general manager of Bodyguard Services, who has argued in the Chinese press that China should have entered the foreign market long ago. Revealing his market logic regarding armed conflict, he explains that “the problem is that if China won’t open up its market, foreigners can’t be expected to open up theirs for China.”
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If China’s massive domestic security industry goes global, it will have one advantage over its North American and Western European competitors: price.