Download or read book Contractors and War written by Christopher Kinsey and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-25 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. military is no longer based on a Cold War self-sufficient model. Today's armed forces are a third smaller than they were during the Cold War, and yet are expected to do as much if not more than they did during those years. As a result, a transformation is occurring in the way the U.S. government expects the military to conduct operations—with much of that transformation contingent on the use of contractors to deliver support to the armed forces during military campaigns and afterwards. Contractors and War explains the reasons behind this transformation and evaluates how the private sector will shape and be shaped by future operations. The authors are drawn from a range of policy, legislative, military, legal, and academic backgrounds. They lay out the philosophical arguments supporting the use of contractors in combat and stabilization operations and present a spectrum of arguments that support and criticize emergent private sector roles. The book provides fresh policy guidance to those who will research, direct, and carry out future deployments.
Download or read book A Bloody Business written by Gerald Schumacher and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a behind-the-scenes look at America's civilian contractors in Iraq, following the activities of workers for MPRI and Crescent Security, two contracting firms who provide protection for diplomats, move convoys of precious materials, and help rebuild the infrastructure of the wartorn nation.
Download or read book War for Profit written by Charles M. Smith (CPCM.) and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WASHINGTON — The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR..." (James Risen, New York Times, June 17, 2008) This book by that very Army official provides an eye-opening firsthand account of how the US Government hands over your tax dollars to support contractors like KBR and Halliburton, rather than supporting the troops. This authoritative and well-documented record of the LOGCAP contract in Iraq and Afghanistan is at the same time a study of US participation in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the workings of government agencies and Congress. The first chapter sets the scene, briefly narrating the author's work on behalf of US military efforts, especially in Iraq. Subsequent chapters illustrate specific issues in contractor relations that resulted in unsafe conditions for the troops and blew millions of taxpayer dollars. Loyal and hard-working government officials and employees who tried to keep things on track were turned away and those who sought to rein in the free-for-all were sacked. The author reveals problems with KBR's provision of transportation, electricity, food and water. Other chapters are more analytic and evaluate Army logistics, Congressional oversight and the question of whether letting contracts for this kind of support is appropriate at all--the kind of problems that concern military policy leaders, defense analysts, public policy analysts and scholars in these areas, as well as the citizens in whose name this is all done.
Download or read book The Ethics of Military Privatization written by David M. Barnes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ethical implications of using armed contractors, taking a consequentialist approach to this multidisciplinary debate. While privatization is not a new concept for the US military, the public debate on military privatization is limited to legal, financial, and pragmatic concerns. A critical assessment of the ethical dimensions of military privatization in general is missing. More specifically, in light of the increased reliance upon armed contractors, it must be asked whether it is morally permissible for governments to employ them at all. To this end, this book explores four areas that highlight the ethical implications of using armed contractors: how armed contractors are distinct from soldiers and mercenaries; the commodification of force; the belligerent equality of combatants; and the impact of armed contractors on the professional military. While some take an absolutist position, wanting to bar the use of private military altogether, this book reveals how these absolutist arguments are problematic and highlights that there are circumstances where turning to private force may be the only option. Recognising that outsourcing force will continue, this book thus proposes some changes to account for the problems of commodification, belligerent equality, and the challenge to the military profession. This book will be of interest to students of private security, military studies, ethics, security studies, and IR in general.
