Why do private military contractors get such a bad rap?

Modern society is strangely hostile to the idea of mercenaries, Black Water or a thinly veiled version of it is practically the Villain by Default in most TV shows and video games.

Yet it's an accepted fact that the private sector is generally a lot more efficient in comparison to state armed forces. It's even noted under the Real Life section in the Private Military Contractors trope in this very wiki that Black Water provided flood relief after Hurricane Katrina a long time before the national guard decided to get off it's ass.

So what's with all the hate?

While I'm definitely not well-versed on the subject, I'd imagine that a lot of the distaste people have for mercenaries is that they make a living off of war- but without the whole sense of Honor and Duty that people ascribe to serving in the government's armed forces. So regardless of whether or not a mercenary group may be more efficient than the forces at the State's disposal, they suffer due to not being tied to the government (when it comes to public perception).

I don't really know a lot about PM Cs. However, it's my understanding that Black Water is (or was; I'm not up to date on such things) run by some kind of religious dominionist who thinks of the ongoing strife in the Middle East as a crusade.

Nonetheless, I guess it's that fact that turns people off. While PM Cs are chiefly about profit (and again, there's not anything wrong with that), there is a possibility, however unlikely, that they will have some sort of agenda that may not be palatable to some people.

I don't know, I couldn't care less either way.

I think you mispelled the thread title... isn't it supposed to be 'rap'?

I know very little about military of any description, but perhaps it's because they're seen as being motivated purely by money, and therefore don't care about whether the side they're on is ethically right.

The fact that people may be trained and equipped for hurting other people is already distasteful in itself - sadly, it is a necessity, but it is something that needs to be kept very much in check.

Now, state-controlled armed groups are bound not only by law, but also by their dependence from elected representatives of the people: in a democratic state, the army cannot do anything that the people would perceive as too distasteful, since this would not be in the interest of their leaders.

A private army, on the other hand, is bound by law alone. Apart from that, its interests are those of the corporation which controls it, and these need not coincide with these of society at large - in fact, they often are quite far removed from it. And of course, one must also remember the outright unethical or illegal practices that a number of corporations indulged in in the past (and in which, presumably, a number of corporations still indulge)...

In brief, I do not trust the ethical principles of corporations, or their respect for the law, enough to be happy about them being able to raise their own private armies.

edited 30th Apr '11 3:52:14 AM by Carciofus

Barkey, as I recall, has some points on this topic...

In any case, PMCs, as I recall, are not infinitely more productive then state armies. Furthermore, you cannot really trust someone who follows the money.

I think that a fair few of them also cut corners on the combat training and instilment of ethical principles that Western militaries tend towards, with predictably unfortunate results.

@Loni Jay: I'm not too sure with homophones, I'll take your word for it.

I admit that mecs aren't saints, but that's part and parcel of war.

Killing for money isn't objectively any worse than killing for your country, and it's not like 'our boys' have never kicked a puppy. Sometimes literally.

edited 30th Apr '11 5:28:40 AM by joeyjojo

I hope this isn't off topic, but I did write a paper in high school about other kinds of contractors in our current wars, non-combatants who do things like truck driving, food service, etc. It was quite enlightening and definitely sort of changed my perspective on the whole matter. We rely on a lot of these people, and yet you almost never hear about them unless they get killed.

Are militias any similar to PM Cs? I could see a militia acting as a PMC, selling their services but maintaining citizenship of, and thus loyalty to, their home country. Less of a "will work for anyone who has the money" situation there.

The idea in France is that no one should make a profit from a war: One should only go to war when there is no other choice. On the extreme end of the scale, we have mercenary villains "creating demand" for their services.

More than just France that idea is in a lot of places.

Ali in Gundam 00 is pretty much the way quite a few people view PM Cs and why there is always such a fuss.

edited 30th Apr '11 7:59:37 AM by Raso

Private Contractors aren't bad dudes by default based on what they do, but there's a few reasons by default as to why they get the reputation they do:

1. The only company that most regular civilians who don't go digging for information hear about is Blackwater, which is a company filled with shitheads. Unfortunately the people they recruit have skills that are in the highest demand, they are almost exclusively special forces. Everyone here should pretend they've never heard of Blackwater, and then re-evaluate what their opinion on PMC's would be: There probably wouldn't be an opinion.

2. The squeaky wheel gets the grease et cetera, there are tons of good private military companies out there such as Olive Security, Globe Risk Holdings, Triple Canopy, Executive Outcomes(When they were still around) and to a lesser extent, Armour Group. They don't get in the news much because they don't fuck up often, and they don't really want household recognition. They only want recognition with potential clients.

3. People don't know what the average duties of a PMC actually are. Groups like Blackwater that provide tactical capability are rare, most of them protect their 'noun', their Person, Place, or Thing. Thus most contractors are either bodyguards for civilians in unsafe countries, or they are protecting a building or installation. Examples being providing convoy security for corporate officials in third world countries, being contracted to provide extra defense manpower at Coalition bases in Iraq/Afghanistan/Kosovo, or guarding corporate compounds in dangerous countries where a corporation has assets. Providing tactical capability for foreign military forces, performing snatch and grab operations, and undermining governments are vastly in the minority of what the PMC industry provides, but get the most media attention.

4. People don't understand why these folks do what they do. The vast majority of contractors are ex-military from combat arms professions and find that they don't have marketable skills anywhere else besides being a highly underpaid regular ol Security Guard. Take my situation for example, I'm a Security Guard right now because all the police departments are frozen due to the economic situation in my city. I just applied with G 4 S to do a yearlong deployment with Task Force Falcon in Kosovo, providing security for the NATO base there. When your choice is 10.00 an hour working as a regular security officer somewhere, or raking in 100k+ tax free, I think the choice is rather obvious.

