Privatization of warfare

By Huck Gutman

The situation in Iraq is going badly for the occupying American forces. Despite a staged-for-television proclamation of victory aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean last year, President Bush has recently found his policies, from spurious reasons for waging war against Iraq, to the badly bungled early occupation, to politically-inspired deadlines for handing over "authority" to an as-yet non-existent Iraqi government, criticized more and more frequently.

We live in an age of television, and so it was a televised event that precipitated the current sense of political siege and crisis within the White House. Four Americans were ambushed as they drove through Fallujah in north central Iraq.

They were dragged from their vehicle, killed, set afire, and dismembered. The charred remains of one body were hung from a bridge; those of another were dragged behind a car for 50 kilometres.

As the world knows, the aftermath was powerful and disturbing. Iraqis were emboldened to attack Americans all over the country, with Sunnis and Shias promising to aid one another in driving out the occupying aggressor.

American troops, for their part, mobilized and both surrounded and penetrated Fallujah, with heavy and bloody casualties, mostly Iraqi citizens, not all of whom were in any way combatants.

I want to look at one of the many issues that arose from that moment of violence in Fallujah when four Americans were killed. Why, Americans wondered at first, were there no American forces ready to intervene? Even if it is impossible to prevent or undo an ambush, it is certainly possible to move in militarily to prevent bodies from being dishonoured.

The answer is profoundly revealing. The fallen men were not, in any real sense, their comrades. They were Americans, and they were soldiers of a sort, but they were not American soldiers.

They worked for a corporation, Blackwater Security Consulting, which supplies military personnel on a contract basis: these were soldiers for hire, or as they would have been called in a time when English had not been debased by the "spin" of political posturing, mercenaries.

They were in Iraq not to fight for democracy or even domination, but because they were paid handsomely to be there - and paid by a company whose sole business is to make a profit.

The existence of a privatized military industry was known to military leaders around the globe, to corporate executives of multinational companies engaged in business in "risky" areas, and to despots and insurgent militias all over the developing world. But, in general, the citizenry of the world, and especially the United States, was unaware that the nature of "warfare" is changing rapidly.

Warfare is less and less the domain of states, and more and more an area for corporate investment, growth, and control. Warfare, in blunt terms, is being increasingly privatized as we enter the 21st century.

There is no arguing with economic facts. The privatized military "industry", in the words of Peter Singer, an expert on this new economic reality, "has several hundred companies, operating in over 10 countries on six continents, and over $100 billion in annual global revenue."

Here is Singer elsewhere: "PMFs (privatized military firms) represent the newest additions to the modern battlefield, and their role in contemporary warfare is becoming increasingly significant. Not since the 18th century has there been such reliance on private soldiers to accomplish tasks directly affecting the tactical and strategic success of engagement...PMFs may well portend the new business face of war."

Singer and I disagree about the importance of structure, since he maintains that PMFs are "fundamentally different (than mercenaries): the critical analytic factor is their modern corporate business form."

That modern mercenaries are employees of a modern corporation, hired through "conventional" hiring practices, serving in a hierarchical business administrative structure, generating returns for investors, does not mean that they are not fundamentally soldiers for hire, nor that those who supply them - as in former years Hesse in Germany, or Switzerland, or Nepal - are not in it for the money.

Singer is remarkably cogent in his analysis (readers are referred to his "Corporate Warriors: The Rise and Ramifications of the Privatized Military Industry"). He points out that the market-based approach toward military services is as, "one analyst puts it, ’the ultimate representation of neo-liberalism.’" In particular, he sees PMFs as a logical consequence of the two major capitalist innovations of the late 20th century, outsourcing and globalization.

The former anti-apartheid military and militias of South Africa are fertile hiring sources; so are not only former Soviet soldiers, but also the officers and operatives of the KGB.

Those who were behind the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) debacle are deeply enmeshed in arranging financing in the new military-for-hire industry, as are those who supplied illegal arms in the American Iran-Contra scandal.

There are important reasons why the United States has depended heavily on privatized military firms to undergird the war and occupation efforts in Iraq. Most of them are not pretty - to my mind, some are actually corrupt. Let’s look at those reasons.

First, PMFs allow placing many of the costs of the Iraq occupation "off budget". In the US, as in all democracies, funding for government activities are ultimately in the hands of the people, through their elected representatives in legislative bodies.

But the 20,000 international PMF employees in Iraq (equal to over 15 per cent of the official American military presence of 130,000 soldiers) are not listed as military defence. Instead, they are paid out of the money budgeted for Iraqi reconstruction. Recent government estimates are that as much as one quarter of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction will be paid to those who perform military operations of one sort or another.

Second, hiring private military firms bails out the questionable defence policies of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Contrary to the advice of his generals, the secretary insisted on downsizing the military.

His vision is of a corporate military, and so he imitates the efficiencies put in place by modern multinational corporations. On one level, he is merely continuing what his predecessors in the Defence Department did, and indeed what every imperial power has done for many centuries: he has moved towards further mechanizing warfare. For Mr Rumsfeld, the automated battlefield can work like an automated factory, so that less workers are needed.

Mr. Rumsfeld has tried his utmost to privatize the American military. For him, following corporate strategy, downsizing means moving to "just in time" hiring, using private firms to provide what the military formerly did for itself. He has insisted that it makes no fiscal sense to keep and pay for a well-trained standing army, when the US can purchase every sort of service on an "open market" whenever there is a need for military action.

Why should soldiers, in Mr Rumsfeld’s view, cook for themselves, move their trash, provide supplies, run and maintain their technology - why not privatize these activities? Even in the case of actually military duty - guarding public officials from hostile attack, fighting guerilla assaults - much of what soldiers traditionally do can be performed by the mercenaries hired by private firms. All of these services can be hired only when needed, and the army can be kept small, and hence inexpensive in terms of manpower.

Weapons systems, produced at high profit by huge corporations, are another matter: cost efficiency here seems to be of little or no concern.

Mr Rumsfeld’s strategy may well be flawed, which is why the use of PWFs is so suspect. In Iraq today, American forces are stretched thin. That situation was highlighted recently when tens of thousands of soldiers slated to come home after a year’s term in Iraq found those returns cancelled.

Thus, the privatized military forces cover up the flaws in Mr Rumsfeld’s downsizing strategy. That privatized firms charge more for the activities is of no concern, even though the point behind downsizing was supposedly cost-efficiency.

PMFs, have an additional "benefit" never mentioned by any American government official. If there is brutal military repression to be done, an ex-KGB agent or a man with a lifetime in the anti-apartheid forces in South Africa can work more brutally than an enlisted American soldier. Mr Paul Bremer does not trust his defence to American soldiers. Cadres of mercenaries guard him.

If the American use of privatized military services in Iraq seems to transgress the boundaries of corruption to a rational mind, a mildly paranoid mind can have a field day with some established facts.

The major subcontractor in Iraq is Halliburton; Halliburton provides extensive security and military support through its subsidiary, Brown & Root. Halliburton’s former chief executive, of course, is the sitting vice president, Dick Cheney.

Recent testimony before Congress and a startling new book by the journalist Bob Woodward indicates that Mr Cheney was the single most influential force driving George Bush, and the America nation, into war against Iraq.

From the most cynical angle, one might see the entire war and occupation as a business decision which provided huge contracts to the vice president’s former company.

The writer is professor of English at the University of Vermont.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/01/fea.htm#1

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