Download or read book Shadow War written by Sean McFate and published by Canelo. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electrifying thriller – the first in a blistering series for readers of Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Daniel Silva. Tom Locke is an elite warrior working for Apollo Outcomes, one of the world’s most successful private contracting firms. Pulled out of a mission in Libya, he is tapped for an unusual and risky assignment: a top secret black op in Ukraine. Given one week to rescue an oligarch’s family and pull off a spectacular assault, he soon realises his mission has repercussions for this imperiled Eastern European nation and the world. What Locke doesn’t know is that the operation comes with a dangerous complication: his enigmatic and ambitious boss, Brad Winters. One misstep could cost Locke – and the region – everything. Written by an army veteran with deep military expertise, Shadow War is an explosive and unputdownable thriller. Praise for Shadow War ‘I was blown away’ Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author ‘Ex-mercenary Sean McFate has produced a first novel that's assured, authentic, timely, gritty, and most of all real’ C.J. Box, New York Times Best-selling Author of Badlands and Off the Grid ‘Shadow War has pace like a catapult, sudden and fierce, and it will hit readers straight between the eyes’ Ted Bell, author of Patriot
Download or read book Private Sector Public Wars written by James Jay Carafano and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Private Security Contractors and New Wars written by Kateri Carmola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02-05 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the ambiguities of the growing use of private security contractors and provides guidance as to how our expectations about regulating this expanding ‘service’ industry will have to be adjusted. In the warzones of Iraq and Afghanistan many of those who carry weapons are not legally combatants, nor are they protected civilians. They are contracted by governments, businesses, and NGOs to provide armed security. Often mistaken as members of armed forces, they are instead part of a new protean proxy force that works alongside the military in a multitude of shifting roles, and overseen by a matrix of contracts and regulations. This book analyzes the growing industry of these private military and security companies (PMSCs) used in warzones and other high risk areas. PMSCs are the result of a unique combination of circumstances, including a change in the idea of soldiering, insurance industry analyses that require security contractors, and a need for governments to distance themselves from potentially criminal conduct. The book argues that PMSCs are a unique type of organization, combining attributes from worlds of the military, business, and humanitarian organizations. This makes them particularly resistant to oversight. The legal status of these companies and those they employ is also hard to ascertain, which weakens the multiple regulatory tools available. PMSCs also fall between the cracks in ethical debates about their use, seeming to be both justifiable and objectionable. This transformation in military operations is a seemingly irreversible product of more general changes in the relationship between the individual citizen and the state. This book will be of much interest to students of private security companies, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR in general. Kateri Carmola is the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College in Vermont. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Download or read book The Modern Mercenary written by Sean McFate and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sean McFate lays bare the opaque world of private military contractors, explaining the economic structure of the industry and showing in detail how firms operate on the ground. As a former paratrooper and private military contractor, McFate provides an unparalleled perspective into the nuts and bolts of the industry, as well as a sobering prognosis for the future of war.
Download or read book Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq written by Christopher Kinsey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq examines the controversial role of military contractors in the reconstruction of Iraq. When 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was launched in March 2003, few, if any, of the Coalition's political leaders could have envisaged that within a few months the number of private contractors engaged to keep the troops supplied would exceed their actual combat strength. This alternative 'army' was not only to become the largest assemblage of contractors in living memory to accompany a military force into a war zone, but was also responsible for a fundamental transformation of how military logistics were delivered. This book explains how and why the US and UK governments became so dependent upon military contractors during the war in Iraq. It also examines the ramifications this new dependency will have on future military operations, as the conflict in Iraq has shown that private contractors are now indispensable to the attainment of both the military and political objectives of war. Finally, the book discusses what advantages and disadvantages these companies have brought to the reconstruction of Iraq, and what lessons need to be learned from this experience. This book will be of great interest to students of military and strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and international security, and as well as policymakers and military professionals. Christopher Kinsey is a lecturer in international security at King's College London, Defence Studies Department, at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham. His previous publications include Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Routledge: 2006)
Download or read book Private Military and Security Companies written by Erika Calazans and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-11 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book’s primary concern is the application of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law in addressing the business conduct of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) during armed conflicts, as well as state responsibility for human rights violations and current attempts at international regulation. The book discusses four interconnected themes. First, it differentiates private contractors from mercenaries, presenting an historical overview of private violence. Second, it situates PMSCs’ employees under the legal status of civilian or combatant in accordance with the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949. It then investigates the existing law on state responsibility and what sort of responsibility companies and their employees can face. Finally, the book explores current developments on regulation within the industry, on national, regional and international levels. These themes are connected by the argument that, in order to find gaps in the existing laws, it is necessary to establish what they are, what law is applicable and what further developments are needed.
Download or read book War by Contract written by Francesco Francioni and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-01-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conduct of armed conflict is increasingly being outsourced to private military and security companies, whose legal position remains unclear. This book identifies and analyses the human rights and humanitarian law framework applicable to these companies, examining how they can be held to account and how victims can obtain remedies.
Download or read book Remote Warfare Interdisciplinary Perspectives written by Alasdair McKay and published by . This book was released on 2021-02 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern warfare is becoming increasingly defined by distance. Today, many Western and non-Western states have shied away from deploying large numbers of their own troops to battlefields. Instead, they have limited themselves to supporting the frontline fighting of local and regional actors against non-state armed forces through the provision of intelligence, training, equipment and airpower. This is remote warfare, the dominant method of military engagement now employed by many states. Despite the increasing prevalence of this distinct form of military engagement, it remains an understudied subject and considerable gaps exist in the academic understanding of it. Bringing together writers from various backgrounds, this edited volume offers a critical enquiry into the use of remote warfare.
