The private military company: An entity at the center of overlapping spheres of commercial activity and responsibility

Private Military and Security Companies: Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects

Volumn , Issue , 2007, Pages 55-68

  Ortiz, Carlos ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84869731571     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-531-90313-2_4     Document Type: Chapter

References (10)

1. It should be noted that Avant's analysis considers the permutat ion of firms across service areas, e.g. between the four categories of the 'C' model.
2. In the academic debate, these 'active' and 'passive' distinctions have been used by O'Brien (2000).
3. Alex Duperouzel, founder of Background Asia Risk Solutions, e.g., comments that the strategy of his company is "based around the idea of deterrence. We are trying to tell people that we are armed and serious and that there are easier targets elsewhere." (cited in Harris/ Fidler2005)
4. In the US, the Corrections Corporation of America, a firm founded in 1983, pioneered the private prison business. In the UK, Global Solutions, formerly a subsidiary of Group Falck prior to its merger with Securicor, positioned itself at the forefront of the trend with the awarding of the contract to run HM Prison Wolds, East Yorkshire, which opened in 1992.
5. Nick Clissitt, from Control Risks Group, notes that "while most private military activity is now in the tactical area, in the future, the private sector is increasingly likely to help governments with strategic issues" (cited in Fidler 2005).
6. In 2004, 63,500 ships passed through the Straits, with traffic currently estimated to grow at 50/0 per year (Johnston 2005).
7. See reports from the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center.
8. Vaux et al. (2002: 17) note that "even if one chose to (... ) hire a small local company, a transnational conglomerate might purchase the company without making the transaction known". They illustrate this issue with the case of Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies hiring a local company in Ugandanot being aware that the company was part of Saladin.
9. In management theory, an important outsourcing premise is "differentiating between core and non-core functions and then transferring all non-core functions to a specialist in that function" (Heywood 2001: 29). This is also knownas the theory of the virtual organization, which implies that "any function that is not core should be transferredto an external specialist in that function" (Heywood 2001: 29). The current transformation of the military in various Western countries mirrors the theory of the virtual organization, with most of the noncombatant and supportive tasks increasingly being contracted out or outsourced to the private sector.
10. During the Gulf War, approximately one in 50 Americans deployed was a civilian; in contrast, for the NATOpeacekeeping operation in Bosnia the ratio had gone down to one in 10 (McIntirePeters 1996).