In recent months, public outcry has soared in response to a growing number of incidents involving private military contractors (PMCs) in Iraq. PMC firms do many things, from providing armored cars to protecting officials in a combat zone.
One of the best known and largest of these companies is Blackwater, which has been found guilty in preliminary findings by the FBI of unjustly killing more than 10 civilians in a shootout while escorting a State Department convoy. The Iraqi government has called for the firm's expulsion from the nation, and editorials in newspapers across the world have condemned the company as "mercenaries," "murderers" and "uncontrollable."
Recently, academics have piled on more general concerns about contractor use. One argument against the use of PMCs is that they undermine "Kant's calculus," a concept developed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant that states that leaders of democracies should be more prudent in deciding to engage or remain in war because those who bear the cost of war are their constituents, with the power to either retain or expel them from office.
The use of PMCs in conflict zones undermines Kant's calculus both by reducing the number of actual soldiers that need to be sent into the field and also by insulating the public from the true cost of that conflict, as many of the deaths and lost material come from the contractor companies and are not felt by the public in the same way that military losses are.
This is a serious and valid concern. If democracies are based upon the principle of control by the citizens over the government, and government use of PMCs makes it easier for the government to go to war with lower political costs, then the use of PMCs by governments may run counter to basic democratic principles.
Another asserts that PMCs create private armies that can empower any actor no matter how unsavory or immoral. If you have seen the movie "Hitman" (2007), you know one farfetched example of this concern.
PMCs are capable of fulfilling many highly specialized and delicate missions. It doesn't seem prudent to open the door for third-world dictatorships to acquire first-world military capabilities for a comparatively small sum of money.
These two arguments - that PMCs lower the political and physical cost of war, and that they can militarily empower weaker actors - make a formidable case against government's use of armed contractors in conflict zones.
However, I do feel that there is a role that PMCs could play that would not come with these costs - international peacekeeping.
As two articles in this week's issue of The Economist make clear, the two main factors preventing success of African Union and United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa are the lack of troop contributions by member states and the lack of specialized equipment such as helicopters.
The issues of Kant's calculus and the cost of specialization explain these deficiencies. First, any state will conduct a basic cost-benefit analysis when considering whether to devote its troops to battle. It logically follows that nations will be wary of committing troops to a peacekeeping mission that may not be successful and may lead to large numbers of casualties that could come at high political cost.
The second issue is the cost of specialization. Helicopter fleets are expensive to maintain, and many African nations contributing to regional peacekeeping missions simply cannot sustain that long-term cost. Thus, there are no helicopters.
PMCs could be a solution to fill these gaps. The use of PMCs can reduce both the economic cost of force deployment (i.e. you don't have to pay for maintaining those helicopters, or paying the retirement or injury pay for those soldiers) and the political costs, making deployments more likely.
Put another way, it is much easier to set aside money to contribute to peacekeeping than to deploy one's own military and send one's own sons into battle.
In addition, in regional peacekeeping efforts, PMCs can provide niche services that the regional actors simply cannot give the mission, such as de-mining, developed airlift capacity, advanced tactical training, et cetera.
So instead of requiring troop contributions of its member states, the UN could require a monetary contribution that would then go towards a competitive-bid PMC process to undertake the mission itself.
Further, the current PMC industry oversight body, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is a ready-made comprehensive oversight mechanism, which could help achieve transparency and accountability.
With a reduced political cost for peacekeeping contributions and with more options available for peacekeeping missions through partial contracting, perhaps we as an international community will finally step forward and be able to say with conviction "never again."
Bruce Ratain is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He is also a member of the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES).
