The privatisation of war is giving outsized political clout to mercenaries

For Arabs, and for Muslims around the world, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a tragedy that destroyed one of the oldest cultures in the Arab World.

For the west, however, the invasion of Iraq created a perverse business hub for private military companies (PMCs). The collapse of a centralised regime and a subsequent security vacuum green-lit a rushed operation for PMCs.

Iraq’s security is a booming business and had netted contractors almost $150 billion by 2014. Perhaps the erosion of state monopoly over warfare was inevitable.

After the Cold War, the end of the Soviet threat saw the United States severely reduce military spending. One year after the USSR’s collapse, it was predicted that defence spending would hit its lowest ebb in 40 years—and over the next decade see the retrenchment of over 2 million jobs.

The leader of the free world would reduce military spending but did not want to give up the mantle of policing the world. Hence, post-cold war defence spending for Western states went from an inherently governmental function to a relationship of supply and demand.

It is in this new commercial relationship that PMCs have found their place. After all, PMCs are companies—private businesses with diverse clients, ranging from NGOs to governments. Their existence is the result of the transition from state-centric security to the commodification of security at home and abroad.

The consequences of eroding state monopoly (at the behest of states) should not be underestimated. Before this transition, security was regarded as a public right. Ask anyone in Baghdad if they feel secure after the chaos of the 2003 invasion.

Militias, not the Iraqi police or military, rule Iraq’s streets. The same can be said for post-Gaddafi Libya. In 2014, my wife was invited to an educational institute in eastern Libya for business. When I mentioned this to a political analyst who frequented Tripoli, he immediately asked what private contractor would be protecting her. Private security is increasingly becoming the norm in states that have seen external intervention—a norm for those that can afford it.

The privatisation of security not only strips citizens of equal access to security, but it also allows state and non-state actors to lower the political cost of intervention, while at the same time giving PMCs the political clout that they simply should not have.

The lowering of political costs through PMCs is especially relevant with regards to Russia’s involvement in Syria.

According to Yevgeny Shabayev, leader of a Russian paramilitary organisation, the Kremlin has up to 3,000 contractors fighting in Syria. Yet, the lack of any formal connection between contractor and employer gives Putin plausible deniability.

Deniability also extends to the contractors themselves. “We signed a piece of paper,” one contractor warned when approached by a reporter. “[W]e’re not allowed to say anything. Any minute the boss will come and we’ll get into trouble.”

As state-clients keep their distance, PMCs deepen their involvement in the conflicts of their ‘host’ states, wherever they are deployed. In Iraq, this might even involve getting embroiled in tribal politics and going so far as to supersede the state itself in local issues.

When I was still living in Jordan in 2015, my meeting to discuss PMCs with a local military attache raised concern. The attache of a European state had returned from Iraq the week before, where he’d met tribal leaders who made clear that they were as open for business as PMCs themselves.

“One of the leaders,” he explained to me, “was polite but firm. He said that although my country is paying a fair amount for access to information and local political amenities, he isn’t loyal to any one state. Should anyone else come along and pay more, he’ll happily defect, as the money funds the loyalty of his tribesmen to himself.”

Whether the higher bidder was a state or a military contractor made no difference.

Since the 2003 and 2007 Abu Ghraib Scandal and Nisour Square Massacre, respectively, the reputation of the west has suffered in the Middle East. Outsourcing warfare may extract a high political price, at least for the United States.

As ISIS (Daesh) began to sweep across Iraq, Blackwater (now operating under the name Academi) returned to haunt American intervention in Baghdad.

Chatham House’s Lina Khatib explains that the “lack of accountability in the aftermath of the American intervention in Iraq not only paved the way for abuses like Abu Ghraib and Blackwater, it also fuelled sectarian tension in the country - and today ISIS is reaping the benefits.”

In its 2014 propaganda publication, “The Revived Caliphate”, ISIS builds on Abu Ghraib, Nisour Square and related abuses as proof of anti-Muslim “American aggression” that must be resisted. ISIS portrays itself as responding to the US threat, glorifying its 2013 storming of Iraqi prisons to free victims of imperialist abuse.

Private companies are getting increasingly close to the heart of warfare. While it is true that some PMCs repeatedly push for their own involvement (and payment) in conflict zones, PMCs exist within a market of supply and demand. If governments did not feel the need to use them, PMC involvement in politically tense zones would falter.

While the cost-effectiveness of PMCs is debatable, the greater stake for western states is in their long-term relationships, with the Middle East in particular.

Political distance from intervention does not mean zero political cost. Whether in the form of ISIS or worse, eventually a price must be paid.