Download or read book Building for War written by Bonita Gilbert and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2012-12-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Americans who came under attack five hours after Pearl Harbor was hit: “Intriguing, informative, gripping, and at times very moving” (Naval Historical Foundation). This intimately researched work tells the story of the thousand-plus Depression-era civilian contractors who came to Wake Island, a remote Pacific atoll, in 1941 to build an air station for the US Navy—charting the contractors’ hard-won progress as they scramble to build the naval base, as well as runways for US Army Air Corps B-17 Flying Fortresses, while war clouds gather over the Pacific. Five hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck Wake Island, which was now isolated from assistance. The undermanned Marine Corps garrison, augmented by civilian-contractor volunteers, fought back against repeated enemy attacks, at one point thwarting a massive landing assault. The atoll was under siege for two weeks as its defenders continued to hope for the US Navy to come to their rescue. Finally succumbing to an overwhelming amphibious attack, the surviving Americans, military and civilian, were taken prisoner. While most were shipped off to Japanese POW camps for slave labor, a number of the civilians were retained as workers on occupied Wake. Later in the war, the last ninety-eight Americans were brutally massacred by their captors. The civilian contractors who had risked distance and danger for well-paying jobs ended up paying a steep price: their freedom and, for many, their lives. Written by the daughter and granddaughter of civilians who served on Wake Island, Building for War sheds new light on why the United States was taken by surprise in December 1941, and shines a spotlight on the little-known, virtually forgotten story of a group of civilian workers and their families whose lives were forever changed by the events on this tiny atoll.
Download or read book Private Military and Security Contractors written by Gary Schaub, Jr. and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs) a multinational team of scholars and experts address a developing phenomenon: controlling the use of privatized force by states in international politics. Robust analyses of the evolving, multi-layered tapestry of formal and informal mechanisms of control address the microfoundations of the market, such as the social and role identities of contract employees, their acceptance by military personnel, and potential tensions between them. The extent and willingness of key states—South Africa, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel—to monitor and enforce discipline to structure their contractual relations with PMSCs on land and at sea is examined, as is the ability of the industry to regulate itself. Also discussed is the nascent international legal regime to reinforce state and industry efforts to encourage effective practices, punish inappropriate behavior, and shape the market to minimize the hazards of loosening states’ oligopolistic control over the means of legitimate organized violence. The volume presents a theoretically-informed synthesis of micro- and macro-levels of analysis, offering new insights into the challenges of controlling the agents of organized violence used by states for scholars and practitioners alike.
Download or read book Public War Private Fight The United States and Private Military Companies written by Deborah C. Kidwell and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The United States has long utilized private military contractors to augment regular military forces in support of its national foreign policy and security needs. Commonly referred to as Private Military Companies (PMCs), contractors employ and manage civilian personnel from the private sector in areas of active military operations. Frequently, regular troops become dependent on the services contractors provide a situation that may negatively impact military effectiveness. Since 1991, contractor support on and off the battlefield has become increasingly more visible, varied, and commonplace. Given the current manpower and resource limitations of the national military, the US will likely continue its extensive use of PMCs in support of military operations. This work addresses historical precedents and trends in American logistics, the current scope of contractor involvement in support of regular military forces, and the challenges posed as traditional military institutions integrate increasing numbers of civilian workers and privately owned assets into the battlespace. These problems increase the risk to US personnel and can induce budget overruns rather than savings, disrupt civil-military relations, and have detrimental consequences for the American economy and society. The work concludes by proposing a useful rubric to evaluate this new American way of war. This work considers PMCs and their interdependence with regular and reserve military units in a broad sense. It derives from unclassified material widely available; understandably, these sources limit the analysis. Lessons learned from the Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) theaters may alter findings. However, this study endeavors to frame the continuing dialog concerning the appropriate use of PMCs to support regular troops."--Abstract from DTIC web site.
Download or read book War as Business written by Dr Armin Krishnan and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The privatization of defence assets and the outsourcing of military services from the armed forces to the private sector is an increasing trend. This book approaches the issue of military privatization by linking it to the transformation of the defence industries since the early 1990s, and shows the extent to which many military functions and activities, ranging from military research to military consulting/training to operational support services, have already been outsourced in the US and in Europe. This detailed study provides new and updated information on the ongoing privatization of the defence sector and offers an original theoretical explanation as to why the most modern armed forces throughout the world have come increasingly to rely on private companies for nearly everything they do. Contributing to a better understanding of military privatization and its close connection to technological change, the book explains the complexity of the whole phenomenon and discusses its implications for national and international security.
Download or read book Civilian Warriors written by Erik Prince and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping true story of the world’s most controversial military contractor. In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civilians for the riskiest security jobs in the world. As Blackwater’s reputation grew, demand for its services escalated, and its men eventually completed nearly 100,000 missions for both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a huge success except for one problem: Blackwater was demonized around the world. Its employees were smeared as mercenaries, profiteers, or worse. And because of the secrecy requirements of its contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA, Prince was unable to correct false information. But now he’s finally able to tell the full story about some of the biggest controversies of the War on Terror, in a memoir that reads like a thriller.