What you guys need to do is watch Shadow Company, it should tell you the truth of the matter on this subject. (Be aware that the playlist is backwards, so you have to go to the previous video when the section you're watching finishes)

That whole soldier of fortune bullshit idea is pretty much false, I'm not saying that some companies aren't total shitbags, but there's just as many companies that are professional and ethical. It's a mixed bag. The company I mentioned applying for, G 4 S, essentially just protects the places where foreign workers belonging to major corporations live. Available deployments on there I've seen range from Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, et cetera. G 4 S isn't out whooping those countries asses, they're just making sure none of the locals kidnap or murder the people who are there from out of country to work, and that they aren't being stolen from constantly. If you want to debate how ethical it is that those corporations are there in the first place, more often than not strip mining natural resources from poor countries, go ahead. But that isn't really the fault of the security contractors involved.

edited 30th Apr '11 9:07:31 AM by Barkey

I think at least part of the problem is the sort of "no-responsibility" attitude held by some in government–in spite of all the shit that Blackwater does, no one seems to think that's grounds for revoking or not renewing contracts. Possibly that leads to some sort of thought in the general public along the lines of "if they don't cut them for that, then everyone in that business must be as bad."

Fortunately, Section 552 of the 2007 Defense Bill was added to place contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so it can be enforced, and the no-responsibility attitude has no basis. The fact that it still exists is another story...

Barkey, so was my original opinion of "Rent-A-Cops" with heavy weapons fairly close then?

Yeah, but that extends to lots of industries. Aegis is a PMC that specifically does training, and after Tim Spicer(Aegis CEO) screwed the pooch on two previous lucrative contracts(One of which got him arrested), for some reason we gave him a huge no-bid contract to work in Iraq. What happened? He failed to meet over half of his targeted goals as per contract. We do the same sort of shit for KBR and Halliburton all the time. And here's the clincher, Blackwater wasn't on contract by company interests in Iraq, it was contracted by the Government. Most PMC's that have or do still operate in Iraq aren't on the government meal ticket, they work for a corporation, and they are usually the ones not doing bad stuff.

^

Fairly accurate, to a point. Think of all the things that Security Officers are known for in the USA, Executive Protection, Armed Guard, Armed Courier, Security, and put it on steroids. Some of them also specifically specialize in training US Military forces or Afghani/Iraqi local troops.

Well after Barkey's post, I haven't anything to add on that respect but i do have to say one thing...

@ joeyjojo

No. What the heck?

Canada's Disaster Response Assistance Response Team was in there within the week. We had a medical tent set up, we had a Canadian Navy frigate there. We were pulling people out and purifying water. Just because the American authorities came a month after we did doesn't "prove" that private sector is good. Our soldiers (around 200-400) dropped in on 24 hours notice with a navy ship following up within days filled to the brim with aid.

edited 30th Apr '11 9:55:52 AM by breadloaf

The thing with mercenaries is older then print.

They have always had a bit of a bad rap because they were not usually officially attached to a nation. In the really old bad days that was something that made folks nervous. The soldiers fighting for you today could killing you tomorrow. The whole you should be loyal idea was a big sticking point.

Yeah, you gotta admit, the fact that people are willing to possibly kill for MONEY kinda rubs people the wrong way.

And the possibility of killing for honor, god or country doesn't?

Unfortunately not as much.

edited 30th Apr '11 11:26:09 AM by Tongpu

That's definitely not true, actually. Especially not in the use of force market. Military forces have the organization, discipline, and multi-spectrum support of a massive engine of war. You might get a better result with a PMC if you want them to do one specific task, but they don't have the manpower or capabilities to do multiple things, at least not until large corporations start having private Security Forces that can accomplish that.

Say, the Green Zone(The center of government in Baghdad), for instance. Much of it is protected by private security. The reason we use private security is because they don't have the skills or authority to go out and actually accomplish objectives, and putting a highly trained soldier at a perimeter fence or entry control point to guard it is like using a finely tuned sports car as a taxi in rush hour traffic, not economical.

Instances where you use security = Protecting your installation, protecting people, protecting physical assets. When you want something torn down, seized, or for ground to be held down, you use professionals. The entire basis of private security contractors is defense without the offense. They are assigned to protect their noun, and that is the entire scope of their duties.

The private sector is one of the most inefficient pieces of shit around. They might be more efficient in the time spent to accomplish the objective, but for being entities that are supposed to be all about making money for the bottom line they have ridiculous amounts of waste and inefficiency in how they perform their work. They overpay their managers, underpay their workers, and the companies that don't pay their workers what they are worth experience an extremely bad retention rate, resulting in further wasted profits on equipment, licensing, and training that far exceed what it would have costed to raise the pay of the workers by a few dollars an hour.

Damn I wish I ran a security company, I'd bone everybody else into the ground in whatever field I decided to run in. The only people who could compete would be really good specialist firms like GRH, who treat their employees just as good as their management almost and don't cut corners. Alan Bell, the CEO of GRH, is interviewed several times in Shadow Company. He details his process of going about selecting contracts, and how he's turned down very lucrative contracts that would have made his company much more successful because he felt they were not ethical. Make of that what you will, Alan Bell is the shit imo.

@Raso: I said that because being a mercenary is actually illegal under French law.